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The Expendables, starring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Mickey Rourke,
Steve Austin and Terry Crews… and featuring scenes with Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzennegger. This
is definitely a dream team when on paper – but does this movie hold up to its hype?
The Expendables
focuses primarily on two friends and colleagues, played by Stallone and Statham. I’m a big fan of
Jason Statham’s work, but I just didn’t know if he’d fit in with this much older cast [older in age and experience]. Statham is an extremely talented actor, and blended incredibly
well with the rest of the cast – I could even see a lot of chemistry between Statham and Stallone, as if they have
been friends for years. As for the rest of the cast, their chemistry on screen made this all believable,
and it gave each seemingly empty character some depth and meaning. This is truly a man’s “dream
team” when it comes to action movies, and that being said… I was hoping for a little more one-liners.
Sure, this movie had its share of cheesiness and one-liners, but not as much as you’d expect from a movie that
is pulling people in mainly with nostalgia and casting alone. I just wanted to hear Dolph Lundgren turn
to Stallone and say “I will break you”. The story is obviously lacking
in that department, but didn’t everyone expect that? Imagine if John Rambo met Frank Martin [The Transporter], that’s pretty much your story… but it works.
I think that if this movie did have an actual serious storyline and deep plot, it wouldn’t be as good.
I went into it expecting a great action flick with a lot of actors that I grew up watching and admiring, and that’s
exactly what I got. So the script and direction taken by Stallone [actor,
co-writer and director of the movie] was nearly perfect for this type of movie. But I do feel that
its strong features are also some of its negative features. The cast, even though it’s what drew
me to the movie… it’s what also drew me out of the movie in some scenes. Too much is too much,
I can think of one or two characters that just seemed more like filler for the movie. For example, Randy
Couture, I wouldn’t say that he did a horrible job with the role given to him, but I feel it was an empty character
that added little to no value to the film. Sure, he had a pretty important fight at the end of the movie
that lasted for nearly a minute, but that could have been anyone else and it would have been just as good… if not
better. And on the list of negative remarks are the special effects. There wasn’t
much in the film, but when it was featured it looked and felt extremely cheap.
On the plus side, along with this amazing cast… the fight scenes are well planned and pulled off brilliantly.
Even though I’m pretty sure that a gun would win over a knife fight, each scene was perfect and full of adrenaline.
Seeing Dolph Lundgren fight Jet Li, even though Dolph has a significant height and weight advantage… that
scene was fast paced and amazing to see. Stallone versus Steve Austin was equally good, if not better.
Each fight scene looked brutal and fun at the same time, and they all seemed to have character and differ from the
previous… which is rare in an action film such as this one.
The bottom
line; The Expendables will not win any Oscars next year, in fact it’ll probably win a few Razzie Awards, but definitely
worth your time if you’re a guy wanting to re-live the 80’s and early 90’s. I hear
they’re already talking about a sequel; I hope it works out… I’d love to see these guys in action again,
but next time maybe they’ll be able to add Wesley Snipes, Steven Seagal, Chuck Norris and Kurt Russell to the list!
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