With “The Expendables 4,” or “Expend4bles” as the studio cleverly calls it, about to be released, I wanted to reflect on its predecessor which came out nearly a decade ago. As disappointed as I was with “The Expendables 3” to where my opinion would be no different if it were rated R instead of PG-13, I still adore its teaser trailer which I still find myself watching quite often. It is short and sweet as we are introduced to the cast of the sequel to the tune of Malcolm Arnold’s theme to “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” There is something thrilling about seeing all these actors and movie stars coming together on the silver screen to this famous piece of film music, the same one the actors of “The Breakfast Club” whistled at one point while losing an entire Saturday for whatever it was they did wrong.
Like the teaser trailer for “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” this is a great one for a movie I really cannot stand. While I am happy to revisit “The Expendables” and “The Expendables 2,” “The Expendables 3” is one I would prefer to believe never existed in the first place. But yes, we always have this delightful teaser trailer to it.
I was really looking forward to the third “Expendables” movie ever since I saw the teaser trailer which was scored to the theme for “Bridge on the River Kwai.” None of the films in this franchise will ever be mistaken for high art, but they bring about a much-needed nostalgia workout which many of us have for the action movies from the 1980’s. Watching “The Expendables 3,” however, reminded me of how the third movie in a franchise is where everything falls apart due to a reliance on formula and clichés which don’t work the way they used to. While I have a hard time saying how the actors look tired here (and that’s because they don’t), the story gets boring quickly, the dialogue is cruddy and not even the action sequences could lift me out of my utter frustration with something that is not nostalgic enough nor exhilarating or adrenaline-pumping in the slightest.
“The Expendables 3” starts off with the team rescuing one of its long-lost members, Doctor Death (Wesley Snipes), from being sent to a military prison. The scene where he’s being rescued is cool, but the thrill we get from watching it feels a bit muted, and this becomes a sign that everything else following the movie’s opening will be equally exhilarating, which is to say not at all. Either that, or “The Raid 2” truly spoiled me to where no other action film being released these days can come even remotely close to that sequel’s brilliance.
After rescuing Doctor Death, the team heads off to Somalia to intercept a shipment of bombs being sent to a warlord, of course. In the process, they come face to face with former member and Expendables co-founder Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson) who had betrayed the team by profiting off of illegal weapons dealings. When he shoots Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) to where he is left in a precarious medical state, Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) gets all shaken up and decides to disband the veteran members of the Expendables as he feels they have all run their course, and they should all get out while they still have a pulse.
When Barney does this, I knew this sequel was going to be in serious trouble. Barney ends up recruiting a whole bunch of younger Expendables with the help of retired mercenary Bonaparte (Kelsey Grammer), but I knew from there that those “old guys” will eventually return to help save the day. Stallone, who has always been the major creative force behind the “Expendables” movies, always writes screenplays where the main character suffers a personal tragedy and seeks redemption in order to right what he did wrong, and he’s basically been writing the same damn screenplay since the original “Rocky.” Frankly, I think it’s time Stallone opens his eyes to see how this storyline is now as old as the Declaration of Independence.
Look, I don’t care how old Jason Statham, Wesley Snipes, Randy Couture and Dolph Lundgren are because they can all still kick ass after all these years, but putting them all on the back burner for this entry proves to be very foolish. You know that Barney will eventually realize he needs their help, and the movie takes way too long for him to reach this conclusion. Instead, it wastes a lot of time introducing us to a new generation of Expendables, and most of them are inescapably tame to where it’s easy to understand why this sequel got a PG-13 rating instead of an R.
Kellan Lutz ends up showing the same range as an actor that he showed earlier in the horrifically bad “The Legend of Hercules,” and that is not a compliment. As for Glen Powell and Victor Ortiz, they don’t leave much of an impression here. Things fare much better though for Ronda Rousey who plays the highly athletic nightclub bouncer, Luna. Don’t even ask if she holds her own with the male action stars because you can quickly tell she can even before she starts kicking ass. While her co-stars won’t linger in the mind long after you’ve endured “The Expendables 3,” Rousey makes you eager to see a female version of this franchise sooner rather than later.
Antonio Banderas shows up as Galgo, the soldier who won’t shut up. It’s like he’s doing a version of his “Puss in Boots” character on acid, and it’s a kick to see how much energy the Spanish actor still has at his age. Harrison Ford is also on board as Max Drummer, the CIA dude who manages the Expendables. It’s fun seeing Ford join the party, but it doesn’t take long to see that he is playing the same character Bruce Willis played in the last two films. All the writers have done here is change the name to protect the greedy “Die Hard” movie star.
Granted, there are some nice in-jokes throughout “The Expendables 3” which show the cast having a good sense of humor about themselves. I have to give Snipes credit as even he pokes fun at his felonious past, and there’s a nice line of dialogue regarding Willis’ disappearance from the franchise. But while the cast is clearly having fun, that fun never translates over to the audience. On top of being saddled with a weak story and crappy dialogue, this sequel makes you feel like you are a guest at a party where you’re not really party to the party.
Looking back, this movie could have used a lot more of Schwarzenegger in it as he proves to be the one who gives us all the 1980’s action nostalgia we could ever possibly want. Seeing him spout off classic one-liners from “Predator” provided me with the most enjoyable moments this misbegotten sequel had to offer. Indeed, he’s always had a good sense of humor about himself and is always determined to give audiences what they want. To see him reduced to a series of cameos here does “The Expendables 3” a major disservice.
Actually, the best and most enjoyable performance here is, in my humble opinion, Mel Gibson’s who plays the ruthless arms dealer Conrad Stonebanks. Playing a crazed villain has become the kind of role Gibson typically plays these days, and this is one of the most gleefully psychotic bad guys he has played thus far. That crazy energy he displayed in the “Mad Max” and “Lethal Weapon” movies is put to great use here, and he makes Conrad the kind of bad guy we seriously love to hate.
“The Expendables” movies have been about reviving the old days of 1980’s action flicks, but this third entry misses the whole point about what made them so much fun; even with the thinnest of plots, they were about something. “The Expendables 3” feels like it barely exists, and I came out of the theater feeling empty and depressed. Those 1980’s action classics always got my adrenaline pumping, but this one almost put me to sleep despite an especially loud climax. After two fun action movies which made me nostalgic for what I grew up on cinematically, here we have with a sequel which reminded us of why so many in this genre suck nowadays.
“The Expendables 3” was directed by Patrick Hughes, an Australian filmmaker who is said to be helming the American remake of “The Raid: Redemption.” Now it is bad enough anyone is remaking that infinitely awesome flick, but I hope he has better luck with that one than he did with this lousy sequel.
“The Expendables 2” is the kind of dumb action movie fun we have come to expect from the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis among others famous in this particular genre. Clearly everyone involved in its making was simply out to give action fans what they want, and while there are no real surprises in store, it is still fun for those who just want to enjoy the R-rated carnage being inflicted onscreen without analyzing this sequel’s threadbare plot. It’s also nice to see a lot of these action movie icons come together in the same film, and it helps to make “The Expendables 2” more memorable than its predecessor.
This sequel opens like gangbusters as the Expendables blast their way through a village to rescue someone who looks rather familiar (I’ll leave it to you to find out who it is). Those who survived the first movie, or proved to be nowhere as expendable as the film’s title suggested, are back, and seeing them lay waste to a foreign army made me wonder if these were the soldiers John Rambo forgot to eviscerate in “Rambo.”
Afterwards, Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) is greeted by the secretive Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) who gives Ross a mission he is in no position to turn down; recover an electronic device that can help retrieve a dangerous substance which cannot fall into enemy hands. It turns out that this substance is plutonium, and the gang is met by an especially villainous character appropriately named Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) who plans to sell it to the highest weapons making bidder. This leads to the Expendables losing one of its members in unforgivably cold-blooded fashion, and that ends up making this particular mission especially personal.
Stallone once again has the lead role and co-wrote the script, but he has turned the directing duties over to Simon West, the filmmaker responsible for “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” “The General’s Daughter” starring John Travolta, some remakes which vary in degrees of quality (“When A Stranger Calls” and “The Mechanic”), and perhaps the best Jerry Bruckheimer guilty pleasure to date, “Con Air.” While I have no problem defending Stallone as a director, having West take over proved to be a good move. The action scenes are more cohesive, the editing is not all over the place, and everything we see onscreen remains appropriately LOUD.
By the way, those who complain about how loud “The Expendables 2” is, just shut up. All the action movies released in summer 2012 are just as loud, so we should expect the increase in volume by now. Next time bring yourself some ear plugs if you want to preserve what’s left of your hearing!
Now Stallone and Schwarzenegger are definitely showing their age here (Schwarzenegger especially), but it is great to see them still kicking ass even as they have long since become senior citizens. In an industry which continues to be increasingly youth-based, these action movie veterans prove the odds against them are more expendable than they are. Seeing Schwarzenegger handle a machine gun is especially fulfilling as it shows he has not lost aim after getting caught up in the realm of politics as Governor of California.
Jason Statham, who returns as knife specialist Lee Christmas, almost looks like a kid compared to the rest of the cast. Liam Hemsworth, who portrays former military sniper Billy the Kid, practically resembles an infant next to Stallone which probably makes the majority of the cast feel jealous as a result, and Terry Crews still knows how to rock a nasty looking gun as weapons specialist Hale Caesar (nice name). Randy Couture returns as demolitions expert Toll Road, but he does not much to do here. The same goes for Jet Li who plays combat expert Yin Yang as he ends up disappearing from this sequel far sooner than I would have anticipated. As for Dolph Lundgren, who reprises his character of the volatile Gunner Jensen, he actually grew on me a bit this time around.
There are some “new” cast members who team up with the Expendables this time, and they prove to be welcome additions. Nan Yu adds that needed touch of estrogen to this testosterone dominated franchise as Maggie, a CIA agent who provides some of this sequel’s few surprises as she proves to be an expert in more ways than one. The previously mentioned Liam Hemsworth gives “The Expendables 2” that youthful feel of someone who has yet to become as cynical as his hard-bitten colleagues, and he gives a strong performance as a soldier eager to steer his destiny in a new direction.
One action star, however, who I was happy to see here was Chuck Norris who portrays a “lone wolf” retired military operative named Booker, an homage to the character he played in “Good Guys Wear Black.” Now while I can’t agree with Norris’ political beliefs in real life, seeing him appear onscreen had me applauding. Norris has always had a strong and memorable presence in the movies I have seen him in, and he has one of this movie’s best lines regarding a snake.
But one actor I actually had more fun watching than I thought I would in “The Expendables 2” was Jean-Claude Van Damme. His limited acting skills prove to be a perfect fit for this sequel’s main villain, and he creates a perfectly detestable bad guy we want to see Stallone and company beat the crap out of. Now while he may be one of my dad’s favorite actors (just kidding), I have never cared much for him in movies other than “Hard Target” or “JCVD.” But here, Van Damme proves he still has those graceful moves as he dares his opponents to take him out minus the use of guns.
I guess I could complain more about “The Expendables 2” as it likely has more plot holes than anyone would notice upon first glance. But hey, in the end this is a movie which should be fun, and for me it was. I enjoyed seeing these action stalwarts come together in one place, and seeing them interact made for some exciting and funny moments. This sequel may not reach the exhilarating action movie heights of this year’s “The Dark Knight Rises” or even “The Raid: Redemption,” but it does get the job done. With something like this, that is usually the best you can hope for.
WRITER’S NOTE: This review was written back in 2010. It has since been upgraded to eliminate typos and run-on sentences which never should have existed in the first place.
Sylvester Stallone continues his cinematic time travel to the testosterone driven action extravaganzas made famous in the 1980’s with “The Expendables,” a film you can easily describe as the “Ocean’s Eleven” of action films with its cast of movie stars and martial artists you never would have expected to see together on the silver screen. After previously revisiting his iconic characters of Rocky Balboa and John Rambo, Stallone stars and directs this film which is a combination of “The Dirty Dozen” with a little bit of “The Delta Force” thrown in for good measure as we are bombarded with gunfights, explosions and everything else these movies had to offer. The morally conflicted heroes or superheroes currently dominating cinemas today are nowhere to be found here as this film’s mission is to simply give the audience an action-packed adrenaline ide with the good guys defeating the bad guys.
The plot here is paper thin to where I wondered if “The Expendables” had one at all. It involves a team of mercenaries led by Barney Ross (Stallone) who gets his team together for a mission which involves overthrowing a brutal dictator (is there any other kind?) in South America named General Garza (David Zayas). Things, however, get complicated as they always do when the team discovers Garza is in co-hoots with ex-CIA agent James Munroe (Eric Roberts) who is determined to keep Garza on a tight leash while controlling Garza’s biggest business, drug trafficking. The team eventually realizes this was all a set up by the CIA to take out both Garza and Munroe as the agency wouldn’t be able to do it without serious consequences, hence the title of the movie. These elite mercenaries are the best at what they do, and they have no connections to senior military officials. They get killed off, and the CIA can comfortably deny their involvement, just like the Impossible Mission Force.
Stallone makes it clear from the start that he is running the show here as he is said to control every aspect of every movie he appears in, even if he is not the director. He has been dealt so many career setbacks over the years to where it is truly astonishing he has not been forever relegated to the straight to video realm alongside Steven Seagal. While “Daylight” and “Driven” looked to be the final nails driven into his movie star coffin, new generations keep discovering those movies which brought him stardom, and he is still quite the box office draw overseas. “The Expendables” is not necessarily going to be remembered for his performance which is adequate here, but it is nice to see him let loose after the intensity of “Rambo.”
Jason Statham co-stars as Ross’ right-hand man, Lee Christmas, and he gets to kick ass here without having to look all prim and proper like he did in those “Transporter” movies. Lee is always fast on his feet and super quick with a blade, but if only he could work out his relationship with that woman he left behind. Statham is one of best actors in “The Expendables,” and he holds his own throughout each scene opposite the veteran movie stars. Moreover, he is the one to have on your side if your boyfriend is foolish enough to hit you in the face.
We also have Jet Li on board as Yin Yang who quickly becomes the butt of jokes over his diminutive height, which is of course a setup for the ass kicking we know he will eventually be doing. Terry Crews, as Hale Caesar, sports a huge ego which is soon outdone by his massive automatic shotgun which results in some of the film’s most graphic moments that will have audience members going, “OUCH!”
Dolph Lundgren temporarily escapes his direct to DVD career here as Gunner Jensen, and it’s nice to see him in a film which gives him more dialogue than usual. Right from the start, you know he won’t go from here in pieces.
While Eric Roberts has never fully escaped the shadow which enveloped his career after playing Paul Snyder in “Star 80,” he still creates slimy villains like very few others can today. His villainous character may seem one-dimensional on the page, but the actor makes him a charismatic one and the kind we love to hate.
The brutal dictator is the typical kind you find in movies like these, and David Zayas does good work here even though he is only given so much to do. Some of you may remember Zayas as Enrique Morales from “OZ,” and I wish Stallone allowed the actor to bring that same energy to General Garza. Watching him on “OZ” was electric because he could come across as quite frightening without having to raise his voice any, and I was hoping he could have had more of Morales’ impact here.
And let us not forget the scene where the original Planet Hollywood trio comes together in a manner which does not involve bankrupt restaurant chains. Seeing Stallone onscreen with Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger feels long overdue and, if nothing else, shows how each of them has a good sense of humor about themselves and their Hollywood images. This is especially the case with Schwarzenegger, and you will see why.
Overall, “The Expendables” is definitely a fun time at the movies, but I came out of it feeling like it could have been better. It is also a victim of Jason Bourne franchise editing style as the camera is flying all over the place, and the editing is so lightning quick to where you cannot always tell what is going on. There are a number of cool action sequences though where the adrenaline really kicks in, and characters of all kinds get eviscerated in memorably painful ways. As for the acting, it is good for the most part, but some actors remind of us more of what they were originally famous for, and how none of it had to do with classical actor training.
Actually, one actor I really have to give props to here is Mickey Rourke who made the other of all acting comebacks in “The Wrestler,” and recently stole scenes from Robert Downey Jr. in “Iron Man 2.” As Tool, a former teammate of this mercenary team who now spends his days doing tattoos for his buddies, he has a speech where his character talks about when he was in Bosnia where he witnessed a woman taking her own life. Tool could have kept it from happening, but he did not. This is one of those typical “buy back my soul” moments we see all the time, and I bet it looked flat on paper, but Rourke plays the hell out it and delivers this film’s most emotionally powerful moment.
So, it looks like the tagline for “The A-Team” movie was very wrong indeed; there is a plan B after all! Granted, “The A-Team” movie was more fun, but “The Expendables” has plenty of excellent moments which makes it worth the long wait. Plus, in a time where movies are very anti-mercenary, this is a unique example of where they can work as action movie heroes.
Now we have the inevitable sequel to look forward to, and you know there’s gonna be one. The big question is, what other 1980’s and 1990’s action stars will join Stallone and company on the next go around? Some of these cast members will clearly not be returning, so there are job openings. Jean Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal and even Kurt Russell turned down roles in “The Expendables” for different reasons. But with this film being a hit, you know they will express interest in climbing aboard for the follow up.
The Ultimate Rabbit 