The Expendables is not your average action movie. For starters, Sylvester Stallone is credited as director... It may not seem like that big a deal, but he hasn't taken the director's chair for anything other than a Rambo or Rocky sequel, with his last non-character film being Saturday Night Fever with John Travolta. The '80s action hero has assembled the biggest ensemble of action heroes since G.I. Joe, all stars in their own right: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke with cameos from Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It's an award-winning action cast, but they all seem to look pretty ordinary in unison. That, unfortunately is the overall impression that The Expendables delivers as a movie. Each of these action heroes can handle the lead in their own action movie, but lumping them all together makes this movie feel heavy, superficial and not as special as you'd expect. We don't have a chance to invest in any of the characters and Stallone is so busy directing, acting and performing his own stunts that it's simply an exercise in pyrotechnics, stunts and weaponry.
The Expendables does the action right, but everybody's so busy being a team player that they forget to bring their A-game. It's commendable for doing the unthinkable - even mapping out a scene where Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sly Stallone share the screen for a couple of minutes. It's the inside joke that perpetuates the film... all the ridiculous A-list action men fighting shoulder-by-shoulder against a largely B-movie crew.
The film definitely could have done with more cheese. The one-liners are cheesy, but an epic action movie like The Expendables could have gone over-the-top Tropic Thunder style. It would've been great to see a tongue-in-cheek parody of action movies, in which each over-reaching action star could have had a little fun. A director like Quentin Tarantino would have had the edge on Stallone, he's used to establishing movie comebacks... just look at John Travolta in Pulp Fiction and Uma Thurman in Kill Bill: Vol. 1. Unforunately, The Expendables is just missing that bit of magic or the slick visuals to make it Tarantino cool.
Forgive the pun, but they've stuck to their guns. Stallone was probably attempting a renaissance for the dumb, fun action movie of the '80s. There are buckets of blood, some serious violence, loads of guns, knives and muscle-men... making the link between WWF entertainment and action movie stuff with Steve Austin and Randy Coutre. The Condemned was a fairly compelling example of what the WWF can achieve in terms of film-making and their bits in the wrestling ring also show that they can perform... just look at Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson.
The Expendables is made for fans of the '80s action movies that made these tough guys famous. Cobra, Commando... those were the days where it was good guys versus bad guys and all you had to do was sit back and watch the mayhem unfurl amid gunfire, stab wounds and loads of bulletproof bravado. Nowadays with Jason Bourne taking the more restrained, realistic approach it's difficult to find a place for these barbarians other than the B-movie string with Dolph Lundgren.
The Expendables demonstrates that while an all-star ensemble will inject some serious interest in a reunion type comeback movie, it takes more than a few hundred volleys of gunfire, throat slits and high impact explosions to deliver the goods. This film is a homage to the days when simple action and violence stimulated our dompamine levels enough so that we didn't require the mental stimulation of an engaging story. It's fun for what it is... but relies too heavily on the cast's credentials and not enough on what they've got to offer on screen. If you like your action dumb, explosive and fun... you're going to love it!
The bottom line: Explosive.
