The Expendables Movie Review, The Expendables Cast, The Expendables Movie Trailer

The Expendables Movie Review, The Expendables Cast, The Expendables Movie Trailer
 

The Expendables Movie Cast
Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, David Zayas, Giselle Itié, Charisma Carpenter, Gary Daniels, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke, Hank Amos, Amin Joseph.

The Expendables Movie Review

 
The Expendables Movie, actually a sloppy affair with innumerable explosions, unfortunately all mounting to all smoke and no fire.
After all the film is directed by action super star Sylvester Stallone and is probably the only film which has the biggest of action heroes all in one film! And no prizes to guess what happens when you have a battalion of action superstars sharing the screen space. The film is expected to set the screen on fire and The Expendables literally does though there is no heat to that fire.
Stallone delivers what his loyal fans would ideally expect from him and his ‘action’ film – loads of gunfire, explosions and killings. However, lack of an original plot makes it all look futile.
Many would say an action film works as long as the stunts are entertaining so why even consider the plot? But, Stallone’s ambitious project doesn’t even delve into offering imaginative fight sequences. What you see onscreen is something you must have already seen for like a billion times before thus making his film look dated. It might have clicked with the audiences had it been released in the 80’s.
The Expendables sees Stallone flex his iconic muscles yet again and this time not alone. The superstar ropes in action heavy- weightsJet Li, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke (to name a few) in an attempt to treat his fans with an overdose of unadulterated action which he does deliver although in a highly clichéd & formulaic way.
Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) heads a team of good mercenaries comprising of Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Tool (Mickey Rourke), Bao Thao (Jet Li), Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) and Toll Road (Randy Couture). They call themselves ‘The Expendables’.
FBI approaches the gang to undertake the mission of overthrowing the cruel regime of Saddam Hussain-esque South American dictator Gen. Garza. How they go about doing it forms the story.
As mentioned earlier, in spite of having a stellar cast, ‘The Expendables’ fails to hold your interest, thanks to its sheer conventionalism.The film has nothing new to offer. The story is highly predictable as Stallone strictly sticks to the 80’s formulas on how to make a ‘good action film’.
For instance, to project how ‘heroic’ his fellow mercenaries are, he makes Jason Statham punch the man to death who physically abuses his ex-girlfriend, in a scene which seems simply irrelevant and unnecessary in the film’s story. There are many such scenes and many more irrelevant characters which come out of no where thus simply stretching the film for no rhyme or reason.
The attraction Barney has for Gen. Garza’s feisty daughter Sandra seems totally out of place.
Most of the actors are wasted and the ones who do get prominence get nothing new to do. Mickey Rourke plays a tattoo artist who appears for few minutes, WWE star Stone Cold aka Steve Austin gets the least number of dialogues. Gen Garza is a character that needs to be frightful but David Zayas as the General leaves no impact, nor does bad CIA agent Monroe played by Eric Roberts.
The art direction is so poor that the country Gen Garza rules looks like a studio set and so does the Gen’s palatial house. The accents of the South American people sound put on and no detailing goes into achieving any sort of authenticity to the overall look and feel ofthe film.
The only positive thing about The Expendables is the banter that the groupies exchange with each other once in a while. Best of the lot being the conversation between arch rivals in their heydays Arnold Schwarzenegger andSylvester Stallone . Sylvester even taunts Arnold (in guest appearance) on how he is more interested in being ‘the president’. This scene entertains more than the entire film put together.
The script too has various loopholes. It makes the opposition party, (the bad guys) look like a bunch of jokers with absolutely no powers. When The Expendables conquer the Gen, their task seems like a cakewalk.