Two out of five stars
The Expendables features a who’s who of action heroes, including Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Terry Crews and many more. The film itself is another typical action movie where it is assumed all the world’s economic and political problems can be solved by a team of American mercenaries with an abundant supply of explosives.
The testosterone-surging senior citizen Sylvester Stallone leads the soldiers of fortune — Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Ying Yang (Jet Li), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) and James Munroe (Randy Couture) — to the South American isle of Vilena, to take down a corrupt dictator (David Zayas) and an ex-CIA-turned-drug lord (Eric Roberts). Once they arrive in Vilena all hell breaks loose as the Expendables face the insurmountable task of taking on an entire army.
To top it all off, the only reason they decide to stay and fight is because of a woman. Well, it sounds cheesy but you have to give Stallone credit for trying.
By now you have already figured out how the rest of the movie pans out, and just to let you know, you’re right. The whole film is full of the standard action movie clichés, along with an arsenal of one-liners, including the inevitable “your mother” joke thrown in here and there.
Despite having every action hero know to man over the past 30 years, the action sequences were not as absurd as they should have been, but they will keep you satisfied. The movie also begins to stumble because screenwriter and director Stallone decided to give some of the main characters a backstory, which ends up dragging the movie down and killing any of the intensity built up from the last action scene. This is ever-so-prevalent when “Tool” (Mickey Rourke), a former mercenary and now-mentor of the Expendables, drones on about how he “lost his soul” on a previous mission. Once all the backstories have been covered the second half of the movie begins to pick up and stuff starts to blow up.
Despite the slow start it was still satisfying to see the all-star cast used in their own area of expertise — case in point, watching Randy Couture and Steve Austin fight it out while surrounded by a wall of fire. Cameo appearances by Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger were cleverly done and helped add to the movie.
The movie itself is not up to the standards of Die Hard or Terminator and is definitely not as engaging either, but the action sequences will keep you satisfied along with the odd clever one-liner. So if your looking for a summer flick that has a lot of explosions and an elite team of soldiers kicking ass, I would still recommend The Expendables. My only suggestion is that you show up to the theater halfway through the movie. Don’t worry, you won’t be lost.