Review: The Expendables

Went and saw the Macho-fest film The Expendables last night in a packed theatre. There were some ladies near me that had some of the worst smelling perfume I have ever encountered. It thought I was being poisoned. Terrible. Anyway, the action film is directed by John Rambo and stars Rocky Balboa, Ivan Drago, the Transporter, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Not Jackie Chan. There are also some good cameos by John McClane and John Kimble.

The story follows Stallone and his team as they get hired by Bruce Willis to go to the South American Island of Velena (don't bother googling that because the place is fictitious) to overthrow a dictator and of course kill a lot of dudes and blow shit up.



First and foremost let me just say Sylvester Stallone is my favorite of the 80's action stars. Rambo, hell yeah. Cliffhanger, awesome. Cobra, bad ass. Then there is the The Rocky series. I dedicated a good portion of my thesis film to it including driving to Philadelphia from Rochester to film for it. Rocky is the freaking bees knees. These past few years have been pretty awesome for movies with new installments of Rocky and Rambo. Both of which I really enjoyed as they were both great bookends for their respective series. Now we have The Expendables where Stallone plays an all new character in similar situations.

Sure nothing is really new or fresh about The Expendables but that's not what this movie is about. It's about seeing our favorite action stars together for the first time kicking ass, kicking each-others asses, and taking names. This movie does exactly that. A total throwback to the simplicity of the action movies of yesteryear where we have a problem and a bad ass dude goes and solves it. In this case we have a bunch of bad ass dudes that go solve it. There a some lapses in logic but whatever. Everyone on the film looks like they had a blast making it as it comes through in the final film.

There are some really nice stunts and fight sequences in this film. The fights are freaking brutal. They did a really nice job mixing in the different fighting styles of everyone into a mash up mix track of fighting mayhem with bone crunches as beats and gun shots as notes. It fully satisfies the modern American blood lust syndrome. Again with way too many films in this day and age this movie suffers from too much editing during the fight sequences. I know these dudes are old, but c'mon, stop cutting so much, its annoying.



My biggest gripe about this film is the use of CG Blood effects. I could rant on and on about this but I'll hold back and make this simple point. Unless your film is premiering on YouTube or Vimeo put some cash into your effects budget and use some god damn squibs. Dammit.

Overall it's really a joy to see all these guys kicking ass on the big screen in one movie. It's an entertaining genre film full of nostalgia and heavy hitting fights. This film is really the cinematic equivilant to a BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger; you've eaten one before, it's nothing new or revolutionary to the burger world, but it's cooked just right, and the other ingrediants are pretty damn tasty, and it hits the hunger spot damn well. If you like Stallone or any of the other stars go see this film. If you like fighting go see this movie. If you like explosions go see this movie. If you abhor violence don't see this movie.