I have not seen either film, and do not plan to until they're both out on Blu-Ray (Just my general policy for movies because the theaters where I live all SUCK).
I found The Expendables to be unoriginal in a way, in all likelihood because I happened to read about the A-Team movie and this in the same magazine at Borders one night. However, I still plan on seeing both of them because they just look like a fun action movie, end of story. I know, and just about everyone who went to see it opening night, KNEW what they were going to get. Sometimes I like to just sit back and watch a vicarious kill-fest or explosive nonsense to cool off from a long day or week. And if you want to have an easy-going, fun ride in the cinema, a film like The Expendables is a sure-thing to the general crowd. We all have our own personal motivations and desires when picking a film, but why does this particular choice damn everyone and anyone to being a complete twit? [sub]At least it's not as pathetic as something from the team behind Meet the Spartans.[/sub]
If you look at a lot of commercials and trailers for movies and base your opinion just on that, hell, you could generalize about every movie with an explosion in it as a reel full of awesome or a vapid mind-stupor. I hold final judgment for myself after seeing The Expendables (and Scott Pilgrim), but who's to say? If I'm in the mood, a good action flick is a good action flick and if I discounted a movie based off of advertising alone, I would never have bothered watching G.I. Joe, Transformers, and all of the other silly but still entertaining action movies out there.
I am quite glad that The Expendables has done well in the box office. I think we all need a good cinematic rinse of masculinity and explosions to wipe off the Robert Patterson smudge the Twilight crowd has left on our shoes. If anything, why does The Expendables deserve so much ire compared to a series that actually makes vampires lame? Talk a about a movie sin.
It sounds like a real shame that Scott Pilgrim Vs the World did not do amazing at the box office, and a part of it is often the film's exposure and advertising. When I first saw the Scott Pilgrim Trailer and heard about the movie, it really did not sink in until a few commercials that this was a movie with a pretty unique concept that is just funny to think about: Seven Evil Exs. The premise alone made me think more of an action-comedy of the likes of Kill Bill or something similar. However, what initially made me more neutral and could have killed off a lot of people's interest was seeing who was in it: Michael Cera. I don't hate him or his movies, but I think that he's been in so many of these samey roles of "Loser gets the girl" with the same damn personality that it's just outright tiresome. Most people are going to go by the ads they see, and while Movie Bob claims that Cera is not the same nice-guy loser role, most people could easily assume that, given every other movie Cera is in, Scott Pilgrim would be no different. Look at the title even, "Scott Pilgrim Versus The World!!!" He's Scott Pilgrim, and againso it's like him vs society and finding acceptance, and getting laid the girl. However, I am glad to have seen Bob's review on the film because that helped me personally because while I still like the fun idea behind it, I'm sick of Michael Cera at this point.