Sequel a mixed bag that still provides some chuckles

Having the island always on constant alert also allows him to continue to be the centre of attention. So it’s with some concern and suspicion that he greets multiple missives from Leonard seeking a truce.

However, while known as something of a ham, the hog leader isn’t being a swine this time. Pig Island has come under attack from a third atoll, located between the Birdlantic and Pigsific Oceans. It looks like a frozen, sea-infested iceberg, but someone there is hurling giant snowballs at them and the frequency is increasing.

As the threat level to both populations rises, Red reluctantly decides to join forces with Leonard and lead a crack team to the source in the hope of shutting it down. However, little do they know that one of their number is the key to the conflict.

After following the tropes of the original video game slavishly for its first outing, there’s a certain freedom that benefits the storytelling in this sequel. Directors Thurop Van Orman (an Adventure Time writer) and John Rice (King of the Hill) and a trio of writers have crafted what is essentially a Bond movie, as our group of heroes try to stop a maniacal criminal mastermind. Naturally, as this is a kids’ movie, there are also ‘‘learnings’’ to be had and scatological humour to enjoy (a urinal heist involving a key card is admittedly a comedic highlight).

This film’s Sony backing also means thematic music assails you at every turn. The bizarrely eclectic soundtrack includes everything from Paula Cole and Sarah McLachlan to Jimmy Buffett, Right Said Fred and Europe.

The impressive vocal cast includes Josh Gad (Frozen), Leslie Jones (Ghostbusters), Rachel Bloom (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend), Tiffany Haddish (Girls’ Trip), Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) and Awkwafina (Ocean’s 8).

With its bickering family of disparate cross-species characters and regular segues to a trio of chicks attempting to rescue one of their number’s unhatched siblings, it’s hard not to see the similarities between this and the Ice Age series.

But if you’re after undemanding fare for primary schoolers in the next few weeks that you might also get a chuckle or two from, then Birds is the word. Rambo: Last Blood (R18, 99 mins) Directed by Adrian Grunberg Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★

Here’s a fun fact that I’ve just worked out: Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo only exists under Republican presidents.

The last Rambo film, the imaginatively titled and-not-toosucky-if-you-were-in-the-mood Rambo came out in 2008, when Bush Jr was still in the White House. The first three instalments were released in 1982, 85 and 88, all on Reagan’s watch.

During the Clinton and Obama eras, there was not a peep out of Mrs Stallone’s boy’s second-most famous creation.

Does it mean anything? Probably not. But, coincidence or not, Rambo: Last Blood is very much a film with the political zeitgeist on its mind.

Rambo is living out his retirement on his late daddy’s farm, training horses, apparently keeping several cosmetic surgeons in clover and occasionally volunteering for search and rescue teams.

This latter trait provides for a promising opening stanza for Last Blood, as Sly saves a young woman from a flash flood on some forested Arizona peak.

It’s a curious scene, in tone and a landscape seemingly from an entirely different film.

But it does allow one character to describe Rambo as, ‘‘’Nam collateral, but a hell of a tracker’’, which seemed to be pointing towards a film with maybe a little insight and humility to offer.

And Last Blood could and should have been Rambo’s Logan, his Unforgiven. But no.

Whatever promise the film held is gone immediately, in favour of a save-the-kidnapped-girl trope of such cliche I almost admired the sheer laziness and chutzpah it must have taken to write it.

Soon enough, after Stallone has taken a fearful beating at his first attempt to rescue his honorary niece, he succeeds in getting her back across the border from Mexico – where she had been kidnapped by a gang of Mexican people smugglers the likes of which we haven’t seen since Chuck Norris hung up his knuckledusters – only for tragedy to intervene.

At which point, the film heads into a final act that suggests Rambo: Home Alone might have been a better title.

Sly has kitted out the farm with a series of tunnels – as you do – into which he lures the surviving villains to meet their ends via various sharp objects.

Director Adrian Grunberg (who made the pretty good Mel Gibson come-back vehicle Get The Gringo) has clearly been hoarding his budget for these scenes.

But by the end, after Sly has literally torn the heart out of the opposition, I wasn’t the only one of the dozen or so people in the theatre who burst out laughing.

And that is definitely not the reaction that Sly, Grunberg or any of the film’s investors will have been aiming for.

With a bit more effort and a lot less xenophobia, Last Blood might have closed out the nearly fourdecade franchise in style.

As it is, this film is a lazy mess with no real reason to exist.