Sylvester Stallone. Jasan Statham. Jet Li. Dolph Lundren. Each has earned his reputation as a one-man army. The Expendables, then, conceived by writer-director-star Stallone as the ultimate men-on-a-mission movie, is a film in which many armies do battle.
Notwithstanding the title, only one character in this movie is truly expendable and he goes by the name of Emotion. But nobody is buying Expendables tickets to have their heart strings plucked – or for the social commentary – and Stallone guides his ensemble cast through a painstakingly innocuous plot about a rogue South American dictator (David Zayas) and his ex-CIA accomplice (Eric Roberts) with the focus firmly on physical action.
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The Expendables
Directed by Sylvester Stallone, Starring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, Dolph Lundgren, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Randy Couture |
That said, don’t expect Sly to reinvent the action genre – the intent behind this big, loud, brazen homage to the archetypal action movie of the ’80s and ’90s is actually quite the opposite, which is why The Expendables is replete with hit-or-miss oneliners and preposterous armed stand-offs.
Some of the other big stars of the era are missing – Steven Seagal, Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van-Damme, to name a few – so Sly makes amends by including a bevy of 21st century celebrity muscle, including Jason Statham, Jet Li and former NFL linebacker Terry Crews to crack skulls alongside Stallone and Lundgren.
World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Steve Austin and multiple Ultimate Fighting Champion Randy Couture are the icing on the cake as far as real-life fighting ability goes, and let’s not forget the first on-screen union of Stallone with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis in cinema history (though it’s sadly no more than a cameo).
Rounding out the cast are Eric Roberts, his Oscar-nominated silver screen career resurrected after more than 20 years of B-movies and TV features, and Mickey Rourke (who like Stallone counts as both a faded ’80s star and a 2010 Hollywood hotlister), the latter sadly inhabiting a non-combat role, though he does find time for a bit of knifeplay between his dialogue scenes (ostensibly improvised and strikingly inconsistent in quality).
All that either excites you or it doesn’t. The Expendables didn’t exactly set out to change minds or to soften the image of the action genre. If anything, its mission is precisely the opposite, as is made clear, partway through the climax, by the arrival of Terry Crews with a fully automatic Atchisson Assault Shotgun that reduces human bodies to red mist a lot like that alien lightning cannon from District 9.
It is tempting to award four stars for sheer entertainment factor – on that front The Expendables delivers in spades – but there is a nagging sense that Stallone could have done more. Not in the sense of a higher bodycount or bigger explosions, but better-staged, more gracefully shot action which could happily coexist with all the hallmarks of the high-octane ’80s action movie.
There is also the matter of the deceptive overemphasis on Schwarzenegger and Willis in much of the advertising, which likely led theatregoers to believe these two would be among the titular cadre (Willis even receives top billing on the poster for his walk-on role). But mostly, and most simply, everyone would love more of Arnie and Bruce.
These are things I expect to be remedied in the sequel.