Big and dumb, but it delivers exactly what it promises

Rating: 7/10 (22 August 2010)

Sylvester Stallone enjoys his old age Renaissance with this amusing throwback to the cheesy action movies of the 1980s and 90s. It's dumb as Hell, and very poorly directed (by Stallone himself), but it does pretty much deliver. Stallone and Jason Statham lead a team of mercenaries, which also includes Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Terry Crews and some other tough guys. They're hired by Bruce Willis (who appears in one scene alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger) to infiltrate an island nation and assassinate the bloody general who has taken it over (David Zayas, who co-stars in the show Dexter). Stallone discovers that the general is really unimportant, and that the real villain running things is Eric Roberts, with former professional wrestler Steve Austin his second in command. Stallone doesn't really want to get involved in this crazy business, but is ultimately inspired to go through with it because of a rebel woman he meets there (Giselle Itié). The plot doesn't make a lot of sense, but there's a lot of explosions and beatdowns. It delivers what it promises, even if I did forget that I even saw it by the next day. Mickey Rourke has a nice small part as a former member of the Expendables, and Charisma Carpenter (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel fame) has a nice part as a chick who dumps Statham.