Thanks for checking out our The Expendables Review
Genre: Action/Adventure/Thriller
Directed by: Sylvester Stallone
Staring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Mickey Rourke and Terry Crews
Released: August 13, 2010
THE GENERAL IDEA
A team of elite, highly-trained mercenaries known as The Expendables are sent into South America to overthrow a ruthless cold-blooded dictator. But once the mission begins, they discover a plot far more sinister than they were led to believe. With innocent lives in the balance, The Expendables are forced to take on an even more difficult challenge.
THE GOOD
The star of the film is the action. Stallone promised it, and he delivered in every possible way. From car chases to C4 explosions, I myself was so pumped up at the action scenes, that mostly all of my popcorn ended up on the floor. I’m not kidding, Stallone basically slaps you in the face and tells you “Hey boy, this is how we did it back in the day; and yes, we still can do this shit if we wanted to!” Boom, boom, boom!
Another highlight for me was that with such a crowded cast of action stars, Stallone did a pretty good job of balancing the parts for each character. Each star gets the opportunity to contribute to film by acting and kicking ass in their own way. I particularly liked Eric Roberts on this one; it’s been a while, but he nailed this one.
The amount of ammo wasted, and the body count at the end of the film is insane!
THE BAD
The plot is of course, ridiculous; but for this type of movie, that’s ok. Each time they went into mission, the guys simply had no plan. For the whole movie, it was just simply “hey, we’ve got 20 minutes to kill and blow everything”. When the action scenes end, it’s where Stallone strays a little bit by trying to make this bunch of guys have hearts and souls. During some spots, we get some side plots that maybe weren’t necessary. But I do understand what Stallone was trying to do here; and I appreciate it. It’s something that he did in both the last Rocky and Rambo films.
Also, something that took me out of the film about 2 or 3 times, was the fake cgi sprays of blood. Mostly it goes undetected, but in some spots one can notice this. Although it doesn’t bother me at all in the end, it’s quite weird at times.
OVERALL
In general, The Expendables is pretty awesome. It’s a great, action B-movie in all it’s glory. I thought Stallone delivered big time on the 80s/90s style action, and that all of the personalities clicked and shined in a well balanced way. The actions scenes were great, the fighting and stunts were insane, and the camera angles were comfortable. Although it dragged in the emotional parts and wasted time on some unnecessary side plots, the movie ends up being what everyone expected: Big actions stars fighting big bad guys, with big fists and big guns. Bring on The Expendables 2!
I give The Expendables a 7.5 out of 10
