Forget "Rambo"! Forget "Predator"! Forget "Die Hard"!

Rating: 1/10 (4 September 2010)

If you want to enjoy "The Expendables", you have to forget all the good action movies of the past. You even have to forget the mediocre ones, because, oh boy, this is bad. I mean, really, really bad. There were some "actors" in this movie that I'm not familiar with, probably some wrestlers or NFL stars, and for those relatively unknown participants it might NOT be the worst film of their career. For all the other Hollywood elite actors it probably is. Even Dolph Lundgren played in way better movies than this. Oh, good God, I tried to forget that movie, but I think even "Red Scorpion" might have had a better story than this one. *shudder*
Speaking of the participating actors, don't get fooled: Schwarzenegger and Willis are somehow thrown into a two minute cameo appearance that makes no sense at all and features some of the worst dialogue ever. It's pathetic, who wrote this? And what does Stallone know about the Terminator and John McClane that enables him to force them into his movie? Blackmail is the only logical explanation I can think of in order for those two to give their names for such an abysmal piece of ... "work".
Make no mistake, I don't think much work went into the production of this ugly thing. Most of the budget was spent for the actors and marketing, I suppose. But the millions that went to the actors were wasted, basically there was not much to act out. Since the cardboard characters had no personality at all, everyone could have played their part. Everyone. You, me, some random guy from the street. Oh wait, it had to be someone that can keep a straight face, something that can be hard when you are forced to deliver some of the worst and most pointless dialogue I have ever witnessed in a professional production. There was single hint at personality with Mickey Rourke, but since he had no real part in the movie, it leaves no impact whatsoever.
This is not even an 80s movie, like some delusional moviegoers claim. It is one of those state-of-the-art-shaky-cam things with some actors that were known in the 80s, but you can't tell that in the action scenes, not only due the mentioned filming, but also due to the editing, where they tried to set a new record for as many cuts as possible. Something or somebody is cut here, shot there, it's very exciting, because something is happening - or at least it seems. Guess that makes it harder to realize it's actually stunt doubles performing most of the action, dunno.
It could have been great if they would have made a movie in the tradition of the great action flicks, some of which I mentioned in the title. They didn't. They created something new, a monster, which should be burned and never be talked about again. They did a B-... no, let's make it a C-, or even a D-movie with an A-list cast. Back in the good ol' days, it would have went straight to VHS. Nowadays, stuff like this makes it into the cinemas. It's a shame so many of the old heroes took a part in this. So, what you get is Stallone and Statham (the rest has significantly less screen time) in a quite successful attempt to create the most boring and pointless music video of all time.
You've been warned.