DEMOLITION MEN
The Expendables
*1/2
Review by Paul Preston
“It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
– “Macbeth” (Just wanted to quote Shakespeare in a Stallone review)
SO much machismo is being blustered around the screen in “The Expendables”, the real expendable here is the audience. We really don’t need to be present during this movie. As much as it looks like a movie “made for fans”, no one in the movie is really having any fun, and neither was I as a result. The tone is morose, the plot is unnecessarily complicated, it’s all the setup for a great ‘80s movie bogged down by the style-over-substance requirements of the 2010s action movie formula.
Early in the film, a man’s torso is blown OFF OF HIS WAIST, leaving his legs and feet standing there where the rest of his body was moments ago. Was there a doubt you weren’t sure what kind of movie “The Expendables” was going to be? If so, that moment killed all doubt. Sylvester Stallone, his skin tautly holding his insides together and always seeming to wear his hair or a beret as a hat, leads a team of protein-powder junkies on a killing spree through South America to de-throne a dictator.
I really wanted to like this movie. With this childhood-memory-inducing cast of meat, how could you not? But none of it is engrossing somehow, and no star looks as comfortable here as they do in their own vehicles. Jet Li isn’t often understandable, reminding us why his dialogue was limited in “Lethal Weapon 4”. Steve Austin practices that “say little and kick ass much” mantra and comes off better. Dolph Lundgren, perhaps the ‘80s leftover who looks the best, is mired in a double-cross plot that has about the same weight and interest as Mac’s does in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”. Who’s Mac, you say? Exactly.
Jason Statham fares pretty well here, but if “The Transporter” has taught me anything, he needs to do his own thing. He has a certain set of rules he abides by, he shouldn’t team up with anyone. Mickey Rourke is wise enough to get a great monologue in the mix about “the horror” of war, as if to say “Let’s remember, I’m fresh off an Oscar nod and am in no hurry to appear in the ‘Double Team’ sequel”. Unfortunately, a lack of exciting individual characteristics leaves Randy Couture and Terry Crews being merely serviceable.
The fight scenes aren’t staged particularly well, either, and are mostly over-compensated for with bludgeoning sound effects and fast-cut editing. This film and “Rambo” have this belief that shooting lots of people is enough. Action has evolved, Sly. After the complexity of “The Dark Knight”, the intricacy of “The Matrix” and the heroic consequences of “Spider-Man 2”, watching John Rambo spend the last ten minutes of “Rambo” mowing people down with a high-powered machine gun was dull. One big setpiece in “The Expendables” has Stallone and Statham approaching the bad guys in a plane, and then shooting them all. Dull. Give me more, Sly, ‘cause if you don’t, Christopher Nolan will.
Directed by: Sylvester Stallone
Release Date: August 13, 2010
Run Time: 103 Minutes
Country: USA
Rated: R
Distributor: Millenium Films
