For an apt illustration of John Rambo’s epic journey, and possibly his place in American pop-culture, you need look no further than his right hand and the knife it’s preparing to jam into your guts. The blade he carried in 1982’s “First Blood” made for a decent representation of his character—beaten and used, but fairly utilitarian and still razor sharp. It had a saw on its spine, a matchbox stowed in its pommel and a compass on its butt. The knife, like Rambo, seemed to be an oversized government-issue instrument for surviving rough situations, and was shockingly out of place in the quiet, domesticated Jerkwater, U.S.A., in which the film took place. The simple threat of its presence was enough to scare the bejesus out of the yokel cops, and subsequently re-trigger poor John’s military conditioning as a cold-as-steel killing machine capable of eating things that would make a billy goat puke.

In “Rambo: First Blood, Part II,” Rambo is drafted out of prison on a top-secret mission to recover a crew of American POWs still imprisoned in Vietnam. For the task, he’s handed a bigger, slicker version of the same design, but this time it’s brand spanking new, matt black, with 10 percent more blade to assist him in the 580 percent more kills he would undertake in the name of Vietnam vets everywhere. The series had evidently taken a hard right turn into big budget action fantasy, and America ate it up.

By the time “Rambo: First Blood, Part III” exploded on the screen in 1988, all pretension to military realism had been discarded to make room for Hollywood’s blatant Cold War era excess. This time, assigned to assist Afghani rebels in their fight against the invading Red Menace, Rambo is equipped with a whole new tool, an Old Glory of United States blademanship—a simple, straightforward (and, of course, ginormous) Bowie knife. Custom designed by the rock star of steel-smithing, Gil Hibben, this piece was polished to a high stainless gleam, sported a solid hardwood grip and was an inch longer than Rambo’s previous weapon. A fine and intimidating piece of cutlery, to be sure, but one which was clearly commissioned as a vanity project, more suited to the purpose of mass market merchandising than to fighting Charlie Wilson’s War.

Which brings us to “Rambo.” Just “Rambo.” No “Part IV” or secondary title. Two decades have passed since we last saw the human action figure in action, and the title alone would apparently signify a back-to-basics approach. Written and directed by Sylvester Stallone himself (who seems hell bent on recapturing some of the soul he so effectively sold off in the ’80s and ’90s), Rambo’s newfound, hard won, well earned “fuck the world” attitude is effectively summed up early in the film with the line, “Fuck the world.” Very Zen, Sly, very Zen.

This newer, older Rambo has completely turned his anvil of a back on, well, everything. America, the military … everything. The inherent dreadfulness and guilt of his past have finally corroded through the iron of his military conditioning, and he’s retreated to hide out like an animal in the wilds of the Burmese jungle, catching snakes for a living and shooting fish out of the river with his trademark compound bow. His brooding solitude is interrupted by a group of missionaries who contract him to guide them up the river into Burma and the raging heart of the world’s longest running civil war. When their plan goes inevitably to hell, our reluctant hero is compelled to dive into the fray to save their pale little asses, and the journey starts, of course, with the forging of a new knife.

Hand pounded out of a rusty leaf spring from an old truck, with a full tang pommel crudely wrapped in paracord and grip tape, this beast weighs over two pounds, and its blade alone is longer than our hero’s forearm. His new best friend is more an orc sword than a modern knife, and once again serves as a right bellwether for Rambo’s state of mind. This is not the tool of a civilized man. In fact, it’s suspiciously evocative of Jason Voorhee’s infamous machete from the bloody “Friday the 13th” series. But, as it happens, compared to John Rambo, Jason’s just a whiney little schoolboy. It took Jason 11 horror flicks to notch up 108 kills—our boy John comes in at 83 in this movie alone. No kidding.

This latest addition has to be one of the most absurdly violent movies of all time. Since there may not be words in the English language to properly convey the jaw dropping, seat squirming, wince inducing level of pure unadulterated uber-brutality at work here, some new ones may need to be invented. “Gristurbing,” maybe. How about “Slaughterbatory?” Or “Wrecksplosive.” “Beheadeous.” “Bloodiculous.” “Gorrible.” “Disembowible” (a description of, shall we say, the “Outestinal Fortitude” which makes a number of appearances).

Stallone delivers a full-on, high caliber, no-holds-barred Pekinpawloosa—the villainous can find no shelter from Rambo’s lead rain of vengeance. Heads explode, bodies burn, limbs and guts and brains are blasted out in all directions. The camera itself is repeatedly splattered with the viscera of his screaming, steaming, hopelessly outmatched victims.

In one particularly nauseating instance, Rambo very slowly, deliberately tears a guard’s throat out with his bare hands. That this film got off with a simple R rating is an unfathomable example of how the MPAA has grown desensitized to bloody murderous death as a plot device.

Rambo’s new blade, like the story itself, is blunt, heavy, primitive and genuinely nightmarish in every possible way. It would appear, at least in the world according to Sly, that the cutting edge of modern heroism cleaves closer to horror than ever before.