Wanted to like it, but it's just bad

Rating: 3/10 (30 November 2011)

I really wasn't hoping for much here. I like a lot of the actors in the movie and at the very least just wanted a little reminder of '80s action movie fun. This movie failed on almost every level.
You've got some gun play and some fights, but a lot of those classic shoot 'em ups were great because the plots, while not very complicated, were straight forward and made you hate the villain(s). The writing here is just terrible and that's even by action movie standards. You've got way too much concentration on Stallone and Statham. I thought this was going to be a great ensemble effort. Instead you've got a lot of decent choices either not doing much of anything or only showing up in spots.
The jokes are just awful. They reek of a writer who's not funny but desperately trying to be. Many of them are really forced. Also there are MANY one liners in this movie that make absolutely no sense. They're not cool or funny, and if you just think about the situation they're used in or the sentence that came before them you think "Huh? Why did he say that? It makes no sense."
I liked Eric Roberts but he didn't have enough screen time for me. The colonel (played by Angel from Dexter) wasn't convincing at all. Not that he really had a chance to be. Right off the bat without much proof we're supposed to believe he's a tyrant. We hear things about why he is but everything's been established about him before the movie even starts and the audience is basically just taking the film's word for it. Show don't tell, duh. Looking back it would've been nice to cut him out completely, focus more on Roberts, and just tighten everything up by going in a different direction.
I think they really missed the point of what they set out to do with this movie. Just make us feel like we're watching a decent action flick from the '80s. Simplify the plot, make the villain evil as all hell, and give us a reason to really root for the hero. This was maybe the only movie in history where they could've just completely ripped off other films of its kind and people would've been perfectly okay with it! Instead it just seems like an incredibly lazy effort that could've been short, sweet, and great piece of nostalgia. It was like after they got the cast together (which was good, not great) they just mailed it in, even more so than a lot of the schlock from the '80s that's way better than this turd.