Review – ‘The Expendables’ (2010)
Rated R for strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language.
Review:
This movie has enough action packed to leave the audience broken and bruised but enough machismo to have them still limp out of the theater. This movie is a straight forward, leave your brain at the door explosion that you have to see to believe.
Stallone knows how to craft the perfect popcorn movie for the masses of movie goers who love their movies bloody and their explosions loud. Not only did he star in this movie, he directed and helped pen the script. Direction was good for this type of film, he captured all of the elements and was able to properly give his stars notes for their performance because he crafted the vision and direction of the film and he definitely has experience with this type of movie. If I had a choice I would much rather see him in this type of unapologetic action film than a drama, any day of the week.
This is an ensemble cast on steroids, literally. I joke, but in all fairness there is enough muscle in this movie to put the teamsters out of business. This is the dream cast for an action film. If it had not been Stallone I do not think this cast would have been able to be assembled. Each cast member was perfect for their part and that is because their roles were not a stretch for any of them. They were not truly asked to do any major reaching as characters. In fact, I think that the characters were almost an extension of themselves. Case and point being Mickey Rourke as Tool with his garish wardrobe and in your face personality.
Stallone is getting older but he is not slowing down, in fact he continues to push himself which is great. I like Statham as an action star and think he was perfect as one of the main leads with Stallone. Terry Crews was great, I think he had a nice bit of humor mixed with some bad ass guns a blazing action. I would have liked to have seen a bit more of Jet Li and the rest of the expendables team but alas that was not to be.
Eric Roberts played a real bastard very well, it was good to see him in this role which I believe he was perfect for. Steve Austin may not have had many lines but he was a perfect henchman that inflicted some damage on the good guys. The action sequences were perfect, full of bullets and enough blood to satiate a thirsty vampire. I attempted to count the gruesome deaths but lost track. There were just the right amount of heads exploding and knives being jammed into bad guys throats to push the limits and making this a strong R rating.
The story is something that we have heard of before. A small group of good guys fighting insurmountable odds to take down the bad guys. The Expendables is a group of mercenaries hired by the CIA to take down a dictator. This reminded me of such westerns as The Magnificent Seven and The Wild Bunch because in those films a small group of men fights a much larger group. What surprised me is that NONE of the expendables died. They kept saying how this mission was a suicide mission and that they were going to die and then low and behold no one died. I mean yeah I did not think Stallone would die but I was actually hoping that someone would die. Even the person that you think is dead for most of the movie is not dead.
The script itself is not good but I was not expecting anything special. I do think that there could have been a lot more character development that would have made the story more enjoyable. If I had known a little bit more background about the entire expendables team and its creation I would have been rooting for them even more than I already was.
The Bottom Line:
Go into this movie expecting a simple, straight forward action that will have you cheering and you will get exactly that and a little more. This movie has a great cast coupled with a familiar story that makes this movie a must see in theaters in my opinion. The sound is great and seeing it on a big screen is a good idea. At my showing there were a larger amount of women seeing this movie even though my wife refused to see it.
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