Director: Sylvester Stallone (Rocky II-IV, Rocky Balboa Staying Alive, Rambo)
Story: Dave Callaham
Screenplay: Dave Callaham, Sylvester Stallone
Producers: Kevin King, Avi Lerner, Kevin King Templeton, John Thompson
Starring: Sylevster Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Steve Austin, Giselle Itié, Mickey Rourke
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 103 min.

(4/5)

Let the bodies hit the floor! Like any good 80s flick of the genre, The Expendables survive with loads of fireballs engulfing the screen and lead flying through the air at unfathomable levels. Bad guys can’t shoot and attack one at a time while our heroes simply hold down the hair trigger and watch unnamed baddies break in half, fly through the air, crumble into heaping piles of morgue fodder or simply disintegrate. The difference here is that filmmaking has changed over the past twenty years – for the better. So whilst keeping tradition and nostalgia intact, Stallone incorporates 21st century film making (ala 2008′s Rambo) in his return to the big-bang, action picture.

What felt like something I thought was gearing up to be a dumbed down version of Seven Samurai eventually turned into just simply dumbed down. The good guys must infiltrate a seemingly impenetrable fortress, evade or kill (mostly kill) the army inside, duel it out with the head honcho and his hired gorilla (Steve Austin) and cap it off by saving the girl. Explosions. End of plot. Which is exactly how this type of movie should be handled. Kudos for not trying too hard. The story is what it is and the guys do what they do. It works on that level spectacularly.

The pacing throughout the movie is surprisingly tolerable. The movie glides along with great action sequences and a few moments of subtle, not-so-funny comedy and quick set-up. Otherwise this thing is firing on all cylinders. The movie builds to what we know will be a climactic showdown and doesn’t disappoint. The closing action sequence is a hugely entertaining spectacle of ra-ra death scenes. The guy who once said something about a bang for your buck, clearly never met Stallone and his philosophy of 250 exploding rounds a minute per buck. It’s ridiculous, brash and bombastic. And a whole lot of fun. Jeez Steve Austin is a big guy!

Clearly the movie wants to bask in the glory days of yesteryear. And for the most part it succeeds by not only reveling in the typical, preposterous action sequences in which one man kills a thousand with barely a scratch, but mostly by bringing back just about every big name action star from the mid-1980s to mid-aughts you can think of (except JCVD – where the hell was our blood sport!?). The problem is that most of these big names aren’t involved in much of the action. For the most part, this is a Stallone/Statham vehicle. Which is fine, but I really would have liked to see Mickey Rourke cutting open some throats rather than just reminiscing and performing tattoo artwork. That being said, these guys without much screen time utilize their screen presence to the fullest. For those that grew up with these movies and know Commando or Rambo III like the back of their hand, the roughly 2 minutes of Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis hashing out their past demons is 120 seconds of meta-bliss. Still, I would’ve liked more… is it too much to ask for a Stallone/Lundgren rematch? I suppose watching Jet Li do the heavy lifting is fun too though.

The fireworks on display aren’t all that much more impressive than something from the 80s, yet the camera work has improved, the kills are more realistic (and bloodier) and the effects are slightly bigger thanks to the wonders of CGI (though not all that impressive on a technical level). The audio soundtrack is an earth shattering piece of awesomeness however and I imagine it being used for years to come when demo’ing your home theater TruHD 7.1 EX TK-421 system to your friends. From the chest rattling of Stallone’s suped-up pickup truck to the rumbling of a building collapse with bullets whizzing by your head, I have to say it’s one of the better sounding films I’ve seen and heard in a long time.

Eric Roberts is awesome.

Bad-ass motorcycles, hot half-naked chicks (the return of Charisma Carpenter!!), really big guns, muscles, breaking necks, fast cars, limb severings, explosions and glorious over acting is all here. This is a movie of the tallest order for the edumacated and mouth breathers alike. The film never ever takes itself seriously but it does take what it’s trying to accomplish seriously and I think succeeds wonderfully – which is a series of “Aw SNAP!” moments strung together one after the other to make for a damn quick hour and half in the multi-plex. Boom.