First Blood, Cobra, Commando, Raw Deal, Die Hard, Missing in Action. They just don’t make them like they used to. So, here comes The Expendables!
Did we really need a ‘80s action film? With the recent great war films and documentaries, like The Hurt Locker or Apocalypse!, one has the right to ask the question, and the answer after watching Sly’s latest work, is a resounding YES!
The Expendables is a man’s film, the Sex and the City for guys, the Sense and Sensibility for the BBQ and Football lovers.
With motorcycles, lots of guns and a few babes, ultra realistic violence and super-human one-man-armies, this film is the perfect guy movie, dropped in our muscular lap just in time to prevent every guy from turning gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that…) amongst all the super pink and sterilized romantic comedies, 3D children’s films and PG13-rated “action” movies.
The plot is simple and serves only as a means of lining up action sequences and a few touching male bonding scenes. The film is actually more a tale of friendship than a revenge/kill-the-bad-guys story, and much like Stallone’s two previous efforts (Rocky Balboa and Rambo), The Expendables has more sensibility to it than the films which it is inspired from, and those few scenes also serve to balance the rhythm of the film so that the viewer is not overloaded with explosions and gore, which there are plenty of, especially in the last half hour of the movie.
There are two or three pretty good fight scenes also, most notably one involving Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren, two well-established action stars and both martial arts experts in their own disciplines. It would’ve been very much appreciated to have a few wide shots of this scene but unfortunately they fight in very close quarters and the camera is too close and shaky for the viewer to really appreciate this scene. It’s not a complete failure, but the director (Stallone) could've given us a few more open shots of this great and much anticipated fight.
The Expendables is also a very funny movie, with most jokes involving the real life quirks of the many stars gathered for this picture. Randy Couture reveals the story behind his strange ears and we find out what Arnold Schwarzenegger’s problem is. He also appears very thin, frail and his acting is, well, pretty bad. But it’s fun to see him on screen with Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis in the same 3-5 minutes scene.
The highlights of the movie are the realistic violence, the relationships between the characters and how they were written, especially for Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham, Terry Crews and his amazing “canon-gun”, Dolph Lundgren who is quite obviously having a tremendous amount of fun, a series of jokes and events involving Jet Li’s height and of course Mickey Rourke who, again, gives an absolutely amazing performance.
The less shining elements are the one-dimensional villains led by Eric Roberts, the fact that mercs are all killing people for a living and for the most part don’t seem to be traumatized by this at all (although this is addressed in a very touching scene with Mickey Rourke) and the length of the movie. It’s a lot of fun and another thirty minutes or so would’ve been great.
The Expendables is violent and funny with a simple story filmed with skill and obvious enjoyment. It’s a movie for guys, the kind they don’t make anymore with a sequel on the way, and the only thing missing is Chuck Norris. Then again, a two-second movie is not very profitable…
Go see it today!
8.5/10
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