This Made Me Feel Like a Man, Man.

Rating: 6/10 (6 May 2013)

What do you get when you put almost every action star from the past 20 years in the same movie? You get The Expendables and you feel like a complete man watching it. The cast includes Stallone, Statham, Li, Austin, Crews, Couture, Rourke, Willis, Schwarzenegger, and my personal favorite Lundgren. In case you don't know who he is he is Drago from Rocky 4. I heard some people complain that the movie was stupid and had no story and point. To that I say, duh, that's not the point. This is a once in a lifetime franchise and for what it's worth it was fine.
This is a straight up action movie and has no other point then to see your favorite stars blow things up and kill people. The story is crazy, but who cares. I did not go see this movie for deep characters and an in-depth storyline. I saw this for the action and special effects. For an action movie, I loved it, for a movie in general, it was one of the worst I have ever seen. Stallone leads a group of mercenaries and he gets too attached to a job and he wants to return to rescue a girl. I guess the first rule of being a mercenary is not to get attached to the job. It's get in, get out, and get paid. For what it is it wasn't a terrible idea. If it had to be a story I'm glad it was this one.
A major flaw with the move itself is the fact that it tries too hard to be a movie that it isn't. After an action packed opener they go back home and try to dig into characters and that's not necessarily a bad thing but they tried too hard. Stallone has his internal conflict and talks it over with Rourke, and that's OK, but the whole story with Statham and his girlfriend could have been cut out and replaced with him snapping necks. I don't want to see Bruce Li complain about his family that doesn't exist or Mickey Rourke being completely useless throughout the entire movie. I hated his character. All he does is ride in, be a sad old man, and give tattoos. He tells this story about an old job and how he got attached to it and I was just turned off. I wanted him out of the movie. He is an action star and should have been that. Instead he was a has-been and drags the movie along. Even Stallone looked like he was getting bored. Bruce Willis' character was OK, I wanted to see him kill people too but instead he plays the guy who assigns the job and that's it. Anybody could have played that role and he was wasted as a name to promote the movie. I was OK with Schwarzenegger's character because he was governor at the time so it made sense. I guess I should praise the real point of the movie, the action. Nothing made me happier than seeing Terry Crews mow people down with a shotgun. The car chase with Stallone, Li, and Lundgren was impressive. It had the stupid one liner but cars flipping and bullets flying are what I wanted to see. Some of these actors are getting old but the gritty hand to hand combat still held up. The explosions in the beginning were just as good as the ones at the end. Stone Cold Steve Austin is in the movie as a bad guy and he fit in surprisingly well. He played a bad guy in the WWF so he knows what he is doing. His scenes were fun to watch and he was a good addition. Overall, The Expendables was exactly what I expected. It was a battle of men and a movie for a man. If you took your girlfriend to see this movie, I hope she broke up with you on the spot. The acting was gross, he story was choppy and stupid, but that wasn't the point. When people tell me this movie was bad I laugh and ask what they expected. I expected the bloodbath that I got so I was happy. As a movie it is terrible, but as an action movie it is top notch. The Expendables gets the WillyT Bloodbath Badge. That basically means it was a good action movie. If I had to give it a real WillyT Rating it gets the WillyT Recommendation because it is a movie every man needs to see to consider himself a man.