Better late than never!

Rating: 10/10 (3 May 2012)

The church meeting scene is something action fans all over the world waited for many years to see happening on the screen. Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis together in a moment from the same film, something that should have happen a long time ago, way back in the 1990's when they were at the top of their game as the greatest action heroes of the period. It took a long time to get here, to get this brief encounter made reality but better late than never.
Made almost with the same extravagance of the 1980's action flicks but not with the same greatness and effectiveness, "The Expandables" recycles an heavy clichéd plot about good mercenaries taking down from the power a corrupt and tyrannic dictator of a South America country supported by a CIA agent (Eric Roberts) and his malign plans. But the appeal here is seeing the group's member, the so-called Expendables: Stallone joins Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews and Mickey Rourke, the last one playing a friend of the team but retired from all the action. Now, the other side is composed by Steve Austin, Gary Daniels (but you can't barely see his face) and a few others. Willis and Schwarzenegger are merely cameos but there's no problem in that, they're part of our fun in watching the movie. And it wouldn't be a complete work without a girl to help those guys, the dictator's daughter, played by Gisele Itiê.
Theme and plot are quite similar to many others developed in action films made since the 1980's up until now, but without causing some of the everlasting impact some of those movies caused on us, specially when it comes to the action scenes. Let's face it: the heroes are the same but the Hollywood system has changed a lot in order to get bigger audiences and to do that they get a little bit drenched with a politically correct agenda avoiding problems with the final product and editing/censorship issues. With that I mean that "The Expendables" is quite controlled in terms of violence, Stallone doesn't make of this such a visceral and heavy thing like "John Rambo" was, where half of the villains had their body parts flying around shattered by knives and machine guns. Good thing to some, but the movie isn't so memorable for the action sequences (they're good,being the most impactant the first guy killed in the movie, he simply disappeared after one shot fired) but it stays in the memory because of its use of humor. Gotta admire the priceless moment with Statham reciting a poetry in a bar, or Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren fights, or Li wanting to get more money for his work because he needs to pay for the school of his alleged kids.
It's a helluva movie, proving that action heroes never lose their style while in combat and they never get old (only their faces). The dream became true, not the way we wanted but at least it wasn't a nightmare, got some wonderful results with audiences and critics, the sequel is on the way and I can't wait to see it. 10/10