Film Reviews

The Expendables

• Rating:
• Director: Sylvester Stallone
• Starring: Jet Li
• Details: US / 103mins (15A)

Following on from The Losers and The A-Team, The Expendables promised to be a fun, brainless and tongue-in-cheek return to the beefcake 80s action movie with Sly, Dolph Lundgren, Arnie, Bruce Willis and Mickey Rourke in the mix. Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme might have turned Stallone down but at least there is Statham, Jet Li and Steve Austin to fill out the contemporary action hero star quota. With Stallone behind the camera again after the action porn Rambo reboot, The Expendables promised to be a raucous, action-filled popcorn fodder, but instead of drawing a bead on the Commandos of the era, Sly aims for the Missing In Actions and Iron Eagles, which weren't very good in the first place.
Stallone heads up a team of mercenaries who have long since swapped their hearts for wallets. That changes when fence Mickey Rourke sets them up with a new gig: a small island in the gulf is under the reign of General Garza (David Zayas), backed up by rogue CIA Agent-turned cocaine exporter Eric Roberts (who in turn is backed up by muscle Steve Austin). Stallone gets a pang of humanity when the general's daughter (Giselle Itié), who has turned revolutionary, is imprisoned and he rounds up the team to rescue her.
The Expendables balked on every promise. Bruce Willis and Arnie are in one scene only and a bullet isn't fired in anger during their briefest of cameos. Rourke too is sidelined, but he is awarded the only scene where acting is necessary. Yes, it is fun to see these aging stars crank it up one last time, but it's only fun for about fifteen minutes before the vacuous mess begins eating at your very soul. Yes, it's brainless but did it have to be so dumb? 80s action movies were never high on intelligence, but at least the quip-and-kill ratio was up there. Here, Stallone and his co-writer Dave Callaham (Doom) fail to come up with one decent line to feed to its bevy of stars; Statham, after knifing a bully's basketball, quips, "Next time I'll deflate all your balls" is the best they can some up with. It leaves the impression that this extraordinary roll call of 'talent' is enough to draw the crowds and story, character and acting be damned. That's just not good enough. That's cheating.
Stallone hopes that all this will be forgotten about when the long action finale cranks up, and this is where the movie finally springs into life. Stallone unleashes a whirlwind of bullets, high kicks, thumps and explosions to keep the action fan interested. Jet Li gets his martial arts scene. Soldiers fly through the air. Bodies explode. But in their heart of hearts the action fan will know that nothing is happening on screen that hasn't been done a thousand times already. "How did two pros get through customs, kill forty-one soldiers and escape?" asks a sleazy Eric Roberts at one point. They can in bad movies, Eric.
The Expendables is the reason the 80s action movie fell out of favour in the first place - they were getting increasingly crap.

Review by Gavin Burke