Film: The Expendables
Director: Sylvester Stallone
Written By: David Callaham (Story), Sylvester Stallone & David Callaham (Screenplay)
Distributor: Lionsgate
Run Time: 1 hour 43 minutes
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, David Zayas
The Expendables has quite a fair bit riding on it. What with having the finest line-up of action stars to ever feature on the big screen starring in one movie, you would expect the be all end all of action movies. It's not. But if you lower your expectations and simply go in wanting a movie that is really fun and really stupid and really explodey, then you will leave the cinema more than satisfied. Make no mistake; The Expendables is a damn fun movie!
Stallone plays Barney Ross (and that's the most sensibly named character in the movie), the leader of The Expendables. They are a ragtag band of mercenaries who also feature Lee Christmas (Statham), Yin Yang (Li), Hale Ceasar (Crews), Toll Road (Couture), Gunnar Jensen (Lundgren) and their reluctant tattoo artist Tool (Rourke). They take the jobs that no one else will. And their latest exploit involves having to liberate the island of Vilena from the tyrannical rule of General Garza (Zayas), who is being funded by ex-CIA agent James Monroe (Roberts).
That is basically the extent of the plot. There is a subplot involving Ross falling for a woman called Sandra, but that's about your lot. It's a throwback to the classic action movies of the 80's and early 90's, before 9/11 came along and all action heroes were required to have a personality deeper than that of a spoon with its bottom half removed. A time when men were manly manly men! A time when if something isn't exploding at least once every five minutes, it's not a real action film! And a time when men have no use for women as they'll just get in the way of the bullets!
As such, performances are quite thin. Stallone, Statham and Li get the most screen time and most of the banter, so their characters are the most fleshed out. Lundgren gets a couple of good moments, Austin gets two fight scenes and Rourke gets the most simultaneously excellent and cringeworthy speech in the whole movie. David Zayas doesn't get a whole lot to do as Garza, Eric "freakin'" Roberts is Eric "freakin'" Roberts whilst Gisele Itie makes the best of being paper thin arm candy. This means that Crews and Couture get the short end of the stick, with the least screen time of the lot, their roles basically being like cameos.
Whilst I'm here picking faults, the film attempts drama at several several points throughout. To break it gently, it doesn't end well. It's not laughably bad, like so many other action movies, but it's just so bland and boring. This makes the second act a tad slow and reaches the nadir of poor drama with that Rourke speech at the end of it. Finally, the advertisers have decided to focus on the scene which Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone share the screen as the film's big selling point. Yes, it did give me a little fanboy squirt. But sadly, the scene is a let down. Not only do they not kill anyone (obviously), but the jokes and dialogue also fall flat. So the scene is a disappointment. Sorry, but that's the truth.
But hey! Drama is for pussies! We're here for the action, people! Wisely, the film saves the big (and, dear lord, do I mean BIG) action scene for the final 30 minutes. So we instead get dripfed awesome action scene after awesome action scene. The fist fights (between the likes of Stallone and Austin) are brilliant, the gun battles are exceptional, the car chases... are great but could be better. There are loads of excellent action scenes. People's top halves are liberated from their bottom halves liberally, decapatations are the norm, people can survive a halestorm of bullets, and there is a scene in which somebody flying punches a man WHO IS ON FIRE! It's ridiculously balls to the wall overkill and does not apologise for it.
To be honest, there's not much you haven't seen before and it's not particularly memorable. But it is really bloody fun! And once you strip away the massive star power, that's the best thing that the film has. I have not had this much pure fun at a movie since Iron Man 2. And I somehow doubt that I'm going to have more fun this year.
If you live in America, and for some strange reason Scott Pilgrim vs. The World doesn't interest you in the slightest, then go and see The Expendables. Like, right the hell NOW! If you live in the UK and you can't attend the advanced previews, then see The Expendables this coming Friday on opening day. I mean, your other options are Salt, Piranha 3D or? sigh? Marmaduke. Yeah, I thought so.
Critics are going to hate it. The public's going to love it. The Expendables is an adrenaline fuelled, turbo charged shot of pure fun. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
4 out of 5.
Director: Sylvester Stallone
Written By: David Callaham (Story), Sylvester Stallone & David Callaham (Screenplay)
Distributor: Lionsgate
Run Time: 1 hour 43 minutes
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, David Zayas
The Expendables has quite a fair bit riding on it. What with having the finest line-up of action stars to ever feature on the big screen starring in one movie, you would expect the be all end all of action movies. It's not. But if you lower your expectations and simply go in wanting a movie that is really fun and really stupid and really explodey, then you will leave the cinema more than satisfied. Make no mistake; The Expendables is a damn fun movie!
Stallone plays Barney Ross (and that's the most sensibly named character in the movie), the leader of The Expendables. They are a ragtag band of mercenaries who also feature Lee Christmas (Statham), Yin Yang (Li), Hale Ceasar (Crews), Toll Road (Couture), Gunnar Jensen (Lundgren) and their reluctant tattoo artist Tool (Rourke). They take the jobs that no one else will. And their latest exploit involves having to liberate the island of Vilena from the tyrannical rule of General Garza (Zayas), who is being funded by ex-CIA agent James Monroe (Roberts).
That is basically the extent of the plot. There is a subplot involving Ross falling for a woman called Sandra, but that's about your lot. It's a throwback to the classic action movies of the 80's and early 90's, before 9/11 came along and all action heroes were required to have a personality deeper than that of a spoon with its bottom half removed. A time when men were manly manly men! A time when if something isn't exploding at least once every five minutes, it's not a real action film! And a time when men have no use for women as they'll just get in the way of the bullets!
As such, performances are quite thin. Stallone, Statham and Li get the most screen time and most of the banter, so their characters are the most fleshed out. Lundgren gets a couple of good moments, Austin gets two fight scenes and Rourke gets the most simultaneously excellent and cringeworthy speech in the whole movie. David Zayas doesn't get a whole lot to do as Garza, Eric "freakin'" Roberts is Eric "freakin'" Roberts whilst Gisele Itie makes the best of being paper thin arm candy. This means that Crews and Couture get the short end of the stick, with the least screen time of the lot, their roles basically being like cameos.
Whilst I'm here picking faults, the film attempts drama at several several points throughout. To break it gently, it doesn't end well. It's not laughably bad, like so many other action movies, but it's just so bland and boring. This makes the second act a tad slow and reaches the nadir of poor drama with that Rourke speech at the end of it. Finally, the advertisers have decided to focus on the scene which Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone share the screen as the film's big selling point. Yes, it did give me a little fanboy squirt. But sadly, the scene is a let down. Not only do they not kill anyone (obviously), but the jokes and dialogue also fall flat. So the scene is a disappointment. Sorry, but that's the truth.
But hey! Drama is for pussies! We're here for the action, people! Wisely, the film saves the big (and, dear lord, do I mean BIG) action scene for the final 30 minutes. So we instead get dripfed awesome action scene after awesome action scene. The fist fights (between the likes of Stallone and Austin) are brilliant, the gun battles are exceptional, the car chases... are great but could be better. There are loads of excellent action scenes. People's top halves are liberated from their bottom halves liberally, decapatations are the norm, people can survive a halestorm of bullets, and there is a scene in which somebody flying punches a man WHO IS ON FIRE! It's ridiculously balls to the wall overkill and does not apologise for it.
To be honest, there's not much you haven't seen before and it's not particularly memorable. But it is really bloody fun! And once you strip away the massive star power, that's the best thing that the film has. I have not had this much pure fun at a movie since Iron Man 2. And I somehow doubt that I'm going to have more fun this year.
If you live in America, and for some strange reason Scott Pilgrim vs. The World doesn't interest you in the slightest, then go and see The Expendables. Like, right the hell NOW! If you live in the UK and you can't attend the advanced previews, then see The Expendables this coming Friday on opening day. I mean, your other options are Salt, Piranha 3D or? sigh? Marmaduke. Yeah, I thought so.
Critics are going to hate it. The public's going to love it. The Expendables is an adrenaline fuelled, turbo charged shot of pure fun. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
4 out of 5.
