Mumbo Jumbo Action Inq

Rating: Null/10 (18 July 2013)

Sylvester Stallone may be laughed at for trying to resurrect his film career after vanishing into oblivion (sort of) like many of his co-stars in the film, but I've got to give it to the guy for taking the risk. 'The Expendables' by no means is a great film. It's closer to the opposite and considering that it had so many action heroes (who were once popular), I expected some awesome fight sequences. However, the fight scenes were pretty ordinary, nothing memorable. The writing itself is quite poor. The script is full of holes and dialogue is unengaging and sometimes unintentionally funny (mostly because of the way they are delivered by the actors). With the exception of Roarke's Tool and Statham's Lee, the characters lack dimension. Anyway, one doesn't expect fine writing from such movies.
The positives are that it was nice to see so many actors, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Eric Roberts, Mickey Roarke, Dolph Lundgren etc who were once famous for their action films (even rivals), share screen space with actors like Jet Li and Jason Statham (both of whom rule the action films of the 2000s) and there seems to be a camaraderie and an amicable chemistry. Of the performances, Mickey Roarke stands out while the rest are passable at best (then again this kind of movie doesn't require fine acting) and otherwise horrendous. Moreover, in spite of the flaws, the film has plenty of energy to not bore you to sleep.