The Expendables

A group of kick-ass mercenaries stand together and pull off their fair share of suicide missions in order to take care of some pretty ugly baddies. These mercenaries are The Expendables, and they just got themselves a new mission: taking out an evil dictator in an island in the Caribbean that are being manipulated by a tyrannical American businessman (played by Eric Roberts). Only strength, bullets and testosterone can take care of this.

I’ve been waiting the longest time for this. I had become a big fan of Stallone once again after seeing the double-punch of greatness known as Rambo and Rocky Balboa, and I was ready for more. What I got was a movie that not only put him back on the top of the action world, but one where he shared the spotlight with other kick-ass action superheroes, past and modern. Jason Stratham, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Dolph Lundgren and Mickey Rourke play the good guys, with bad guys being composed of Eric Roberts, Steve Austin and Gary Daniels (yes, THAT Gary Daniels, Fist Of The North Star Gary Daniels!).

Anyway, enough of my own dorky fanboy-ness. Is the movie any good? Well, it is actually. The script is pretty tight for an action movie. It follows the typical 10-minute beat, which means it has a kick-ass action scene every 10 minutes, with the last half hour being a non-stop action sequence. And it’s in the action sequences that the movie gets damn good. We have some epic match-ups over here, dudes. Jet Li vs. Dolph Lundgren, Steve Austin vs. Silvester Stallone, Randy Couture vs. Steve Austin, really awesome shit.

Sadly, there were some flaws. For the most part, the performances were damn good. Stallone, Dolph Lundgren and Jason Stratham were excellent, but the movie clearly belongs to Eric Roberts and Mickey Rourke. Roberts plays an excellent cheesy bad guy, while Rourke is just a cool guy with a great emotional moment that will remind everyone of his best moments in The Wrestler. Sadly the rest of the cast are basically glorified cameos, even with the two female performers. And while it was nice to see Willis and Schwarzenegger, it was basically just a throwaway scene. There are also some scenes that could have easily been a part of another movie, that had nothing to do with the film itself, main one being the sequence where Jason goes after the guy who beat up his girlfriend. This scene adds nothing to the story and could have easily been a part of a Transporter sequel. There’s also a lot of CGI gore, and CGI gore always sucks.

Even with it’s flaws, this movie is exactly what it’s trying to be, a very entertaining, explosive action film, a thrill ride that everyone with a sweet taste for shit blowing up will enjoy to the hilt. Go check it out.