When we were walking out of Rambo on Friday night, my friend Mike said, with his eyes still wide from the carnage we’d just witnessed, “There was a lot of bad in that movie … but it was really good!”

I think that just about says it, but I’ll say a little more.

Sylvester Stallone has once again proven that he knows exactly what his audience wants — and needs, for that matter — and that he knows exactly how to deliver it with precision and efficiency.

Rambo is rough and tumble. It’s sickeningly brutal and impossibly violent, but in a realistic way that brings attention to the terrible, terrible things that really are going on in the world.

But as lean and as mean as it is, Stallone ups his already capable game in the final act to bring it all home with a beautiful, moving and lovingly appropriate ending.

Well done, sir.

And thank you.