The very definition of action garbage

Rating: 4/10 (3 November 2014)

In The Expendables, Sylvester Stallone, Jason Stratham and all the other inexplicably popular charisma vacuums in the action movie industry go blow up some stuff, fight a big baddie and... that's it. I love action films but I don't automatically love all of them, and although this isn't a terrible movie and does offer some old school fun, it does feel rather soulless and lacks charisma. With explosions galore, there's plenty of entertain action junkies and there are a few inspired moments and high octane stupidity. In one of the great good scenes in bad movies, Mickey Rourke actually acts and delivers a powerful speech on a war he once thought in. However, none of the others are particularly great. Sylvester Stallone is particular has trouble changing his facial expression even once. His direction is acceptable, but also ugly and artificial at times. I have no problem with paying tribute to action films, but it'd be nice if it wasn't with the personality, depth and warmth of a Lord Of The Rings orc.
The script is genuinely awful and doesn't have another humour for a film of this kind. A lot of the time it's very hard to even work out what's going on since the light is so poor. In general, the film just barrels on from one loud incomprehensible set piece to the next and even though it's meant to be a tribute to old school action it doesn't even feel that light or over the top a lot of the time and feels too cowardly to actually hit hard. When people talk about loud and noisy action garbage this is the sort of thing they are talking about. While I don't agree with those who dislike action movies, they have a strong piece of evidence here. It's a moderately watchable film and at times I was enjoying it but since the film is like a zombie walking through a graveyard of action clichés, this could be mistaken for some awful flick about zombie action heroes. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis both appear, but sadly they're reduced to cameos. The Expendables 2 sounds OK, but I shudder to think of The Expendables 3 which is apparently even worse.
4/10