The Expendables review

I'm going to do as Sly and the boys should've and cut to the chase; "The Expendables" is a big, bullet riddled let down. It's success is in making sure that it could pack almost every big name action star from the past thirty or so years into one movie and attempt to give them something interesting to do. Beyond that it's a rather mid level action film with a story that makes absolutely zero sense (not in the acceptable, fun way) and some of the worst, most disjointed one liners ANY of these guys have ever had in their movies.

I'd like to also discuss the rumor I had heard recently about the film being originally made for PG-13 and that Stallone and co. were going to edit it into an R. This seems extremely likely after viewing the finished product. Anyone who saw "Rambo" knows that he can pull off with in camera action. Bodies torn apart, necks ripped out and so on... not so much the case here. I mean sure there's stabbing and bodies blown apart... but with horrid CGI. I feel like I could make some concessions if the action worked, but once we get to the big finale at the compound, with all the soldiers and explosions and death it's kind of... well... it's very 'meh'. Honestly when I walked out after the movie I said that the film should've began with the ending sequence. The CGI building blowing up looks cheap, the river of fire looks good only when it was igniting and almost all the kills are cheap and fast CGI. I mean what the hell happened here? What happened to the big throwback movie to these guy's heyday?

Alright, allow me to try and dive into this 'plot'. Basically Stallone, Statham, Li, Lundgren, Crews and Couture are a team of mercenaries that get commissioned for a job by Bruce Willis. Said job involves a small island in the gulf, a pussy general and Eric Roberts as the lamest ass drug dealer in the history of these sort of movies. Other that your guess is as good as mine as to what they were supposed to be doing there. This then leads to a boring car chase, a couple of pretty good fights scenes (one with Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren is pretty well done) and a few other action set pieces that are very hit and miss. What sucks is that most of the pieces that work, were the ones that got pushed up in advertising so the thrill of the surprise was gone. What's pretty much left was the CGI kills and a couple of over the top scenes like Terry Crews throwing a tank shell in the air and Stallone shooting it. Could've been cooler, but it was alright. Still none of those things save "The Expendables" from just being downright lame and somewhat boring.

In addition to the crappy CG kills there is another tell-tell sign that indeed this was originally made for PG-13. Despite everything going on in this movie, there was but one 'fuck' uttered the entire time. In fact at one point Eric Roberts fully sounds out the word 'freaking' when threatening to kill one of the characters. C'mon... really? Roberts' role in 'The Dark Knight' really made me start thinking that he was on a sweet comeback trail and going to be doing some (hopefully) Dafoe level character acting again. Nope. For a while I was thinking maybe if they would've gotten someone else for the part, like James Woods, Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Williem Dafoe or even Antonio Banderas that they could've made something more as the villain. But as it all continued it became clear that perhaps they lacked interest because the character and story was so bland. Consider "Rambo", the villain was absolutely nasty, ruthless and loathsome and the story was 'ripped from the headlines'. All this made the big final fight all the sweeter when Stallone guts him and his men. That's what we should've had here, but with more fun.

As for our heroes I can say I enjoyed Statham as Lee Christmas, a man just trying to get the girl. Jet Li, who had a running joke about him being smaller than everybody thus meaning he ought to get more money cause he can get hurt easier and he has to work harder. And Terry Crews as (get ready for it) Hail Caesar, who sports an auto-shotgun with explosive rounds. He also owns one of the better kill sequences in the movie. Beyond that Stallone seems bored and is thus boring, Lundgren is reduced to a few scenes where he looks like hammered shit and spouts off some terrible one liners that makes stuff said in "Commando" sound like Shakespeare; and UFC fighter Randy Couture who is pretty much given one line and one short fight scene with Steve Austin. Austin by the way appears to be built like a stone wall and has about three audible line the whole movie.

None of this makes me happy to say either. I went in hoping and believing that Stallone had crafted a big, fun action movie that would remind the world why he mattered. Packing in all these stars would easily get his exposure back up as well and let people have fun seeing their favorites go at it. Sly got a great cast, but should have opted not to write or direct the film beyond coming up with the basic story. His past two directed and starring works ('Rocky Balboa' and 'Rambo') showed that he did still have a knack for making action movies and making them well. "The Expendables" is like a big step backwards. It's not impressive and is only sometimes fun and it's way more mindless then it ought to be. I mean I'm not looking for some Nolan or Kurbrick shit here, after all I openly like Michael Bay movies. This makes Bay at his worst appear to be a decent storyteller. I'm talking "Transformers 2" lack of storytelling ability here. Such a shame.