MOVIE REVIEW: THE EXPENDABLES

The Expendables really needs no introduction. It's easily the most big named movie we have seen in a while with classic action stars such as; Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, Terry Crewes, Steve Austin, Randy Couture and cameos by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis. But star studded casts doesn't always equal a great film.

In the film, Stallone plays plays Barney Ross, the leader of a mercenary group who goes in to do the governments dirty work. After being sent to a small village in South America to overthrow an evil dictator, Ross is afraid that he and his team are over their head being outnumbered in every way. He decides to call off the mission and head home, but once he returns, he has a change of heart and decides that the people their are worth fighting for and returns to finish the job.

Stallone is an underrated director. He directed four of the six Rocky films and directed the last Rambo film. I was really surprised by Rocky Balboa and Rambo not only because at sixty four, Stallone is still in top shape, but because the films were actually really good to be about characters that are so old. After his last two films, I was really excited to see what he could do with a cast like this.

Obviously the main thing that is going to attract people to this film is the cast. And for the most part, they are all great. Stallone is his classic, tough guy, leader of the pack self, that we are use to watching. He does a great job of playing the responsible leader.

Jason Statham, who has never made a movie I liked, really took me by surprise with how well he did in a more serious role playing the best friend and second in command.

But my favorite had to be Mickey Rourke. His part wasn't very big, but he delivered a great performance in my opinion. He had the performance in this that I was hoping he was going to have in Iron Man 2.

The rest of the cast was just kind of in and out. Terry Crews, Steve Austin, Jet Li and Randy Couture all had small parts who pretty much just came in for the big action scene, but nothing really special out of any of them. The same goes for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis. Their scene was about five minutes long, but easily delivered the best line of the film.

Dolph Lundgren was easily the worst part about the film. His lines were terrible and his performance matched. He may have had some of the biggest fight scenes, but to me you got to be able to pull it off, and he just didn't do it for me.

As for the story, it was a very forgettable one. Evil dictator, couple of guys against a small army, nothing really special here. The film starts off with a bang, it gets everyone excited, and then it drags out for about thirty minutes with a stupid side story revolving Statham and his girlfriend that could have been completely cut from the film and then basically a boring tour of South Africa. I think many people are going to go into this film with the expectation of a two hour, non stop action film, and that simply isn't the case. The action scenes that were in the film however, were great ones. I think when action films are talked about these days, things like Transformers or super hero films are what comes to mind. These are nowhere near the caliber of action that came in the eighties and early nineties. Hopefully, this film will inspire the real action genre to come back to the big screen with a new generation of stars. I think there is a lot of potential here and I hope this performs well enough to get a sequel that will hopefully draw in more classic stars and hopefully deliver a better story.

The performances and action scenes were great, but the story lacked and drug. I give The Expendables a six out of ten.