Non-stop meat-headed action just what was required!

Rating: 8/10 (21 March 2016)

After a ten minute opening sequence where Barney Ross and team of action heroes rescue Trench and a Chinese billionaire from a large force in Nepal the real story starts. Barney and his team are forced to take on a job in Albania where they are to recover an item from a crashed plane; unfortunately no sooner have they recovered the item it is taken from them by a terrorist named Villain who murders one of Barney's team before leaving. It turns out the item was a map to a mine where five tons of ex-Soviet weapons grade plutonium are stored. Barney and his band of expendables along with Chinese expert Maggie Chan set off to find Villain and foil his plans to sell the plutonium.
If you are looking for serious drama or even something vaguely believable you will be disappointed however if you want full on meat-headed action then this is the film for you. The action is over the top but it is fairly full on from start to finish. The cast is chock full of action stars with Stallone, Statham, Lundgren and Van Damme in major roles as well as appearances from Arnie, Bruce Willis, Jet Li and Chuck Norris in extended cameos. It is great seeing such a variety of action stars in one film and none of them disappoint as they wipe out swathes of bad guys and swap catchphrases. The less well known cast members aren't overwhelmed by their better known co-stars. The action is pretty bloody and I dread to think what the final death toll was; bad guys are dispatched in a wide variety of ways. As this is all so over the top it isn't particularly disturbing though. Overall this was a lot of fun; fans of classic action films should love it.