Expendable was... Well, Expendable...

Rating: 5/10 (15 September 2010)

First off, let me say, when I saw this trailer in theatres my first thought was "Oh... My... God... this is going to be AWESOME!" Now i didn't look this movie up on IMDb or anything, before i went to see it, and perhaps i should have.
The actors i was looking forward to seeing most in this movie were : Arnold, Bruce, Jet, Jason, Mickey and Randy.
I am a huge fan of action, it doesn't even need a fantastic, I'm okay with plot holes, some bad acting, etc etc... I am easy to please.
This movie was an epic failure, mainly due to my disappointment with Arnold only having 2 minutes of screen time and Bruce only 5, Mickey was in it a little more, yet didn't take any part of the action.
Jet Li got his ass kicked several times, which may be expected since he was playing with big boys, but it often seemed he needed help to get out of it. Something i thought detracted from my expectations of him kicking ass! Randy was... well randy....
The movie didn't give you a lot to go on, an average basic and uninteresting plot : Stallone leads a team of mercenaries to go after a girl who is held in a supposedly impenetrable fortress held by a general gone bad taking bribes from an American and his body guard.
There was nothing to make you understand the connection between the mercenaries, nothing to make you really even care or like about them, except for maybe Jason S. who is give s tiny bit of character depth.
Mickey R. had a cool little monologue, that was filmed with lots of mood lighting and tight close ups. that was the highlight of his character.
Everything else was just stuff happened to guys you didn't really care about. You wouldn't have cared about who you cheered on.
I even noticed that Steve A. punches a girl full force in the face. She is still conscious with a bit of blood coming out of her nose, which i found historical! with the force of his punch he should have dislocated her jaw, or shattered her cheek bone, yet later we see her and she looks perfectly fine for having been tortured and all that. And doesn't Steve know you don't hit the head first in an interrogation? The action was indeed very very cool. Some sick action sequences, knife throwing which looked cool and some gory focus on ripping and twisting the blade.
The beginning of the movie starts off with a bang, which was probably the coolest part of the whole movie.
How every i found the direction style horrible, he cut too soon from the actual action to focus on explosions, he didn't allow time for you to get the gist of some of the cooler moves, choosing to use them in quick clips in order to keep you on your toes, when in reality it detracted from the action.
scripting was meh, except for maybe mickey R and Jason S. it was short and had a super synthetic feel for it.
and of course at the end Stallone leaves the girl he fought so hard over, which is his typical hardened lone wolf thing... like yeesh, get a new ending for your movies! I would have given this a lower rating had it not been for the cool weapons, and some of the cool knife throwing.
the acting was average, yet there was nothing to make you care about these men at all.
plot was unoriginal with no twists or anything unique.
My suggestion is go see that RED movie which has some older actors playing CIA agents on the loose. it looks like it will be much better.