Not a great film, but definitely AWESOME!

Rating: 6/10 (26 August 2010)

I don't know what half the world was expecting with this film - did you honestly think Stallone and co. would produce a poignant head scratcher? No, what you were always gonna get with this was pure unleaded action from some of the greats!
The plot was there, although not the best. The story is that generally Stallone's men are mercenaries who are given an assignment from Bruce Willis to overthrow a Latin American dictator (for those who think this is just another "America saves the day" movie - the dictator is actually financed by a Yankie former CIA spook). The acting was passable, by and large, though I didn't rate Lundgren's performance too highly, but the movie in general was the epitome of awesome, undoubtedly, you don't see too many action films like this any more, so it was fantastic to get so many big names into a film with guns, muscles and cracking one-liners.
I only have a few criticisms, as I wasn't expecting much from a plot or acting - I was expecting the fake blood to be more convincing, and even for a boys movie, watching a woman get punched in the face by Stone Cold Steve Austin is not quite as awesome as it sounds, it was then compounded further by watching the same woman being water-boarded, which I felt was pretty unnecessary.
Watching Willis, Stallone and Schwarzennegger square off was magical if short lived, as well as some truly kick-ass fight scenes from all considered.
Anyways, other than that, it was immeasurably entertaining, and if you went in with expectations which didn't exceed good action, star quality and guns, muscles and one-liners - well you would have loved it too.
As a film, I give it a *** As an action movie, I give it a 9/10 for awesomeness, as I had watched Inception only a couple of nights before, it was nice to watch something where I didn't have to think too much.
The only action stars I would have added would have been replacing Randy Couture (who was forgettable if entertaining) with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, get Van Damme in there instead of Paul Daniels, who might as well have been cast as "token British goon who should barely speak", and added Vin Diesel in there somewhere too, but other than that, it was pretty much exactly what I was expecting: A reunion of fantastic old-school action stars creating an awesomely entertaining action movie.