The Expendables

I went to see a matinée for this movie which has been out since August 13, 2010. The Expendables was directed by Sylvester Stallone, and stars a whole bunch of action stars from the last couple of decades. We have Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, David Zayas, Steve Austin, Gary Daniels, and Cameos by Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The plot revolves around an elite group of mercenaries who are hired by Mr. Church(Bruce Willis) to go to the fictional island of Vilena in order to overthrow a brutal dictator. That’s about all there is to the story, and I expected nothing more going into it.

If it weren’t for the star power of the film myself like others I’m sure wouldn’t have even bothered going to see it, but you’d have to be lying to yourself if you never wanted to see all these guys in one film. There is absolutely zero story in this movie, what little there is I found myself not even giving a crap about. I didn’t even care for most of the characters in the film, and couldn’t tell you any of their names except for Stallone as Barney, and Statham as Christmas, these two had a good chemistry together and were certainly the shining stars. When one of the characters is killed off about half way through the film I found myself not even caring. Another thing I found this movie lacking was any feeling that these characters were ever in any real danger, they are all so powerful and pretty much unstoppable compared to those they are fighting whose sole purpose is to get killed in a variety of ways like target dummies.

Enough about the negative and onto the positive. For one these stars may be a little aged but they could all probably kick any of our asses with just one of their chiseled hands, and that’s where this movie really shines. The action sequences are some of the best you’ll find, though totally unbelievable there’s nothing better than watching our team take on a small army with all sorts of explosives and weaponry including Crews’ repeating shotgun with explosive rounds. Even though it was brief it was great seeing Schwarzenegger back on-screen and his conversation with Stallone was really funny. In conclusion this is not a film you really need to see in theatres but if you catch it as a matinée a good time can still be had. It is at the very least worth a rental, and if you go into this movie not expecting much story but a lot of action you’ll be satisfied.