A1 Movie Reviews

Watching The Expendables is similar to attending your high school reunion. There’s an initial rush of excitement at seeing so many familiar faces. Then, after an hour in the same room, you can’t wait to leave. What’s the old saying about not being able to go home again?

The Expendables, a group of American-based mercenaries, are comprised of Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone, who also co-wrote and directed), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), and Toll Road (MMA star Randy Couture). They’re aided on the business side of things by Tool (Mickey Rourke), a former member turned tattoo artist.

After dispatching a gang of pirates off the coast of Somalia in the film’s opening scene, our heroes tentatively accept an assignment to topple General Garza (David Zayas), a South American dictator. It’s a job that’s been passed over by everyone else, and a recon mission by Barney and Lee reveals why: the country is crawling with sinister-looking types, namely James Monroe (Eric Roberts) and his chief enforcer, Dan Paine (Steve Austin). When an American in a tailored suit is hanging out south of the equator, it always spells trouble.

The decision is made to abort, but group leader Ross can’t take his mind off of Sandra (Gisele Itie), a brave anti-Garza local who acted as a contact during their visit. She also happens to be the dictator’s daughter. If you grew up during the action film boom of the ’80s and early ’90s, you can probably guess what’s coming next.

The biggest thrill of The Expendables comes with seeing all the high-kicking, trigger-happy action royalty gathered together for one film. It’s like a 103-minute piece of nostalgia projected right onto the wall of you local theatre. Sadly, it won’t be mentioned in the same breath as Die Hard anytime soon.

While Stallone the director managed to generate on-screen excitement with previous films (Rocky Balboa and Rambo being the most recent), this time around he delivers nothing but a loud mess filled with shaky camerawork, rapid-fire editing, and not a single combat scene worthy of being remembered. It doesn’t help that Stallone–and I’m also pointing my finger at editors Ken Blackwell and Paul Harb–chose to frame the majority of the fights in medium shots and close-ups. While I can understand this being necessary to cover up for the advancing age of certain members of the cast, it completely robs stars like Jet Li of their eye-popping acrobatics. Instead of middleweights dancing around the ring and peppering each other with a variety of shots, we’re reduced to watching heavyweights slog it out in the clinch. That’s not the way to please a fight fan.

Films of the action genre aren’t known for their plausibility, but this one had even me scratching my head. For example, why is there a trench filled with combustible liquid running through the middle of the enemy camp (other than waiting for a heroic type to come along and ignite it)? If you owned an aircraft equipped with massive guns–and the dictator you’d been hired to kill had none–wouldn’t you just blow him away from the safety of the sky? And, finally, just how many explosive charges can a grown man carry on his body? According to this film, I’d say the number hovers around 50.

The Stallone/Dave Callaham script is just as much to blame, with lame attempts at humor and “male bonding” being the biggest bombs in a film filled with pyrotechnics. The closing scene where Lee Christmas recites spontaneous poetry during a knife-throwing contest is awkward and painful beyond belief. The cinematic equivalent of watching someone accidentally pee their pants, it immediately wipes away any tough guy coolness that Statham had accumulated during the film’s runtime. Not that there was much to begin with.

Much has been made of icons Stallone, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger all sharing the screen for the first time in their careers. Don’t get your hopes up. With a combined age of 182, the results aren’t pretty to look at; neither is the acting. Willis comes out the best, but he’s a fresh-faced youngster compared to his co-stars.

There’s the hint of an interesting relationship between General Garza and his daughter, but it’s simply not given enough screen time to matter. The same can be said of Christmas and ex-girlfriend Lacy (Charisma Carpenter, still looking good at 40), as their entire failed romance seems to exist to set up a showdown between Statham, Lacy’s abusive new beau, and a number of guys who don’t even rate first names.

The only moment of depth comes courtesy of Mickey Rourke. While painting a guitar meant for a woman who’s already abandoned him, Tool recalls his complete lack of effort at stopping a Bosnian woman from committing suicide. Nearly breaking down at several key moments, Rourke demonstrates that he’s still a respected actor underneath the metal teeth, body ink, and multi-colored hair.

A few more performances like Rourke‘s, plus some decent action sequences, and The Expendables might have been a movie worth remembering. Unfortunately, the weak material leaves the veteran cast throwing punches at empty air and trying to hang on until the end of the round. To paraphrase Wayne and Garth, another couple of icons from the early 1990s: “It’s not worthy! It’s not worthy!”