YMMV / Rambo IV

• Awesome Music: The end title theme. It's used as the theme music for the main menu on the DVD and Blu-ray releases for a reason.
• Catharsis Factor: It's very satisfying to see the Burmese Army being brutally slaughtered by Rambo and the Karen rebels in the final battle.
• Complete Monster: Major Pa Tee Tint is a deplorable soldier in charge of a military camp within Burma. Introduced forcing innocent villagers across mine-infested waters out of sick amusement, Tint would then have them shot even if they made it through. A horrific sadist, Tint would have his men level villages, slaughtering all within, indiscriminate of age and gender. At his own camp, Tint allows his soldiers to violate female prisoners, keeping other prisoners in inhumane conditions and feeding them to pigs for the slightest offences. Not a stranger to sexual crimes, Tint would sexually abuse any children that were brought into his camp and would also have them moulded into serving in his army.
• Contested Sequel: While the movie is generally considered to be an improvement over Rambo III, some find it as divisive as the other Rambo sequels, as it not only goes the brainless action route like the second and aforementioned third movie but is Bloodier and Gorier than its predecessors.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Friendly Sniper Schoolboy, a genuinely Nice Guy who exemplifies Good Is Not Soft and gets a Big Damn Heroes moment where he saves Rambo and Sarah with his Improbable Aiming Skills.
• Evil Is Cool: Major Tint, the Knight of Cerebus of the franchise, mainly for being one of the most memorable and intimidating villains.
• Fridge Brilliance: During the climax you see Sarah screaming and covering her ears whenever Schoolboy fires his rifle. It seems on the surface that the violence is getting to her, but it turns out due to the damage his gun does, she could be screaming over the fact that the gun firing is literally hurting her ears. Considering it's a .50 caliber sniper rifle...
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The franchise as a whole is already a household name in Southeast Asia but Rambo has easily become the most popular in the region due to local peoples identifying with the conditions shown in the film. In particular in Burma where, as mentioned below, several lines of the film became a rallying cry for freedom fighters and oppressed groups in the country.
• Heartwarming Moments: The end of the movie has Rambo at long last going home, 30+ years after the end of the war that took him away from it, and looking behind him at the long road he's finally finished walking. Part of Rambo: Last Blood's polarized reception from fans was because it undid what seemed to be such a long overdue and well-earned happy ending for Rambo.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: A truly bizarre example — the first-ever review of the fourth Rambo movie went: "A glorious movie. The villains are obvious, the hero never speaks, and everybody dies." Who gave this review? Lieutenant Worf, in a Star Trek: The Next Generation Expanded Universe novel, which was written about fifteen years before the movie was filmed. It's surprisingly accurate.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Rambo's motto — "Live For Nothing, or Die For Something" — has become the rallying battle cry for Karen Warriors in real life. Stallone has called this one of the things in his life that he's most proud of.
  • Also, Rambo's use of the truck-mounted machine gun. The weapon was photoshopped out to make it appear that Rambo is giving double thumbs-up, with the meme caption header and footer going "COOL STORY BRO" "CHANGED MY LIFE".
• Moral Event Horizon: Good luck guessing which of Tint's many evil deeds helps him cross it.
• Narm:
  • Any time Rambo yells. (If you were ever wondering why Stallone has that trademark yell, he had a severed nerve in his face because of misuse of forceps while he was being born, causing paralysis in some parts of his face.)
    "They would have RAPED her 50 times, and cut all your FUCKIN' HEADS OFF! WHO ARE YOU?! WHOUHANNYOYOU!?"^* Apparently, even Stallone thought it was narmful; said line was modified in the extended edition.
  • Not to mention the unrealistic sound design and the same screams from the enemies that Rambo kills.
  • The scene where the hostages are beaten up. Not to mention the "gutless fuck" name-calling from Lewis that occurs twice, and is said in the same manner.
    "Come and have a go at me, you lady-boy cunt!"
• Realism-Induced Horror: The sickening brutality and atrocities of the Tatmadaw become even worse when you find out that Burma really is like that in real life.
• Signature Scene: The incredibly bloody and gory Final Battle scene. It's famous enough that it started trending again following the widespread outcry against the Tatmadaw's renewed brutality in 2021, this time against civilian protesters.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Many consider this to be one to Rambo III, citing its intense action and dark themes to be a factor for its much warmer reception towards fans.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Even though rescuing them is part of the plot, besides Michael and Sarah, the missionaries are treated as Red Shirts. This is despite how they get hints of untapped characterization (trying to save some kids during the massacre, providing dental work to people, etc.) right before being killed or kidnapped.
• Too Cool to Live: Of all the mercenaries, only En-Joo does not survive the climax.

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