Boom and bust, Stallone style

Rating: 7/10 (5 February 2011)

I grew up on '80s action movies, still love them to bits and love watching ass-kicking on film. When I heard Stallone was making this film, featuring an ensemble cast of ageing action stars and deliberately harking back to '80s cinema, I was excited. I consider the 2008 RAMBO to be his best movie as star and director and I was hoping this would be somewhere nearly as good. It isn't, but it's still a fun movie. First off, the problems. The plot is all over the place. Long scenes are wasted introducing Jason Statham's ex-girlfriend character and then nothing happens with her – she just disappears and you don't see her again. The story, about overthrowing the dictator of a small island in South America and tackling his nefarious businessman colleague, feels like a half-baked reprise of COMMANDO. But let's be fair here – nobody goes to see THE EXPENDABLES for the plot.
No, my biggest problem is with Stallone's direction, which previously has been fine. Here, he decides to adopt a shaky-cam style for every action scene in the film, be it the explosive climax, a car chase or even a martial arts bout with star Jet Li. Paul Greengrass added heaps to his Bourne movies by utilising the shaky-cam, but it's a big detraction (not to mention distraction) here. Stallone's camera seems to be all over the place, to the extent that you can barely make out what's going on in any of the fight scenes. Moments like the 'tunnel fight', which variously sees Statham, Li, Stallone, Gary Daniels, and Steve Austin engaged in all manner of frenetic physical combat – become just okay. Maybe I was just sitting too near to the front of the cinema, but I fear not.
Otherwise, this film works just fine. The script adopts the right tone with plenty of referential humour for the fans. Stallone is still at his physical peak, and Statham the usual smooth-shaven action man we're used to from TRANSPORTER and CRANK. Dolph Lundgren has a ball as a slightly deranged fighter and Jet Li is the brunt of many jokes as the token Asian. I'm not a big fan of wrestlers or sportsmen, but Randy Couture, Steve Austin and Terry Crews are all sufficiently hulking to add to the film's look, and Eric Roberts entertains as the deliciously sleazy bad guy. Mickey Rourke's in this for little more than a cameo, but he has an oddly touching moment, while one of my biggest joys was seeing British fighter Gary Daniels as one of the bad guy henchmen. Looks like he's going up in the world. Much publicity surrounded the five-minute scene in this in which Stallone meets up with the guest stars - it's as funny as you could hope for. As for the action, it's over the top and extremely loud, involving our heroes flying planes and shooting or blowing up the bad guys, taking them down in hand-to-hand fights and smashing up some vehicles in frenetic car chases. The ending is as noisy and destructive as anything I've seen, and the best part of the film. A twenty minute sequence of chaos, calamity and kick-ass moves. My favourite part? Terry Crews and his hang cannon, which makes short work of the enemy.
Addendum: I've recently watched the director's cut of THE EXPENDABLES for the first time and I can report that it makes a BIG difference. Not only is an extra ten minutes of characterisation added - thus giving the film more heart and soul - but the whole thing has been re-edited to lost a lot of the choppiness the film suffered from originally. I have a feeling that Stallone was forced to rush the editing in the run-up to the film's cinema release, so he used the first opportunity he had to come back and tidy it up and the result is this: slicker, better paced, and much smoother. The action scenes have also been tightened up nicely so that they flow much better. The director's cut is definitely the version to watch.