The Expendables

When you hear the term, "action movie," what actors pop into your mind?  Arnold Schwarzenegger,  Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, maybe Dolph Lundgren?  10 years ago, if you had told me that some of the biggest action stars in movie history would get together to make an epic action movie, I would've laughed at you.  In 2010, Sylvester Stallone made it happen.

The Expendables begins as a group of pirates threaten to kill hostages that they kidnapped 3 months prior.  They are soon interrupted by a group of mercenaries lead by Barney Ross(Sylvester Stallone).  Following his lead are Lee Christmas(Jason Statham), Yin Yang(Jet Li), Toll Road(Randy Couture), Hale Caesar(Terry Crews), and Gunner Jensen(Dolph Lundgren).  After the mission they are contacted by mysterious man known simply as Mr. Church(Bruce Willis) for a job in the Gulf of Mexico.

Honestly, the only reason for a story involving some of the biggest names in action movies is just to get from one action set piece to another.  Does the film deliver on the action?  Hell yes, it does.  It's brutal, bloody and constant.  It's awesome.  People are blown in half, heads blown off and stabbed to death.  It's glorious.  Big explosions, awesome stunts and big fight scenes pepper a movie that has been inspired by some of the biggest and loudest action movies of the 80s.  It's awesome stuff and what really makes it work is the cast.  There are a lot of big names here.  From Stallone to Eric Roberts, most of the big action stars of the 80s and 90s make an appearance.  We even have a small cameo from Arnold Schwarzenegger(who was still governor at the time)in a scene which brings the three biggest action stars together for the first time, ever.  It's short but it's awesome.  Again what makes a movie like this work is the chemistry between the characters and it's often times pretty funny.  The banter between Statham's character and Stallone's is one of the highlights.  These are the good guys.  For the bad guys, we have Eric Roberts, Dolph Lundgren(he switches sides for a bit)"Stone Cold" Steve Austin, and Gary Daniels.  I would consider Eric Roberts the LESS talented sibling of Julia Roberts, but when given the right material, he's fantastic, and he makes a great bad guy.  Dolph Lundgren:  This guy is pretty awesome in his own right.  He plays a great psycho and he really has fun with it.

Some of the best scenes are when Statham and Stallone escape the fictional island that they're on only to return and blow the living hell out of the dock.  Awesome.  Then we have a fight scene between Lundgren's character and Jet Li's character which was pretty good.  Then there's the last battle in front of the palace which is the biggest and loudest action scene in the movie and it doesn't disappoint.

That's what worked.  Here's what didn't:  The camerawork.  Good lord.  The amount of close-ups during some of the fight scenes kind of made it hard to see what was going on, and as a result there's a great deal of "shaky-cam" going on, and it just confuses people.  That kind of camerawork doesn't really belong in an action movie like this.  I didn't think it worked in the Bourne movies and it doesn't work here.  I would actually like to see what's going on.  I don't know if it was a stylistic choice made by Stallone, but I don't think it really worked out as well as he'd hoped it would.  The other is, the lack of Mickey Rourke.  Instead of having him in action scenes, he's relegated to being a tatoo artist/guy who offers missions/philosopher of sorts.  He's great, but I was expecting more.  Randy Couture just simply isn't a good actor.  Example? The Scorpion King 2.  As an ex-UFC champion, he's definitely got moves, but he just doesn't have the charisma to stand out from everybody else.  I was also expecting a little bit more screen time from Gary Daniels, who is an excellent martial artist in his own right, but he's not really as well known as the other guys.

The Expendables also had some serious competition back in 2010, namely a movie called Machete, which boasted an incredible cast of its own.  Not only that, there was a question of whether or not Stallone could hold his own in action movies today?  I can tell that after seeing movies like Rambo(the fourth movie) and Rocky Balboa, the answer is yes.  The man is in amazing shape for his age.  He's built like a tank.  So, yeah, he can still handle himself.  The Expendables was clearly successful as it got not just one, but TWO sequels.  Expendables 2 was released back in 2012, and Expendables 3 is due to be released in the next month or two.  So there IS an audience for movies of this magnitude and I'm part of that audience.  For the stuff that this movie didn't get right, it's got everything else going for it, which is more than the sum of its parts.  Overall, it's a pretty damned good action movie with big explosions.  I just wish they could have tightened up the camerawork a little bit better.  Overall, though, the film gets a 8.5/10 from me.  Recommended.

Any questions, thoughts?  Anything?  Do you agree or think I'm totally off my rocker?  Please leave comments below.