The Expendables Review

Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 08.13.2010

One of the most anticipated movies of the year, Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables, hits theaters today! But is it the explosive action hit we hoped for, or does it fail to live up to the hype? 411's Jeffrey Harris checks in with his full review!



Directed By: Sylvester Stallone
Written By: Dave Callaham and Sylvester Stallone
Runtime: 103 minutes
MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language.

Barney Ross - Sylvester Stallone
Lee Christmas - Jason Statham
Ying Yang - Jet Li
Gunner Jensen - Dolph Lundgren
Toll Road - Randy Couture
Hale Caesar - Terry Crews
James Monroe - Eric Roberts
Paine - Stone Cold Steve Austin
General Garza - David Zayas
Tool - Mickey Rourke
Sandra - Giselle Itié
Lacy - Charisma Carpenter
The Brit - Gary Daniels
Mr. Church - Bruce Willis
Trent - Governor Arnold Scwarzenegger

The Expendables are a group of the world's toughest mercenaries that will get the job done. They are made up of the toughest, manliest men of action in the entire freaking world. Well almost. The group, led by Barney Ross (Stallone), has to trim down after member Gunner (Lundgren) goes nutty on a rescue op saving hostages from some Somalian pirates. The drug-addled Gunner doesn't take it all too well. Later, Mr. Church (the impeccably cast Willis) takes up Ross and his old worst best friend Trent (Governor Schwarzenegger) for a job to take out the tyrannical General Garza (Zayas). Garza is running the drug trade on the island of Vilena south of the border. Ross accepts the gig from the shady Mr. Church and goes down to Vilena with Lee to do initial recon. Ross and Lee find that the island's drug trade is being turned over to rogue CIA operative, Munroe (Roberts), who is influencing the reluctant Garza with money. Ross and Lee realize the agency didn't give them the whole story. The duo fight their way off Vilena but not before leaving a little receipt with their custom cargo plane in one of the most awesome climactic action sequence money shots of all time.

Most of the dialogue in the movie is completely inane and ridiculous, but the actors seem completely aware of that and just go with it. The story is pretty basic and some scenes are a little silly and probably could've easily been cut from the film. For example, Lee Christmas has a girlfriend (Charisma Carpenter) who gets another guy while Lee is out merc'ing and is upset with Lee not opening up with her. The subplot and its eventual conclusion are otherwise rather pointless since we already know that Lee is a tough dude. If the idea is about building character, other members of the cast could've used a bit more fleshing out besides Lee. Ultimately, you just have to embrace the ridiculousness, sit back, relax, and enjoy what is essentially straight male pornography.

All the other characters are well cast between Jet Li as the height challenged Ying Yang who has an awesome fight scene with Lundgren, Stone Cold Steve Austin as Munroe's muscle Paine, and the greatest of all time The Natural Randy Couture as the group's whiney in-therapy intellectual Toll Road. Mickey Rourke appears as the group's secretary of sorts, Tool, who has one of the better dialogue/story scenes in the movie with Stallone that proves why Rourke should've been the one to get the Academy Award last year. Terry Crews appears to have the most marginal role in the group as Hale Caesar in a role that was probably originally written for a more notable actor. Hale Caesar does get one of the more awesome action beats in the movie though.

The action scenes are amazing. It's classic Hollywood beat 'em up, shoot 'em up, and blow 'em up action with some Cory Yuen martial arts choreography thrown in. The final battle is an orgy of straight male on male pornography at its absolute finest. There is a little digital trickery here and there, but it's nice to see some practical stunts and explosions in an action movie for once rather than the extreme amount of ridiculous and cartoony looking CGI such as in the movie The A-Team released earlier this summer.

In terms of gratuitous male testosterone, manly men of action, martial arts, brawling, extreme gory death, awesome gun shooting, and explosions, The Expendables delivers on every level.

The 411: If you are a man and do not see the movie, then you can not truly a man. The Expendables is quite possibly the last great manly men of action movie of all time. This is a straight up awesome badass male ensemble action movie. The Expendables is a return back to the manly men of action movies of old.

Final Score:  8.5   [ Very Good ]