(Long Island, N.Y.) You know how I’m always whining that today’s action movies are lightweights compared to the hard-as-nails flicks from the heyday of pure action, the 1980’s? That today’s action stars are, for the most part, pretty-boy sissies who do all their fighting in the editing room and not on the set? Well, it figures that it would take the granddaddies of 80’s action to come back from the grave for one last hurrah and show all the modern wussies how it’s done. The Expendables are here, and people are gonna DIE.
The Expendables is written, directed by, and starring Sylvester Stallone, and co-starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (who, despite his top billing, is barely in the movie 5 minutes…me sad), Bruce Willis (who doesn’t do much, either), Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, Jet Li,
Jason Statham, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, and Steve Austin. The collective cast is so filled with testosterone (and possibly other substances) that a normal human within 50 feet of any screen showing of The Expendables will probably pass out from the sheer force of manliness radiating towards the audience.
Conspicuous by their absences are 80’s mainstays Jean Claude Van Damme (who was offered a role but sadly turned it down) and Steven Seagal, who will nonetheless be returning to theaters (after a long hiatus in Direct-to-DVD land) in the upcoming Robert Rodriguez film Machete.
Anyway, the plot, such as it is: The Expendables are a team of highly-trained mercenaries who are sent in to do in some evil South American dictator. Plot thickens, a woman gets involved, trouble brews, people get shot, things blow up, and…well, that’s about it, really. I mean it- I know I usually drone on and on in my plot recaps, but in this case I couldn’t draw it out any more if I tried.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: the story is terrible; it’s beyond brain dead and often makes no sense. The dialogue is terrible; lines are delivered that you can’t believe were actually written down for other human beings to recite with a straight face. However, the violence is glorious…no, it’s not as bloodthirstily savage as Stallone’s 2008 Rambo, and it’s nothing compared to the King Of All Action Movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1985 fun-filled family classic, Commando. But The Expendables is still a hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners film that succeeds in splattering a great many bad guys like blood-filled balloons, and that’s all people are expecting (and wanting) out of it, anyway. There’s this one scene where Statham strafes a dock of baddies from the nose of a plane that’s especially satisfying.
The collected tough guys that make up the cast of The Expendables is its main draw; these guys are the reason people are going to be plunking down their hard-earned dough at the box office. And for the most part, this mix of old and new action stars deliver. Yeah, they’re fighting a horrible script as much as they are the film’s villains, but most of them are given their chance to shine eventually. But the movie mainly belongs to Stallone and Statham, with the other players relegated mostly to bit-part status. But with a cast this huge that’s to be expected, although you
still might walk away disappointed that some characters get the shaft, as far as screen-time goes.
One thing I have to mention: where does Stallone come up with the names he gives his characters? I mean, “Lee Christmas?” “Hale Caesar?” “Yin Yang?” Mr. T somehow made the name “Clubber Lang” seem cool back in the day when Rocky 3 first came out, but that was due more to his innate charisma than anything else. And it seems that Stallone’s somewhat suspect naming abilities have decreased an order of magnitude since then- there’s no way Terry Crews can pull off a name like Hale Caesar without eliciting some (or rather, many) unintentional laughs. But in his defense, I doubt Mr. T could, either.
Well, maybe. He IS Mr. T, after all. Too bad he’s not in this movie.
So, if you’re looking for a trip back in time to an era when men were men and killed other men like men, then The Expendables is for you. Otherwise, go run home to your momma.
