The Expendables

Starring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Steve Austin, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, and Mickey Rourke

This movie was the third “men-on-a-mission” movie of the summer, following the disasterous “The Losers”, and the over-the-top “The A-Team”. Though they all have a similar plot (a group of men are wronged, and they spend the movie trying to correct the situation), they are all very different movies. The Expendables was made for fans of 80’s action movies. A group of mercenaries are hired by the mysterious “Mr. Church”, played by ?????, to infiltrate a South American country and overthrow its dictator. However, the men soon realize that things are not as they seem, and when their plans go terribly wrong, their brotherly bond will be put to the test.

Let’s face it: the only reason people give two shits about this movie is because of its cast. With a who’s who of action stars, it is the ultimate guy’s movie, and the studio knows people will pay to see them all together. Every actor in the movie plays a different action movie cliche: Barney, who’s the fearless leader with nothing to lose (Stallone); his wise cracking right hand man and blades expert Lee (Statham); Yin Yang, the expert at hand-to-hand combat (Li); Hale Caesar, the long barrel weapons specialist and longtime friend of Barney’s (Crews); and Gunnar, the odd one who seems troubled and you know is gonna come back to bite them in the ass (Lundgren). Like I said, the cast alone is enough to sell tickets (I myself fell victim to that. Sorry). None of the trailers I saw gave even a hint of the plot, instead choosing to place its cast front and center (and with a plot this senseless, I can’t really blame them). While the cast is what will reel people in, the action scenes are what will keep them in their seats, or on the edge of their seats, I guess. To be completely honest, I have no idea what the hell was going on plotwise. I was too busy shitting myself during the ridiculously awesome action scenes to even care. The movie has plenty of knives soaring through the air, explosions, gunfire, car chases, and body parts flying to satisfy even the most desensitized of action fans.

Remember when I said it was made for fans of 80’s action movies? Well, remember all the lame one liners the heroes would say after doing something bad ass? Well, there’s plenty of them here, much to the movies detriment. Most of the jokes fall completely flat, and feel really forced. Someone needs to tell these actors that just because they can kick our asses doesn’t mean they can make lame jokes.

Another big problem I had with this movie, aside from the incomprehensible plot and dumbass one liners, was the camerawork during the action scenes. The camerawork during those sequences was worse than in Cloverfield. This was seriously the first time my head has started to hurt due to the shaky camera. It’s a real shame, because its a well known fact that both Stallone and Statham insist on doing their own stunts. Doesn’t do you much good if we can’t see shit though does it?

Overall, I really enjoyed this flick. It won’t win over anyone who wasn’t already a fan of the cast, so don’t bother watching it if you aren’t already interested in seeing it. Go check out Eat Pray Love. Pussy.

B-