The best of the franchise

Rating: 7/10 (6 April 2017)

The Expendables is an 80's style action movie with an all star cast brought to life by action icon Sly Stallone. Sly was on a roll with excellent sequels to both Rocky and Rambo making a strong comeback to the cinema. Then he made this and rounded up a very good cast of tough guys with Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Dolf Lundgren,Randy Couture and Terry Crews. The much under rated Eric Roberts is an excellent villain and Steve Austin and Gary Daniels are excellent heavies. Plus cameos from Arnold and Bruce Willis. While this film is in some ways flawed with not too much time to spend on character development and not the best dialouge, I appreciate and enjoy The Expendables regardless. The film looks great and delivers huge on action. Great shootouts, explosions, fighting with fists, knives, feet. It also is very violent and bloody along the lines of the last Rambo film. While not quite as gory or violent as Rambo, the action scenes are bigger and more over the top. The tone of the film is lighter than Rambo and has much in common with the 80's action flicks that this is in the same tradition of. However, this is an ensemble piece and plays like a modern version of The Dirty Dozen. While not as good as The Dirty Dozen, it is a breath of fresh air for me as I am not a fan of most modern action movies that rely on cgi and cast with wimpy actors. The Expendables has a very credible cast of tough actors and brings down the thunder with the firepower and gritty violence much needed in modern cinema. This is not the type of film that critics will praise, but is just what the doctor ordered in an era where the film market does not make films specifically for men anymore, The Expendables are much needed and were a shot in the arm to otherwise lame Hollywood action. Almost a decade has gone by and this holds up pretty well and is much better than the sequels. I did like the second film, but it had too much comedy and was more of an 80's action parody rather than 80's styled action film. The third film was complete garbage and a complete mess and waste of time.