Slam Bang Action and Nothing More

Rating: 7/10 (28 August 2010)

This is a movie that does not hide what it was all about. This is most definitely a MAN's movie. The first poster shows an array of firearms and knives surrounding a skull, no doubt this would be a violent action extravaganza. The list of the actors in this project confirm just the same: Stallone, Statham, Li, Lundgren, Couture, Austin, with a couple more superstars: Rourke and Willis.
The story is threadbare and overused. A ragtag bunch of American mercenaries were assigned to overthrow a dictator in a South American island country. That sounds like "The A-Team", I know, but that is the plot as it is. As can be expected, having a multiple big name cast would mean that not everyone would get a fair exposure.
Since he is the star, director and writer, Sylvester Stallone got the meatiest part as the leader of the group. He was mumbling his lines as usual, which was fine since it is probably non-essential anyway. His face looks like it is about to melt though. Jason Statham was quite good as the knife expert. He was cool and relaxed in all his fight scenes. Jet Li I felt was wasted, as you cannot see his martial arts moves very well the way his scenes were shot. And unfortunately he was treated as the comic relief! The rest were basically cameos. Dolph Ludgren had an exciting car chase scene which ended in fights with Li and Stallone. Randy Couture and Steve Austin had a great fight scene towards the end. Stallone, Willis and another (uncredited) superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger had a short scene together, which too bad is not really key to the plot. Mickey Rourke's part is not really necessary and had no action whatsoever.
You certainly get what you expect here with "The Expendables." This movie is alive and kicking when there are action scenes. These are very well-choreographed, exciting, and very highly explosive, be it a car chase, assault, rescue mission. My only beef about the fight scenes is that they were shot too close-up and edited so fast. You do not know who is fighting who in a lot of scenes with many people. You cannot appreciate more the fighting technique employed. However, whenever there would be talk scenes, these were boring and inconsequential, fast-forward material.
Action fans will enjoy the action scenes very much. They are excitingly filmed, most the time. You could overlook that these are too incredible really. That final rescue sequence was non-stop slam bang action, as big flames and loud gunshots and explosions were continually in the face and ears of the audience. People who watch this film should not expect anything more intellectual or fancy with this film. They go in for the action alone, and they would definitely not be disappointed.