Exactly what you would expect

Rating: 8/10 (21 December 2010)

In a way this throwback to old school action movies is very refreshing. In a world where pretty much every aging star tries to reinvent himself to stay relevant, Stallone really seems to make a statement by staying exactly the same. Sure, by now his genre is pretty much dead and buried because of newer, smarter and more modern action flicks, but one can hardly deny "The Expendables" is still incredibly entertaining. The movie almost feels like a really long trailer, it's pretty much nothing but explosions, cheesy one-liners and tough guys being tough and acting as wooden as humanly possible. The movie's mainly a homage to this kind of shoot-em-up flicks, and you can tell these makers are really fond of what they're doing. Occasionally the tongue-in-cheek feel is a bit overdone (the cameos by Ah-nuld and Bruce Willis seem stilted and pointless), but overall this touch is very welcome. The ridiculously (and I mean ridiculously) happy ending is just icing on the cake. It takes some very clever people to make something this dumb.