The Expendables ***

Written by Dan Hudak |

The Expendables

Is it worth $10? Yes

“The Expendables” is spectacularly bad and spectacularly awesome at the same time. There’s no plot, the dialogue is terrible and the acting is on the level of professional wrestling. But oh what fun it is. Fist fights, car chases, knives flying everywhere, bigger, more powerful guns than you’ve ever imagined, explosions galore. “The Expendables” is crack for action movie junkies, and it left me high as kite.

What serves as the story involves Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and his team of mercenaries, the self-proclaimed “Expendables”: Knife expert Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), hand-to-hand combat specialist Yin Yang (Jet Li), long barrel weapons specialist Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), and demolitions expert Toll Road (Randy Couture). Sniper Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) is also part of the team, until he’s not. Then he is again. It’s going to become a college drinking game to take a swig every time Gunnar shifts allegiances.

The team is hired to go into a fictional South American country and remove a corrupt general (David Zayas) from power. Little does Ross know that former F.B.I. Agent James Munroe (Eric Roberts) is taking advantage of the general, and that Munroe has a bodyguard named Paine (Steve Austin) watching his back at all times. Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger also appear in one of the most testosterone-laden casts you’ll ever see.

Please pause for a moment to look at the names above, both the characters’ names and the actors. Clearly, “The Expendables” was made by and for meatheads who don’t want to think for 103 minutes, but do want to see decapitations and glorious, massive explosions. And if you do make the mistake of worrying about plot holes, character motivations and other things that make, you know, a good movie, the whole appeal of “The Expendables” will be lost. It’s the guiltiest of guilty pleasures.

If you argue that I often call action movies out when they don’t have enough plot to support the story, that’s fair. But in those movies I didn’t laugh in gleeful shock at someone getting shot and seeing his entire upper body ripped from his legs and splatter against the wall. Or enjoy the energy of an entire theater cheering after Ross and Christmas make a daring escape in a seaplane, then turn around to magnificently destroy an entire harbor full of bad guys.

Co-writer/director Stallone has openly stated that action movies changed after the early ‘90s. Gone were the muscle bound heroes of his era, and in were comic book superheroes and effects-heavy action. In a sense, it’s the truth to say they don’t make ‘em like “The Expendables” anymore, and as a whole that’s probably a good thing. But how nice of Stallone to give us one more for old time’s sake.

Did you know?
The scene in which Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis appear together was shot in secret – production began shortly after 4 a.m. and wrapped by 7 a.m. inside a church. No one, Stallone asserts, knew they were there.