Features > Movie Reviews > The Expendables…

Sylvester Stallone got away with bringing back Rocky in his sixties. And he even had a credible stab at resurrecting Rambo. But in shooting for a hat-trick he’s finally over-stepped. This all-star action hero reunion is a sad, bad affair, an untimely reminder of just how ropey most of those 1980s Cannon-fodder flicks really were.

Too young to remember Cannon? That was the Israeli upstart company, a kind of 80s precursor to Miramax, who came out of nowhere and made a killing on the new home video market before the Hollywood studios woke up to its potential. Led by Golan and Globus, Cannon made sensational deals with a few high profile film artists like Godard and Cassavetes, but mostly they churned out cheap and cheerless action movies, including a couple with Sylvester Stallone: Over the Top and Cobra.

The Expendables is so much in that mould it’s almost as if Stallone wanted to make a Black Dynamite style spoof – but humour has never been his strong point and there is absolutely no evidence that he intended this to be tongue in cheek.

Maybe he’s right at that. You look at The A-Team, and the thick layer of irony that glosses over the action is quite numbing. But that doesn’t absolve him of making such a dull thud of a movie. Hopes that The Expendables would be, if not of Inglourious Basterds caliber (dream on!), then at least in the general vicinity of The Guns of Navarone… well, they’re very wide of the mark.

Stallone (who stars, cowrote and directed) has assembled easily the beefiest cast in this year of the mercenary: Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, WWF champion Steve Austin, NFL defensive end Terry Crews, British kickboxer Gary Daniels, UFC champion Randy Couture, and (not beefy but wiry) martial artist Jet Li.

Add in cameos by Bruce Willis and a certain ex weightlifter you may recognise, and you can understand why there is high anticipation for this movie in some quarters.

Stallone even has the balls to cast ex-boxer and kamikaze careerist Mickey Rourke as a tattoo artist named “Tool”.

In short, it’s not short of muscle – even if the average age of this little lot is probably 55. Too bad the script seems to be of the same vintage. 

There isn’t much to it, so I’ll just give you the nutshell version: Stallone and his mercenary crew (mostly Jason Statham, but also Jet Li, Crews and Austin) are hired to overthrow a corrupt Caribbean general who is ruthlessly suppressing his people after being bought off by a Yankee capitalist. (By my count, the year’s fourth rogue CIA bad guy.)

Vilena isn’t a big country – just a small island. But the local army has plenty of firepower, and when Stallone and Statham mount a reconnaissance operation it’s soon clear they’d be lucky to come out of this job alive. But by then Sly has met Sandra (Giselle Itie), a revolutionary who also happens to be the Generalissimo’s daughter, and he’s infected by her passion (no, not that kind of passion!).

This is silly stuff, The Wild Bunch for dummies, and Stallone brings no grace or style to it. The action is the worst kind of all guns blazing chaos and confusion. There’s no suspense or even spectacle; Ben Stiller pulled off more excitement in Tropic Thunder.

Looking for positives, there is some academic interest in seeing Jet Li (5’6) take on Dolph Lundgren (6’5). I liked the team’s plane, a WWII style float plane bomber. It’s always fun watching Mickey Rourke slip the scene in his back pocket, and his one-time costar Eric Roberts does a good job as the heavy. But don’t believe the hype, this may be a big name cast, but all of these guys have made their share of duds in the past, and sad to say they’ve combined to make a giant belly flop here.