Where are all the complaints coming from?

Rating: 8/10 (4 September 2010)

Okay I am truly mystified. I keep hearing a surprisingly large amount of negative things towards this film so I finally went and saw it. And you know what? As a huge HUGE action movie fan this movie delivered the goods and then some. You want stunts? Check. You want explosions? Check. You want shootouts? Check. This movie has all you want and more and I can't see how any big fan of action could dislike it.
But to be fair, there are some downsides. The biggest of which is the movie goes by too fast. They should have spent more time with the characters and the setup before the fight then they did, and there were a fair amount of lines that were a little annoying and poorly written. But you know what? That didn't bother me the least because the movie spends most of it's running time with the excessive and visceral action scenes that IN NO WAY are poorly shot!!! I sat there and I'll be honest with you I could tell exactly what was happening in pretty much each frame and the fact so many of you didn't I can only wonder as to where that came from. And it's not just because I'm a big fan of these guys that I'm saying that either, it honestly is fairly well filmed.
Any other problems? Well there is certainly a lack of quotable lines(with a few exceptions) and the Willis/Schwarzenegger cameo was WAY too short but the actual story and acting is better than you might think. Stallone, who has always been an underrated actor(from the Rocky series to Lords Of Flatbush, F.I.S.T., Lock Up, and Cop Land he has shown he can be a serious actor) gives a convincing though admittedly over the top performance as Barney Ross and Jason Statham has great screen presence and flair just to name the two main guys here. The plot is simple but effective and features a great performance by Mickey Rourke which helps establish the group's motive. The main message is of regaining your humanity and fighting for a cause though it's not emphasized too much.
So the movie is ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT on the basic action level(seriously, this movie has it all when it comes to this and no matter what anyone says from my perspective it's some of the best action we've had in a mainstream movie in a LONG time) and is believable in a storytelling fashion. Plus it was a whole lot of FUN(not common in modern action movies these days) and I can't remember a time in the last 5 years I've enjoyed going to the theater this much. The reason I'm giving it only an 8 is due to a lack of quotable dialogue and near the middle a little too much of a rushed pace(and it's not as good as many of the classic movies of the 70's, 80's and 90's), but this movie delivers a great time at the theaters and will no doubt be a lot of fun at home on DVD so I recommend you ignore the naysayers(who by the way are wrong about these guys being too old for the job) and just enjoy a intensely macho, intensely visceral, and intensely entertaining action movie in the style of old and don't let anybody tell you it's wrong!