The Expendables: ... (So bad I'm speechless but just for the title)
So a few years ago when my friend told me about "The Expendables" in a Wendy's late one night over value frosties and fries, I was really excited about it. Back then not a single thing was known about the plot but the speculative cast includes many of my favorite action stars including Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren etc. That alone was enough to get me excited for it. Years later the movie has finally come to fruition and it honestly is one that should have been canceled because the concept of all these action stars in one film was way better than the actual product.
So let me start with the loosely cocherent plot. The movie centers around a group of mercenaries known as "the expendables." The group is led by Sylvester Stallone and includes, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, and at some points Dolph Lundgren (I don't use their character names because honestly they were barely mentioned and you know if you went to see this movie the characters don't mean anything. They simply serve as a vehicle for the mindless violence that ensues). The group gets a mission from Bruce Willis that sends them to an Island called Vilena where some rogue CIA agent is growing cocaine (you know it's some poor Spanish country so they have to grow cocaine) and has the local military dictator under his thumb. The group is sent there to kill either the general or the CIA agent I honestly wasn't sure. I think they were told to kill the general but Willis really wanted them to kill the CIA agent. But anyway that's the plot in a nutshell. Sound underwhelming or cliche? Well it is.
Time for everything I hated about the movie, which in this case actually happens to be everything. The dialogue in the movie was awful. It all felt old and contrived. It's like Stallone and Dave Callaham just watched a bunch of action movies and ripped off lines that sounded cool and used a thesaurus to change some words. It was boring. The story was barely coherent and every single character was one dimensional. Worst of all the movie took itself way too seriously. It was a summer action movie billed as such and yet they felt the need to just drag things out and try to expound on a barely existent plot. There were unnecessary attempts to make the characters seem interesting but every single instance falls flat. No one's back story is interesting and I honestly don't care. There was barely any action until well over and hour in. That's how pretentious and self serving this piece of garbage is. With a trailer like this. you would have expected just non stop action but boy was I wrong.
Even when the action scenes did come they were shot horribly. Many of them took place in dark areas where everyone wore dark colors so it was really hard to discern who was fighting whom. And to add to that confusion all the action sequences featured fast cuts to try to make things more exciting than they really were. So it was ever harder to figure out what was going on. It was really hard to care what was going on.
Not to mention every part of the movie was a cliche. Stallone is about to get killed and bam at the last minute his friends come through the ceiling of an underground tunnel (don't ask me how that happened). The real bad guy is a former government agent, how original... And the dictator is a sorta good guy and not the true bad guy. Oh wait one of the members of the expendables is a turn coat but it's cool man cause they're brothers in arms so they can still be friends. I almost had my mind blown by the originality of this movie.
If it isn't clear enough, this movie is awful. It is one of the few action movies that actually bored me nearly to tears. It was so boring that when I left the theater there was no adrenaline rush that made me feel like I could fight someone. Most action movies give me that feeling if even just a little. This time I just felt tired and grateful that it was over. If I were to ever walk out of a movie this would have been the one.
Usually I can find some redeeming quality in every movie. "The expendables" had none. The talent was completely underutilized. The action was boring and poorly shot. The dialogue and plot were cringe worthy. My friend put the reason for seeing this movie perfectly "I want to see this because it has all my favorite actors in it." The actors names are seriously the only thing this movie has going for it. There are hundreds of great action movies out there, this isn't one of them. If this is the type of garbage that "real men" are supposed to watch them please for the love of god take my man card away and cut it up.
So let me start with the loosely cocherent plot. The movie centers around a group of mercenaries known as "the expendables." The group is led by Sylvester Stallone and includes, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, and at some points Dolph Lundgren (I don't use their character names because honestly they were barely mentioned and you know if you went to see this movie the characters don't mean anything. They simply serve as a vehicle for the mindless violence that ensues). The group gets a mission from Bruce Willis that sends them to an Island called Vilena where some rogue CIA agent is growing cocaine (you know it's some poor Spanish country so they have to grow cocaine) and has the local military dictator under his thumb. The group is sent there to kill either the general or the CIA agent I honestly wasn't sure. I think they were told to kill the general but Willis really wanted them to kill the CIA agent. But anyway that's the plot in a nutshell. Sound underwhelming or cliche? Well it is.
Time for everything I hated about the movie, which in this case actually happens to be everything. The dialogue in the movie was awful. It all felt old and contrived. It's like Stallone and Dave Callaham just watched a bunch of action movies and ripped off lines that sounded cool and used a thesaurus to change some words. It was boring. The story was barely coherent and every single character was one dimensional. Worst of all the movie took itself way too seriously. It was a summer action movie billed as such and yet they felt the need to just drag things out and try to expound on a barely existent plot. There were unnecessary attempts to make the characters seem interesting but every single instance falls flat. No one's back story is interesting and I honestly don't care. There was barely any action until well over and hour in. That's how pretentious and self serving this piece of garbage is. With a trailer like this. you would have expected just non stop action but boy was I wrong.
Even when the action scenes did come they were shot horribly. Many of them took place in dark areas where everyone wore dark colors so it was really hard to discern who was fighting whom. And to add to that confusion all the action sequences featured fast cuts to try to make things more exciting than they really were. So it was ever harder to figure out what was going on. It was really hard to care what was going on.
Not to mention every part of the movie was a cliche. Stallone is about to get killed and bam at the last minute his friends come through the ceiling of an underground tunnel (don't ask me how that happened). The real bad guy is a former government agent, how original... And the dictator is a sorta good guy and not the true bad guy. Oh wait one of the members of the expendables is a turn coat but it's cool man cause they're brothers in arms so they can still be friends. I almost had my mind blown by the originality of this movie.
If it isn't clear enough, this movie is awful. It is one of the few action movies that actually bored me nearly to tears. It was so boring that when I left the theater there was no adrenaline rush that made me feel like I could fight someone. Most action movies give me that feeling if even just a little. This time I just felt tired and grateful that it was over. If I were to ever walk out of a movie this would have been the one.
Usually I can find some redeeming quality in every movie. "The expendables" had none. The talent was completely underutilized. The action was boring and poorly shot. The dialogue and plot were cringe worthy. My friend put the reason for seeing this movie perfectly "I want to see this because it has all my favorite actors in it." The actors names are seriously the only thing this movie has going for it. There are hundreds of great action movies out there, this isn't one of them. If this is the type of garbage that "real men" are supposed to watch them please for the love of god take my man card away and cut it up.
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