Is The Expendables the manliest movie ever made? Perhaps, even if it’s not the manliest movie ever made, I am pretty sure it’s the manliest movie to hit theaters in the last 20 years. Sylvester Stallone delivers enough gunfights, explosions, and bone breaking fights to fill numerous action films. Stallone even broke his collarbone while filming and had surgery after the movie was completed. The question is, even with all the testosterone exploding all over the screen, is the movie actually any good? The honest answer is no, it really isn’t. Did I still like the movie? Yes, I did.
The screenplay (co-written by Stallone) is as thin as almost any 1980’s action film in which The Expendables pays homage to. Unless you are a big fan of classic 80’s films like Rambo, Missing In Action, American Ninja, and countless others. Then this movie is not for you. If you want to see some real tough guys blow stuff up, and not much else…then you will get your $10 worth with this movie.
Stallone plays Barney Ross, the leader of a group of mercenaries that call themselves The Expendables. You can tell that’s what they call themselves because they all have tattoos that say expendables. This group consists of Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Ying Yang (Jet Li), Toll Road (Randy Couture), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews, and yes he does at least one dance move in the movie), Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), and their friend/agent/tattoo artist Tool (Mickey Rourke)
The cookie cutter plot follows the mercenaries to an island in South America where they took a job to overthrow General Garza and also bring down former American agent and recent drug lord James Munroe (Eric Roberts). When Ross & Christmas first head to the island to scout out the situation, things go completely wrong and they have to flee the island, but they left behind their contact who also happens to be the general’s daughter. Ross’s main motivation in returning to the island is not to bring down the bad guys, but to rescue the girl, in order to save his own soul.
The Expendables is filled with some great action and nifty weapons. My favorite would be the automatic shotgun that’s Hale Caesar whips out in the final act of the movie. Every time he shot that beautiful thing off, the audience in the theater went ballistic.
Even though there are quite a few fight scenes, Stallone could have done a better job with some of the editing on a few of the fights. I felt unsatisfied with the Jet Li vs. Dolph Lundgren, and I thought that could have been really fun, especially with the huge size difference between the two actors. I also felt Eric Roberts missed the opportunity to really ham it up as the villain. My biggest problem with the movie is that most of these scenes which took place between the explosions and fights were just not that interesting.
Like I said before, if you are an action junkie, and grew up loving the Regan era action films as I did, then I can tell you to go have some fun with the Expendables. After the film make sure to grab yourself a nice big plate of steak and potatoes and let your testosterone fly.
By Marc Ferman
