The Expendables......and dissapointment

the expendables was supposed to be the patron saint of all out action movies. its existence alone probably helped to fuel the gradual uprising of hardcore action flicks this year: Undisputed 3 and Universal Soldier Regeneration come to mind. and while the resergence has mostly been DTV, these films seem to have gotten more attention because of Stallone's in your face project. which makes it all the more sad that The Expendables has turned out to be one of the weaker efforts of the genre this year.



wow..... where to start.  even with lowered expectations (from bad early reviews) this film consistently let me down. it's a bit pointless to criticize a movie like this for lackluster story and characterization but wtf!!!?! Stallone assembled a dream team of action icons from all different eras... and completely wasted every single one of them: jet li's fight scenes (rare as they were) became a complete mess of bad editing, terry crews barely got any dialogue (let alone dialogue that took advantage of his comedy chops), randy couture got too much dialogue (as in, he should have been mute), and dolph lundgren (probably the most compelling actor in the film) was little more than an extended cameo.  this left stallone and statham to anchor the whole damn movie which would have been great had their characters been more likeable.  when you make a movie about action hero teams, you kinda wanna focus on the team.


Universal Soldier Regeneration proved that minimalist storytelling can be used to a film's advantage; the expendables proves that this is the exception and not the rule. the story here is blatantly awful. you'll find yourself sitting in the theatre, bored out of your mind, waiting for the next action sequence to start.  this is one of those movies where you'll skip around the dvd to watch the violence and not bother with anything else.  the story also never takes any time to get to know the characters so by the final act of the film (when everything starts blowing up) we couldn't care less about these guys, what they're fighting for, or if they're gonna survive; it's little more than a pretty pyrotechnics show put to music. the team seems to have little to no chemistry and their banter is cringe-worthy.  it's like stallone was channelling his inner 17-year old while writing this movie...


all this could be forgiven if the action was good.......well, it's not. when you're camera man has parkinsons disease and your editor is suffering from serious ADHD, things get messy really quick. what this means is the epic fight between dolph lundgren and jet li is almost unwatchable as are every other action sequence in the movie (except for the albatross sequence). they somehow managed to thoroughly waste martial arts star gary daniels and the less said about steve austin vs. randy couture the better. SCOTT PILGRIM HAD BETTER ACTION THAN THIS MOVIE!!!  so much for the REAL action stars...


if you're looking for a movie that'll make you wanna lift weights and scarf down some red meat then look elsewhere. Undisputed 3, Black Dynamite, Universal Soldier, hell even Ninja would be a better choice.