Escape to the Movies: The Expendables

[Thedarkestofsouls]

The one thing that bothered me was when MovieBob went on about "the days when men were men, and action movies meant lumbering sacks of meat slamming into one another. You know, before all that girly choreography, and girly, skinny kung-fu guys, and girly... uh, girls, showed up and ruined it for everybody."

Listen, Bob, if I wanted to see Jackie Chan and Jet Li battle it out on top of rooftops with highly corerographed fight scene and dramatic camera cuts, I would go see that movie. If I wanted to see Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Mickey Rourke, and Stone Cold Steve Austin punching each other in the face and firing massive military weapons at hundreds of poor, unfortunate Military forces, I'll go watch the Expendables.

I wouldn't go see Salt (I assume) for romantic drama and a bit of sexual tension-based comedy? Why would I go to The Expendables for anything more then destructive, brainless boyhood violence. With the danger of sounding petty myself, I feel you are being petty and unreasonable because you wanted Scott Pilgrim to do better then it did, and since it didn't, you decided to take your anger out on a movie by attacking things it was never designed to have in the first place.

I hope your over your anger at Scott Pilgrim's not success (which, while disappointing, is understandable. It seemed more likely to become a cult classic, instead of a main stream powerhouse), has subsided by your next Post. See ya next time.

 

[marchiato]

it seems bob is really angry that another movie failed

 

[ragingasian36]

When he was saying "better" movies he wasn't just using the DOA live action. It was moreso that these actors previous works won them accolades such as Oscars and Oscar Nominations or were at least in movies that were both entertaining and had artistic value (Idiocray). Moviebob loves brainless action as he loved the A-Team and the Transporter series but he also loves how action movies have evolved to involve plots and the new trend in Hollywood to just teach actors how to fight than fighters how to act. So when he goes off to say the viewers are the worst kind, he's moreso pointing the finger at the super macho people who want MANLY MEN movies who think good plot line and real choreography should just GTFO.

I recognize that a lot of the things the list were better movies. I LOVED Idiocracy and it was definitely smarter. A-team is a similar-ish concept with group of mercs doing action movie stuff and they did it MUCH better. Transporter... i dunno. DOA is really just the one that proves my point the best. but i think that point still stands that he essentially said DOA had more reason to exist for having boobs. now, boobs are always a plus but something isn't more artistic for having them and if something can be justified simply because it has them, the quantity of stupid explosions in expendables should justify it. yes, you shouldn't just try make fighters act and i have no idea where the idea of couture and austin being in the movie came from but it should have been left there and the area should have been napalmed. moviebob also says that the kind of movies film geeks of sophistication look back on with nostalgia are the 1980s action movies that the worst kind of people want back. And i think a good plot line is always a plus but choreography can have drawbacks. remember the lightsaber fights in the most recent star wars movies? remember how pretty they were to look at but how meaningless they were compared to the last fight in the last star wars movie.

Look, like i said. expendables was NOT a GOOD movie. it was fun but it was basically a porno with the sex replaced by violence. but sometimes you just want to see a porno. we are probably going to get a lot more stupid copy movies because expendables did so well but the ***** fit was unnecessary. we would have gotten tons of shitty copy cat movies if scott pilgrim vs the world had done well. basically, there are ways he could have taken this movie apart that would have been great. he did not choose one. hell, there are ways he could have attacked the fans that would have been really funny. yahtzee uses those all the time. he didn't choose this path either.

 

[ragingasian36]

snip

holy shit fuck man. my hat is off to you.

 

[Cabisco]

You know, I kinda liked it. Sure it had problems and i'd never consider it 'great' but going to the cinema with a bunch of guys just to enjoy some violence while we turn off our higher brain functions worked.

Interesting really as normally I would agree with you, and going in I was thinking similiar things.

 

[G-Force]

You think Rich Boy, erghm, I mean Scott Pilgrim was a good movie? Wow, absolutely no reason to listen to your opinion ever again. I wondered if you were an industry whore from the beginning while you were giving head to pixar over toy story... Yeah what an engaging pill of crap.

Scott pilgrim is the story of a lucky talentless dweeb who has family in the movie business and gets put into to big budget films because he's just LUCKY. He sucks. Anthony hopkins has talent. Ridley Scott has talent. Sigourney weaver has talent. Scott Pilgrim boy? Give me a break you pompous moron.

I'm a nerd but I don't like talentless idiots like that little Sh$% and its especially irritating to listen to a self righteous nerd talk down to the viewer of a movie review... Scott Pilgrim would be a much better movie if it had a worthy lead role. Instead its the pathetic idiot from superbad. Yeah, we all REALLY LOVE that little dweeb don't we...

I'm sure I'm not the only one would like to kick his stomach in so his nuts drop

So you're saying Michael Cera has not talent and is a dweeb? Well news flash, the character of Scott Pilgrim is a dweeb himself so already Cera is doing a good job filling the character out. Also before you go an say that he's talentless let me just say that in Scott Pilgrim Michael Cera had to play at least three different songs on bass guitar, and then handle a wide range of fight choreography ranging from one-on-one fights, multiman brawls, wire-fu and even sword combat. Most of us can't even done one of these things and Michael Cera was able to handle all of these challenges with expertise.

Maybe you should actually go and see the movie before you go and try to bash the lead for not doing anything.

 

[JonnoStrife]

Looks like Bob has fire in his belly. Good job Bob, emotion is good.

 

[Akalistos]

Snip

The sad thing is, they actually DID take a movie meant to be a PG-13 and made it R. The studio made to cuts to the Movie, one being PG-13 and the other being the one on screen now and let a test audiance decide what would make more money. They wanted R, so the effect team added the same amount a gore a noise bleed has so it barely got an R rating.

In retrospect: Can you name a great action movie from the 80 that if full of blood? I love the Rambo series but even if you count the cuts on the heroes, you never see blood. Not like modern day action flick at least. There's even a joke Hot Shots! Part Deux where no enemies bleed. Even the one that got hit with a rocket become a "Tom and Jerry' Smear on the wall".

 

[Dorian Cornelius Jasper]

So, apparently the gist of the comment thread is "You're not allowed to dislike something or get angry at the idea of it, especially if you're a critic."

Somewhere, out there, Yahtzee is sneezing.

 

[omegawyrm]

I don't see how "This movie is supposed to be stupid, so why don't you enjoy it being stupid?" is a good defense for the film being bad.

Also, if anyone hating on Moviebob for criticizing people who went to see this also likes Yahtzee, they are huge hypocrites.

 

[Steady Drain]

keep on pwning bob

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I feel that if this film were to be judged as a piece of art, it would fail pretty hard. That said, as a movie going experience for an adult, the film pulled few punches in its depictions of men getting split in half by depleted awesomeness rounds from a giant cock-canon (known IRL as the AA-12).


In short, I enjoyed the hell out of it because though this movie is a very much brain in off mode action film, it makes no aspirations beyond that and is more than a little self aware about the subject and how it can aspire no higher.


It revels in its own limitation of expectation and makes the most of that.

(I also wish I had the power to spawn Jason Statham's character every time I see someone abuse their spouse: now thats a handy superpower)

As Art: 4/10

As an enjoyable experience: 9/10

 

[Waif]

I've missed the whole Expendables movie thing. I wasn't exactly interested in it, and I am surprised to find out that the reviews of this movie are indeed quite mixed. With a leaning towards the negative. I know of at least three well-known reviewers who has said, pretty much the same thing that was said here. Using the new Scott Pilgrim movie as a comparative example. Though I know of at least one of those reviewers who got slammed for doing so. Seems to me that this film lacked something. Can't say whether or not it was a matter of focusing of certain parts. Though it is truly sad to see a bad movie being popular. Perhaps there is a way for redemption. Maybe the new movies that will indeed inevitably arise because of this movies success, will learn from this movie's mistake. We can always hope ^~^!

 

[Loonerinoes]

I don't see how "This movie is supposed to be stupid, so why don't you enjoy it being stupid?" is a good defense for the film being bad.

Also, if anyone hating on Moviebob for criticizing people who went to see this also likes Yahtzee, they are huge hypocrites.

There's a very important difference between the two I feel. Yahtzee for the most part manages to keep his rage in check and let it burst out in selected segments. Let's take his segment from mailbag showdown as an example:

"I don't believe in scores because I don't feel that a complicated opinion can be expressed numerically. You want a score? How about FOUR as in FOUCK YOU! Do you really need an official 'yay' or 'nay' from someone to tell you what's good in this world? Why don't you just roll over so that they can stamp it on the other side of your face!"

And take what MovieBob did with this one:

"The Expendables f***ing sucks. It's a worthless, artless, piece of s*** that makes the whole movie-going world poorer by its existence. If you've managed to miss it so far, keep right on doing that. You'll be all the better for it. How much more succinct can I get? F*** this movie, and the next twenty, muscle-head, douche bag, pandering piece of crap movies that are all gonna get green-lit because this made money? F*** them too! See you next time!"

The first one actually gives you something to think about - do you really need review scores to make it sound official? Is it really a method that Yahtzee, or in fact anyone else for that matter, should consider as a valid one or is it just some pointless waving around of legitimacy and it's not that useful at all? And what questions can I derive from MovieBob in this review? None...because he doesn't explore anything about why specifically this movie fails where old action movies succeeded in becoming timeless.

TLDR? If you're going to verbally assassinate your target or its fans, at least do it with some damn style and by focusing your rage into something that the audience might be able to contemplate about rather than just letting it fly around like this is still 6th grade heckling during recess. Why not take this review opportunity to tell us what worked in those cheesy Reagan era action movies, why movie geeks love watching those utterly cheesy scenes these days and how the Expendables fails in pulling that off in depth? That would've been *tonnes* more interesting than listening to "No no no! This fails! And it sucks and u suck if you think it's good."

 

[matt87_50]

maybe at some point, without telling us, these modern day ... movie spoof movies actually became spoof of spoof movies... and it was just too subtle for our feeble minds to notice, so we thought that they were just nauseating piles of shit.

 

[Manji187]

wow. so much butthurt over something so insignificant. i didn't realize how sensitive egos were. jesus christ.

Word. Insignificant...like the whole "games are/ aren't art" debate.

But apparently the "sheep" remark hit a nerve...and now there's a battle raging on for a moral high ground that simply isn't there.

 

[Calico93]

I at least expected this film to be fun to watch, but apparently its not even that xD

 

[Battenbergcake]

Are you a bad enough dude to save the president?

 

[adamtm]

I love to see how upset people get over The Expendables, a movie I enjoyed immensely (except for the camera work).

Why?

Because it makes me happy to see other people as upset as I was after Star Trek 2009.

Yes, people ruined your childhood and I liked it. Finally you all know how I felt.

Priceless

 

[JacobPlackett]

I could barely finish watching this review. Took a lot of strength.

I can't believe Bob this week. We are obedient sheep because we go see one of the biggest collaboration films this decade instead of watching a film that was barely advertised in many places? We are the worst kind of people on earth because we like the premise that a movie will be an homage to 80s action films?

He dropped the ball on this review. Insulting a film is one thing, insulting someone for liking it is another, but insulting people for thinking the premise sounds like a fun idea?. That's a new low. I won't even go into how much I disagree with you on the quality of the film.

For someone who tries to hinder people from being elitist nerds, you are one of the biggest elitist nerds I've seen in quite a while.

Also this,

Also Movie Bob keeps holding up Equilibrium when talking about better action movies, that movie was utter twaddle pure over stylised matrix clone waffle. Even metacritic has it lower than the Expendables

I'm going to call it:

MovieBob is a hypocrite.

He complains that the people on earth are sheep following the word of the media and that we need to make our own decisions. BULLSHIT. That's not what he wants. He wants to be the one the sheep follow! That's why he's frustrated right now. A majority of people don't do what he thinks they should do, so he claims that they are sheep. What, so if we follow your word and just watch Scott Pilgrim instead of the Expendables we're not sheep?

Does he realize that Scott Pilgrim isn't AT ALL as appealing as The Expendables? Does he realize that Scott Pilgrim is aimed for a much smaller audience than the Expendables? If he doesn't, he's a moron. If he does, then he is frustrated because people won't go to see a film not meant for them, which, again, shows how he wants everyone to be his sheep, following his words. Anyone who doesn't? In Bob's eyes, they are the sheep of the media, explosion hungry idiots who don't deserve to watch films.

He's even worse than fucking Yahtzee! Yahtzee at least doesn't pretend to be anything else than someone who insults people that don't agree with him. Bob tries to make himself look like a god amongst nerds we all should follow, and when we don't, he starts to whine.

I love you. I love you so much.

Scott Pilgrim IS hipster crap.Just the trailer tells me that, with all it's bullcrap effects which make it look like an acid trip rather than a video game world. Tron did a video game world so much better than this. He is butthurt because the Expendables did better, but that's because Expendables wasn't designed to be a hipster shit film which only a select few(the ones who get mocked, I should say, for getting all the references) can watch. It was designed to be a fun throwback film which multiple people can enjoy. Acton buffs, people who love the classic action films, and yes, college jocks. Also, the movie was meant to be in two different formats; a violent one, and a PG13 one. Bob needs to realise that because a movie like the Expendables isn't the sole reason why this film fails. It's because films like this are for obsessed hipsters who think the franchise is the greatest thing of all time. Like the video game made, a boring beat-em-up which has awful pixel graphics and uninspired gameplay.

I'm gonna get suspended for this, as for all fan forums, the mods can't take opinions.