Rambo: First Blood Part II - Catharsis or Cartoon? Help Me Unpack This.

Okay, so I finally sat down and watched First Blood Part II after avoiding it for years. I'll confess, I actually liked the original First Blood. It was grimy, morally ambiguous, and Rambo felt like a deeply damaged, believable character, even with the over-the-top action. Part II… well, it's something else entirely, isn't it? It’s like they took the underlying pain and angst, threw it out the window, and replaced it with a machine gun that never runs out of bullets. My question is this: is there any merit to this film beyond pure, unadulterated escapism? I mean, the whole premise of going back to Vietnam to find POWs feels like pure revisionist history, and the over-the-top action sequences (the exploding arrows, the helicopter takedown with a grappling hook!) stretch the bounds of belief so far they practically snap. I can appreciate the cathartic nature of Rambo finally getting to win, especially after being so brutalized in the first film, but does that catharsis justify turning him into a one-man army capable of single-handedly taking on the entire Vietnamese and Soviet military? Is it just action spectacle at the expense of any genuine emotional weight that made the characters appealing in the first film? Also, anyone else find the romance with Co Bao completely underdeveloped and ultimately pointless? She's given, what, five minutes of screen time before being unceremoniously offed? Seemed like a cheap way to amp up Rambo's rage, and frankly, felt pretty insulting to the character. I'm conflicted, because on one level, I can enjoy the ridiculousness of it all, but on another, it feels like a betrayal of what made First Blood so compelling. Am I being too harsh? What am I missing? Can anyone defend this beyond just it being a fun 80s action flick?