The Expendables 3

I've enjoyed both the previous Expendable movies, The Expendables and The Expendables 2, knowing full well they're not particularly good movies. It's the rare franchise where things get better with each progressing flick. Then came the third entry...pretty much panned by critics and not embraced by audiences as much. Well, most of the audience. I happened to love it for all its insane goofiness and over the top everything. Here's 2014's The Expendables 3.

Having rescued a former member of the team from a heavily guarded train, Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) and the Expendables move onto their next mission, but there is far more awaiting them than they expected. Sent to knock off an international arms dealer, Barney is stunned to find out who the dealer actually is. His name is Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson), a former member of the Expendables and a co-founder of the group with Barney who's long been believed dead after going rogue from the group. The team is all shot up and not in a good place to go after Stonebanks, but Barney wants nothing more than revenge on his former partner turned lunatic enemy. He sees the writing on the wall though and doesn't want to see his fellow mercenaries get killed in the process. Instead of going forward, Barney disbands the group and assembles a younger group of fiery mercenaries looking to prove themselves. Can they get the job done and not get killed in the process?

The first two Expendables movies are far from perfect, but the second one was definitely better than the first. Things were allowed to breathe a little bit and some fun characters were added to the mix. This third entry struggled at the box office, some attributing that to a PG-13 rating instead of an R-rating while others pointed to a bootleg getting a release weeks before the wide release. You know what? WHO CARES?!? These are movies meant for action-hungry fans who love over the top shootouts, a ridiculously cool cast, one-liner one after another, and villains you just love to hate. Nothing groundbreaking for director Patrick Hughes' film, but it is most assuredly not trying to break any new ground. Having written the screenplay for the first two, Stallone again handles that department and doesn't disappoint.

Stallone will never be accused of writing anything Shakespearean or all-time classic, but who the f*** cares? The man knows how to write a good, old-fashioned shoot 'em up, dammit! He tried to accomplish a lot with the first two flicks, but here? Here?!? It's like he challenged himself to amp things up to even more ridiculous levels. Much of the cast returns with quite a few BIG names joining the mix. It's a longer movie than its predecessors (126 minutes) and features a ton of action from the word 'Go.' It isn't a great movie, but 'Expendables' is damn entertaining. I watched it with a smile on my face and thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end. All Stallone wants to do is to put something out there that audiences WANT to see, and I love him for it. About as good as a movie like this can get.

The ensemble and action out of this world star power is at an all-time action high, but the guts of the movie remains that men on a mission, mercenary tough guy mindset. It starts of course with Stallone's Barney and Statham's Lee, bitching and moaning at each other like an old married couple. Those scenes provide some good laughs while also offering some background about the history of the Expendables. Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews and Randy Couture are back too with Jet Li only appearing in the final 20 minutes in nothing more than an extended cameo. I still feel like people were surprised by how well the Expendables movies did in theaters. For years before the movies there were rumors of all the 1980s/1990s action stars who were interested in starring only to drop out. Since then, a long list of stars have made appearances leaving Lundgren, Crews, Couture and Li with little to nothing to do. Oh, that Arnold Schwarzenegger fella is around too, chomping on cigars and even yelling "Get to the chopper!" How can you lose with that happening?

So Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme weren't enough, huh? The casting gets taken to crazy levels here. Gibson is a great addition to the series, his Stonebanks a perfectly evil, sinister, growling villain, injecting a ton of energy. I need more! Replacing Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford is an easy cool as Drummer, the team's CIA holder of sorts. Wesley Snipes and Antonio Banderas join the Expendables too because...well, why the hell not?  Both look to be having a lot of fun in parts that let them ham it up some (or for Banderas, A LOT). As for the new, fresh Expendables, there's Kellan Lutz (former Marine, favors a motorcycle), Ronda Rousey (hand-to-hand specialist), Glen Powell (tech) and Victor Ortiz (weapons). The younger group isn't as interesting, but their inclusion to the story is more of a means to an end. Kelsey Grammer plays Bonaparte, Barney's mercenary recruiter, the recruiting scene something right out of The Magnificent Seven or countless other men on a mission movies.   

Look, there's no point in analyzing the action. It's good, but obviously not as bloody or as graphic as an R-rated version would have been. Blood or not, the body count that piles up is downright gratuitous. The finale alone is ridiculous with every action cliche ever invented seemingly on display. Stallone vs. Gibson, thousands of bullets flying, Lutz doing his best Steve McQueen/Great Escape impression, Ford flying overhead in a helicopter with Schwarzenegger as his machine gunner, and that's just the start. As an action fan, it's almost too much....eh, not really. It's awesome and just a blast to watch. From the action to the cast, the mercenaries busting each other and seeing who's the best, the old vs. new school, the great villain, it is a hell of a lot of fun. An easy-going mess of a movie that I loved throughout. Here's a closing thought to process.

Late in the movie, a helicopter is loaded with some of the most iconic action heroes ever. We're talking Rambo/Rocky, Han Solo/Indiana Jones, the Terminator, Blade, the Transporter, Ivan Drago, and Desperado all flying along. Oh, and Braveheart is below chasing after them. It's just too much to take in! Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!

The Expendables 3 (2014): *** 1/2 /****

The Last Stand

It's good to have Arnold Schwarzenegger back. That is all. Elected Governor of California in 2003, the action star served two terms, putting his film career on hold for the time being. He returned to movies with The Expendables, a slightly bigger part in its sequel and officially took a key supporting role in last year's Escape Plan. But now, it's time for a leading role in a good, old-fashioned shoot 'em up, 2013's The Last Stand.

In the quiet border town of Sommerset Junction in Arizona, Sheriff Ray Towns (Schwarzenegger) enjoys a peaceful, restful life after years of serving in the L.A.P.D. Narcotics and Tactical Division. Well, that idyllic, peaceful life is about to get thrown a curve. With much of the town following the high school football team on a road game, Towns gets a call that someone has been murdered. His deputies stumble upon something in the desert, heavily armed ex-military firing on the deputies. At the same time, Towns gets another call, this time from FBI agent Bannister (Forest Whitaker), with a warning. A highly dangerous leader of a powerful drug cartel, Gabriel Cortez (Eduardo Noriega), has led a bloody escape and is making a beeline for Mexico in a modified, souped-up sports car. Bannister believes Cortez is heading right to Sommerset Junction. Towns figures Cortez's plan out, ex-military and all, but can he and his motley crew of deputies stop Cortez?

Ah, action movies, how I love you. This flick didn't do much business last year in theaters -- netting a little over $48 million -- but I remember catching the first trailer for this and being intrigued. This wasn't a movie I was dying to see, that I needed to see, but could it be good? Oh, you bet, and that's what it is in the end. From director Kim Jee-woon, 'Stand' is an entertaining, well-done action movie that's cheesy and goofy, blending some fun characters with one-liners, lots of bloody action and a straightforward good guys vs. bad guys premise. It isn't interested in rewriting the genre, and that's fine. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of last year's 2 Guns, a type of crime action movie that was really popular in the 1970s, especially with the U.S./Mexico border setting. Just enjoy it. Don't overthink it.

Schwarzenegger!!! It's fun to see one of Hollywood's all-time great action stars getting back to business. I got a taste of his return in Escape Plan (his parts in the Expendables are cameos as part of an ensemble, nothing more), but this is where it's at, the Governator in a lead role. Working off a script from Andrew Knauer, Schwarzenegger makes it look easy, even effortless, but he's always got that energy for the action. In other words, there's never a sense that he is phoning it in. Sure, the script has some fun with the 67-year old action star, but it's all in good fun. My favorite? "Sheriff, how are you?" to which Towns answers "Old" having crashed through a window. His backstory is handled in a quick explanatory scene, giving some depth to the small town country sheriff that's pretty familiar in action movies. How does Andy Taylor, um, uh....Arnold Schwarzenegger respond? With a whole lot of shootouts, gunfights and knock-down fist fights, as we've come to expect.

Who else to watch out for? Whitaker does his best as the city boy, the FBI agent who doesn't think a country sheriff could possibly know what he's talking about....even though the polished FBI agent just let a death row prisoner escape. Whitaker disappears in the second half as the action escalates, reappearing late. Johnny Knoxville has the comedic relief as Lewis Dinkum, the town kook with a warehouse full of guns, a part that's just right, not overused or overdone. Jaimie Alexander and Luiz Guzman are Towns' deputies, Rodrigo Santoro playing a town resident who teams up with the crew for the fight. Noriega is a more than worthy villain, his Cortez dripping with intensity and absolutely no fear, Genesis Rodriguez his "unwilling hostage." And because every cartel villain needs an over the top henchman, we get Peter Stormare as Burrell, the leader of the ex-military setting the ground work for Cortez's escape over the border. Also, look for Hollywood veteran and great character actor Harry Dean Stanton in a small uncredited part early.

With a movie that clocks in at 107 minutes, we're never long in between action scenes (and take away 6, 7 minutes for a long credit sequence). Cortez's escape is a good start -- reminding me somewhat of 2003's S.W.A.T. -- as the FBI scrambles to get him back. The highlight comes at the hour-mark, Cortez's advance crew descending on Sommerton where Towns and his deputies are waiting. It's entertaining and bloody and all over the place, bad guys dispatched with a head shot and a cool one-liner. Towns' entrance into the shootout is pretty epic too, Santoro driving a school bus, Schwarzenegger and Knoxville in the back with a seemingly ancient Vickers machine gun. The action is almost non-stop, but it's basically one sequence on top of another over the last hour. The finale between Towns and Cortez at the border is a whopper too, preceded by an epic car chase through a cornfield because....well, because car chases are cool.

Just a fun movie with some familiar touches, even the 1959 classic Rio Bravo. Sit back and enjoy it, welcoming back Aaaahnold.

The Last Stand (2013): ***/****

Escape Plan

The 1980s and much of the 1990s were the Age of the Overblown, Dumb, Mindless Action Movies, stars like Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Dolph Lundgren and others dominating the genre. The action genre has changed a ton in the years since, but the stars are still there, including two of the biggest stars who reunite in 2013's Escape Plan.

A former lawyer turned specialist, Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone) is the best in the business. That business? He's inserted into federal penitentiaries and maximum security prisons as a prisoner at large, no one aware of his identity, and devises a way to escape. Breslin has no equals, doing the job for years and helping to improve overall security, earning himself quite the reputation over the years. His reputation has gotten him quite the job offer, a $5 million payday if he can escape from a new, state-of-the-art prison facility that has been deemed 'impossible to escape' from. The background seems a little shaky, but Ray takes the job only to find out he's been duped once he's inside the prison. The warden, Hobbes (Jim Caviezel), has no intention of even giving him a chance to escape, leaving Ray in an impossible situation. His possible out? Help from a fellow prisoner, Rottmayer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who desperately wants out.

Action movies can't just be action movies anymore, can they? They have to do something different, out of left field, desperately trying to rewrite the genre. Is there anything wrong with a throwback to the 1980s/1990s when it was acceptable for an action movie to have really cool good guys, really despicable bad guys and a lot of mindless fight scenes with some stupid one-liners along the way. That's the formula director Mikael Hafstrom follows in this action flick that earned over $137 million in theaters. Is it particularly good? No, not especially, but if absolutely nothing else, it is refreshing to see a movie like this. Too bad it wasn't better, some really fun, solid moments lost in mostly mediocre moments in a too-long 115-minute long flick.

Come on now. The reasoning I'm guessing 99% of movie fans sought this movie out was the pairing of two of the all-time great action icons, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. We're talking Rambo and the Terminator, side by side and pissed at the world. It's the pairing that fans wanted to see for years in the 80s and 90s, finally getting a taste of it with the two Expendables movies. There is a certain cheeseball charm to this pairing of Stallone and Schwarzenegger, screenwriters Miles Chapman and Jason Keller's script giving them plenty of chances to bust each other, make fun of each other and basically argue about anything and everything. It isn't anything that's going to strain any brain activity, but it's fun. Any scene where the duo is together is automatically better just because they're there. They have an easygoing chemistry that reflects two old friends, Stallone the smart-ass straight man, Schwarzenegger the funner, livelier part. Whether it's 1984, 1994 or 2014, it's cool to see these two action icons working together in lead roles.

I wish I could say the same for the rest of the cast. The script's goal is to give Stallone and Schwarzenegger a premise to work with....and that's about it. There's no real development anywhere else. Good = good, bad = bad, and Vincent D'Onofrio = bad because well, it's Vincent D'Onofrio. I don't consider that a spoiler so deal with it. It's cool seeing Jesus himself, um, uh, Caviezel in a bad guy role, hamming it up with steely eyes and a pristine black suit, but we know nothing about him. How'd he end up as warden of a corrupt prison like this? Vinnie Jones plays his enforcer, Drake. Faran Tahir tries to avoid stereotypes as much as possible as Javed, a Muslim prisoner who hates Breslin but may have to work with him to escape. Along with D'Onofrio, Amy Ryan and 50 Cent are Breslin's partners and business associates, wondering if they've stumbled into something surprising. Oh, and Sam Neill is cool because he's Sam Neill.

There was potential here, but moments along the way help derail the story. The script is obsessed with giving Sly and Arnie as many stupid, forced one-liners as humanly possible. I figure they're going for laughs, but the jokes and lines fell short for me. The premise is cool, no doubt about it, an inescapable, perfectly built prison that no one can get out of, and let me tell you, there's a good twist about where exactly that prison is. There's an even bigger twist in the finale that does work in some ways, but again, it feels like such an effort was made to trick the audience and pull the rug out from under us that it loses most of its impact. It's not painfully bad, but it's not as good as I'm sure it was intended.

So what are we left with? Mostly a pairing of Stallone and Schwarzenegger. The action is kept on the backburner until the last 30 minutes, definitely the most enjoyable part of the movie. It's got all those cliches we've come to expect from an action movie, slow motion bullets, bad guys with insanely bad aim, heroes with amazingly good aim, and all those little touches that look ridiculous...in a fun way. A meh movie if there ever was unfortunately.

Escape Plan (2013): **/****

Jingle All the Way

There are movies you watch as a kid and just eat it up. You love it for all its fun and goofiness, not needing to analyze it or think about it too much. That's a job years later for Older You. It's that dreaded movie phenomenon, revisiting a movie you loved as a kid and seeing it through adult eyes. This week's entry, 1996's Jingle All the Way.

It's just a few days until Christmas and Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is in trouble. Running his own business, his home and family life has suffered, his son, Jamie (Jake Lloyd), especially upset because his Dad missed his latest karate performance. How to make up for this slight? Why with toys of course! Jamie wants nothing more than a Turbo Man action figure, the hottest toy around for this Christmas season. Howard thinks nothing of it, telling his son that he'll have one Christmas morning except there's a problem. He was supposed to pick one up weeks ago, and now on Christmas Eve, Turbo Man is sold out....well, everywhere. What to do? Howard hits the streets with no time to spare, vowing to Jamie and himself that he'll get a Turbo Man no matter what it takes. Can he somehow, some way find one though? He's got his work cut out for him.

I must have been a weird kid or something. Yeah, I knew that, nothing new there. While I love Christmas -- still do -- I must have been the right age at different points growing up because I never begged my parents for Tickle Me Elmo, Power Rangers, Ferbies, assorted video game systems for Christmas presents. Every year though the news reports about that one toy that every kid WANTS, NEEDS and SHOULD have. These new reports are typically followed by video clips of parents beating each other, arguing and fighting, stomping over each other to get to that last toy on the shelf. That's clearly what this 1990s comedy is having some fun with, poking and jabbing at how ridiculous Christmas can be. It's become too commercialized, and it gets a little worse with each passing holiday season.

Enough of that, let's move on. All those things about greed and capitalism and the commercialization of the Christmas season are one thing, but this isn't that smart, that deep a movie. It cracks me up to read reviews that praise this X-Mas comedy as an ahead of its time satire that wants to deliver a message. Yeah, about that....just N-O. This is a fun, stupid and at times in pretty poor taste comedy. I still like/love it because of all that badness, because I still remember seeing it in theaters with my Dad and my sister growing up. Watching it through 28-year old eyes as opposed to 12-year old eyes, it didn't resonate as well, the bad qualities starting to reveal itself far more than I remembered. Is it still good? You bet, but it's most definitely a guilty pleasure. 'Jingle' benefits from some on-location shooting in Minneapolis and the Mall of America and a Christmas Eve story is still a good jumping off point. As well, a Christmas-themed soundtrack adds to the atmosphere.

Seriously though, I mean come on. Arnold Schwarzenegger!!! This is an amazing performance from one of Hollywood's greatest action heroes. And you know what Hollywood was screaming for? A screwball comedy about an overworked Dad (with a heavy, heavy accent) who's slowly losing his mind. I'll give him credit where it's due. Schwarzenegger freaking commits to this part. It's still really easy to have some fun with him and his overacting, but it would have been a truly bad movie if he half-assed it. There's too many quality moments here to mention from Arnie's Howard pretending to be a ninja with his son, fighting a bunch of con men Santas with an immense candy cane, chasing a young girl down because she has a bouncy ball that could be his key to winning a Turbo Man, basically one thing after another slowly chipping away at his mental state. Making it worse? He keeps running into, working with and working against a similarly pissed off mailman, Myron (Sinbad), similarly searching for a Turbo Man for his son.

The story focuses on Schwarzenegger's toy adventures, following him from stores and malls to black market warehouses, radio stations to back home and everywhere in between. It's a story that certainly covers a lot of ground in its 89-minute running time. Who else to look for in a smallish ensemble? Phil Hartman as Ted, the Langston's seemingly perfect neighbor and a single Dad, Rita Wilson as Howard's wife, Liz, Robert Conrad as a police officer who keeps running into Howard, Martin Mull as a radio DJ who gets the misfortune of meeting Howard and Myron, and even Jim Belushi as the leader of the group of Santa Clause con men with his black market elves.

Maybe what I took away from 'Jingle' this time around is why people think this is an ahead of its time satirical comedy. It's really surprisingly dark at times. It's hinted that Hartman's Ted is basically sleeping with all of the neighborhood wives, with Wilson's Liz hopefully next up on the list. At one point, Sinbad's Myron pretends a package he's carrying is a bomb....except it's actually a bomb. At one point, a little person (Verne Troyer I believe) gets punched across a warehouse like a rag doll. By the end when Howard is using a jet pack that actually works and fighting a now-deranged Myron, it becomes almost surreal. A different movie than the one I remember watching as a kid, but still a decent flick.

Jingle All the Way (1996): ** 1/2 /****

The Expendables 2

I watched 2010's The Expendables all the while knowing I wasn't watching a good movie. Did I enjoy it? Yes, but it had massive flaws and issues that I was barely....barely....able to look past. Well, either I'm a glutton for punishment or just forgetful because I had to give the sequel, 2012's The Expendables 2, a shot. Rather than repeat and rewrite the original review (and trust me, I could), I'll give this one a shot. It's basically the same movie, but I liked it more.

Having completed a mission to rescue a hostage in Nepal, mercenaries Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), his right-hand man Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), and their crew of specialists return to New Orleans to celebrate a successful mission and prep for their next one. Ross though is approached -- and basically blackmailed -- by Church (Bruce Willis), a mysterious CIA agent who Ross knows well from his past. The mission? Ross and his team must head to Albania and recover something from a downed plane. Now what that object is, Ross isn't told, only that he'll have someone along for the ride, Maggie (Nan Yu), to help accomplish the mission. It seems and sounds like a simple grab and bag job, but deep in enemy territory, anything could happen.

Here we are again. The make or break part of the review. The complaints/compliments I'm going to throw out there now come down to one simple thing; do you like-to-love action movies? If you even remotely like action movies, you should find something enjoyable about this....at least a little. From director Simon West, '2' improves on the formula laid out in the first one (for the most part). Assemble a ridiculous amount of action stars, give them lots of cool one-liners and lots of people to kill/maim/shoot/stab on a ridiculous mission. To its credit, '2' is more self-assured it knows what it's doing. The crazy amounts of action are still there on top of some more humor -- more on that humor later. It's the same more, but I enjoyed this one more than the first shoot 'em up flick.

What was never in question is the casting here. Still chugging along as a believable action star at 66 years old, Stallone is and always will be a badass. His Barney Ross is that requisite tough group leader, burned and warped for years by the death around him and the suicidal life he leads. Statham is once again, a great sidekick. The two bitch and moan at each other, reflecting a partnership that goes back for years. It seems in all his movies Stallone knows what his fans want to see, and he doesn't disappoint. Filling out Ross' team is returnees Jet Li (making basically a cameo), Randy Couture, and Terry Crews. Also returning from the first one and given more of a role is Dolph Lundgren with newcomer Liam Hemsworth joining the team as Billy the Kid, a disillusioned Army sniper. As more and more bigger names join the cast, Couture and Crews are given little to do and left in the background, but Lundgren and Hemsworth both represent themselves well.

Putting these movies together though, Stallone's goal has been to assemble any and all action stars. Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger return as Church and Trench, fellow personalities in the mercenary/espionage underworld, with both stars getting more screen-time and more to do. One of the huge names in action movies in the 1980s and 1990s, Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a villain named....Vilain (pretty original, huh?), an Eastern European hired killer with a gang of killers, the Sangs. Not enough? Chuck Norris....yes, CHUCK NORRIS....plays Booker, a loner mercenary content to work by himself but helping out the Expendables as needed. Scott Adkins plays Hector, Vilain's brutal right hand man while Yu holds her own in the testosterone-fueled action pic.

So what stops this ridiculously action-packed movie from being the classic that it wants? As was the case with the first movie, there's just something missing. I can't put my finger on it. In an attempt to craft a story full of action, badass characters and funny one-liners, everything else gets left by the wayside. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. Scenes lack any sort of transitions, bouncing from one location to the next without even an establishing shot or two. Oh, the story stalls? Enter Norris, Willis or Schwarzenegger out of nowhere, no explanation provided. The music score is anything but subtle and far from memorable. It's fun from the start, but several reviews point this out. An action movie doesn't have to be HUGE, but some scale certainly helps. Both Expendables movies are missing that scale. At times, it even feels like a straight-to-DVD action flick, and that's never a good comparison for any theatrical release.

More than that though, '2' feels rushed, much like the first film did. It clocks in at 103 minutes, but if you take away a 10-minute credits sequence, it's just 93 minutes long. Deep on story it is not, but in just over an hour and a half, this film covers a lot of ground. Yes, I know an action movie like this isn't going to be Shakespeare, but slow down even just a little. And then there's that script. It just has too many references to previous movies the cast has been in. We get it, Arnold was the Terminator, Bruce was in Die Hard, and Norris was in Lone Wolf McQuade. For goodness sake, there's even a Chuck Norris Fact dropped during his introduction. Humor is one thing, some clever references another, but one after another becomes downright tedious and even annoying.

Now if you're still reading, you must sorta like action movies....kinda, maybe, I could be wrong. The action here is pretty cool, and thankfully, director West doesn't utilize the ultra-schizo technique used in the Bourne movies. For the most part, we see the action. All the cliches/stereotypes are there. We've got small armies of bad guys who can't hit the broad side of a barn, the heroes who can hit every single thing they aim at, and so on and so forth. It's a pretty good movie, just know that it's mindless entertainment at its best, nothing else.    

The Expendables 2 (2012): ***/****

The Expendables

For several years, the Hollywood rumor mill turned out rumors and reports one after another about an epic action movie meant to be a throwback to the mindless, popcorn entertainment of the 1980s. It was supposed to reunite basically every great action star in a movie that would blow the cast away from every other movie out of the water. No one was going to stop this behemoth, and it would be a modern classic to rival all action movies. So what happened? Names were attached and let go, things change, but by 2010, the movie was finished and released. What movie? The Expendables.

Director and star Sylvester Stallone has been a fan favorite among audiences since he made Rocky Balboa a household name, and criticize him for whatever you want, the man knows what audiences want to see. The Expendables is a prime example, an action-heavy story with cool settings, cooler characters, some impressive hand to hand combat, and in general a sense, an awareness of how cool the whole thing is. So while I liked this movie, I can't help but feel disappointed in some ways.  It is entertaining. It is a lot of fun. But even a couple days later, something was missing that I just can't put my finger on. Still, the action is solid, and the cast impressive no matter how many bigger names dropped out.

After pulling off a successful hostage rescue on the high seas, veteran mercenary and very talented Barney Ross (Stallone) is approached by a shady, mysterious operator, Church (Bruce Willis), with a new proposition for Barney and his team. The mission is dangerous and maybe even suicidal, but the pay-off will be huge. Barney and his team must sneak onto a small South American island and assassinate the brutal dictator who has taken over with his small army.  The odds are impossibly stacked against them as Barney's Expendables will have to take on a small army of soldiers and security. But as they scout out the mission, Barney finds out there's more going on than is being told to them. A former CIA agent (Eric Roberts) is pulling the strings on the island. What have they gotten themselves into? Do they accept the mission, risking almost certain death?

From the first time I heard about this movie a few years back, I was psyched. A men-on-a-mission movie with a cast jam-packed with action stars of the past decades? Count me in. Joining Stallone's team are right-hand man and throwing knife master Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), martial arts expert Yin Yang (Jet Li), rough and ready brawler Toll Road (MMA fighter Randy Couture), and muscle-headed, shotgun-wielding Caesar (Terry Crews). As cool as this group is though, beyond Stallone and Statham, the other three are wasted. They're introduced, disappear, and then reappear at the end for the last suicidal mission. Helping the cause is that Stallone and Statham are perfectly cast alongside each other, throwing one-liners left and right, bitching and moaning like an old married couple. So it's good and bad with the chance for more there.

What's disappointing more than the lack of screen-time for the other three are the actors who weren't cast. Now were these names ever seriously attached to the project? Who knows, but in pre-production when all the rumors were being leaked, names like Chuck Norris, Willis, Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Arnold Schwarzenegger were all mentioned.  One by one, they seemed to drop out, Willis and the Governator eventually taking small cameo parts. I don't even know how it all would have worked, but I would have loved to see the attempt. It's hard to judge a movie based on what could have been, but this movie was in the news so much, it's nearly impossible not to think of the potential here.

Making this movie, Stallone promised action, action, and more action.  You get it here, and he wasn't kidding. I didn't time this or anything, but I'd wager no more than five minutes goes by in between action sequences.  Gun fights, vicious hand to hand combat, aerial attacks (Statham in badass mode there), car chases, gigantic explosions, The Expendables has it all. My question, and I'll pause here...is it too much action? It's non-stop fun, no question about that. But it gets repetitive. How many times can you see Statham throw a knife into someone's throat/chest? The hand to hand scenes also have a case of Jason Bourne editing, sequences cut so quickly it's hard to keep up. A showdown between quick, agile Li vs. big, brawling Dolph Lundgren should have been epic, but you can barely see what's going on. For the most part, it's all good. But when it's bad, the action trends toward that horrific editing that ruins what you're actually seeing.

I get it. I understand the appeal of those mindless action movies. They're great. No thinking required, just enjoy.  But at 103 minutes (and take away 7 or 8 more for the end credits), the movie is just too short. It feels rushed like Stallone did not know what to do in between action scenes. With this good of a cast, explore the background more of these mercenaries, and hell, even the bad guys. Oh, stereotypical evil, scorned CIA agent gone rogue? Why, what else? How'd this team get together? Even better, some quick scenes explore the mindset of these hired killers. Are they fated to die horrifically in combat? Can anything save them? What drives them to do this, the adrenaline rush, or are they just good at it? I'm not talking a deep, involved look at the mind of a mercenary that sacrifices the action. I'm just looking for a good mix of both, still clocking in at around 2 hours. Is that too much to ask?

Even with all the names mentioned above, that's about half of all the names worth mentioning.  Mickey Rourke is underused but still is a scene-stealer as Tool, a former member of the team and now their contact who hooks them up with assignments. Roberts is Roberts as evil CIA agent, a part he plays to smarmy, slimy perfection. Former wrestler Steve Austin is Roberts' main henchman, looking tough and growling as necessary. Willis and Schwarzenegger are wasted completely, but it's a cool, one-scene appearance. Giselle Itie is the ridiculously gorgeous eye candy, the Expendables' link on the island.

So as I read back over this, I'm seeing how negative this review sounds.  There are flaws here, big flaws you could drive a truck through. But for all my complaints, I can't think of one good reason not to watch this movie. If you like action and some dark humor, you are going to like this movie. Stallone and Statham were the main reasons, but The Expendables is just too fun to pass up. Besides, you don't want to be behind when the rumored sequel comes out in a couple years.

The Expendables <---trailer (2010): ***/****