At 61 years old, Sylvester Stallone retained success in the reinvention of his most famous creations, Rocky Balboa and John Rambo. In “Rambo,” Stallone writes, directs and resurrects the title character in a film that his fans won’t be eager to admit is the final installment of this franchise.

What Stallone manages to accomplish most in this 90-minute effort is to provide an incessant onslaught of visual brutality and gore. With the exception of “Saving Private Ryan,” there aren’t too many action/war pictures that spend this much time focusing on dismemberment and various demonstrations of mass human carnage. Again, “Rambo” will appeal most to the moviegoers who are likely to suspect this, and are attending primarily because of that aspect.

Living in Thailand (as a snake wrangler), Rambo is approached by a group of doctors and missionaries who wish to enlist his help in escorting them via boat to Burma in order to deliver supplies and spiritual comfort to the victims of the war-torn region. Initially, the bitter and beleaguered Rambo turns them down, but when the only woman in the group Sarah (Julie Benz) confronts him with a moral plea, he reluctantly serves as their guide.

Of course, once Rambo has delivered them to their destination and swiftly taken his exit, the group is captured by the Burmese Army and when they don’t return on schedule, the leader of their church knocks on Rambo’s door and asks him to be the boatman for a gaggle of mercenaries hired to perform a rescue operation.

The bloodbath that follows is startling and equally as depressing as Rambo’s philosophy that the world is horrible and nothing anyone can do will ever make a difference. The missionaries might tend to disagree with him, since he single-handedly masterminds the events that bring the film to its anticipated conclusion.

Appearing strangely “puffed” up, but nonetheless pretty convincing as an aging mercenary, Stallone delivers a performance filled with several long stares of disgust as he grunts and snarls his way through the picture. Benz is the only one, among the relatively unknown cast, who seems to make any attempt to approach her role with some depth of emotion.

While Stallone may have attempted to make a veiled political statement about the inequities of the world or the casualties of war, the real focus of “Rambo” is to provide a visually barbaric and fast-paced action picture, and in that respect he succeeds.

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(2 1/2 stars)