The Expendables (2010)

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I don't think I have ever seen a more anticipated action movie than this one, with the piles of youtube videos and trailers clocking millions of views.  It seemed to almost drop off the face of the earth when it actually hit the big screen though. I didn't hear anything about it until recently when I found out it was being released next week.  With an all star cast like this, how could they screw it up? 

The story is...definitely not the focus here.  Some crazy ass dictator is causing all sorts of trouble for the peaceful inhabitants of a non existent island somewhere in South America.  "The Expendables", a legendary crew of (aging) mercenaries are called in to deal with the issue directly using all sorts of fun explosives and high powered weaponry. 

I am a huge fan of well done action movies, but it can't be "copied" action.  There has to at least be an interesting arch villain or new movie mechanic that makes things actually interesting.  A good example of this is "Shoot em' up", where they focus on making everything as over the top and unrealistic as possible;  this is perfect.  The Expendables on the other hand doesn't really pull anything off that any action fan hasn't already seen done countless times.  You have your gun fights, your plane fights, and your close quarters combat fights.  It definitely does a great job with these encounters, but it seems to be banking way too much on the fact that it dropped a few extra million to recruit a bunch of tired old actors into the mix.  Some of them were great in their hay day, but they were never amazing actors, and they didn't improve at all with age. 

I know I'm going to get all sorts of crap from some people for not thinking this was the greatest movie of all time, but in all honesty it just wasn't as epic as I expected it to be.  If you really need your Stallone or  Schwarzenegger fix, you might want to consider picking up Rocky or Terminator instead.  But if you desperately need to see them in a new movie, this is a reasonably average action film that is pretty entertaining, but isn't setting any new boundaries.

The Expendables gets a 3/5 for making me hope that "Red" pulls off the "invite all the stars for an action movie" formula off better. 

Release Dates
Blockbuster: November 23, 2010
Red Box: November 23, 2010

Comments

  1. iammyselfNovember 22, 2010 at 2:12 PM

    this movie was pretty random i couldn't take it too seriously

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 22, 2010 at 2:52 PM

    I avoid many "invite all actor" movies cause it seems too much like a gimmick

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownNovember 22, 2010 at 10:01 PM

    I'd say a 2/5 lol. There are movies that you can loose yourself and think that could be real, but this movie is so bad, I couldn't finish it... =(

    ReplyDelete

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