The Expendables

Plot synopsis:
A group of elite mercenaries, the Expendables, are deployed to the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia to halt local pirates from executing the hostages. The team consists of leader Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), former SAS soldier and blades specialist Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), martial artist Yin Yang (Jet Li), sniper Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), weapons specialist Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) and demolitions expert Toll Road (Randy Couture). Jensen instigates a firefight, causing casualties for the pirates. Yang and Jensen fight over moral disagreements about hanging a pirate. Ross intervenes and fights with Jensen. As a result of his psychological problems, Ross reluctantly dismisses Jensen from the Expendables team.Ross and a rival mercenary Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger), meet Mr. Church (Bruce Willis). He offers them a contract to overthrow a brutal dictator, General Garza (David Zayas), on Vilena, a fictional island in the Gulf of Mexico. Busy with other things, Trench tells Church to give the contract to Ross. Christmas visits his girlfriend, Lacy (Charisma Carpenter), whom he discovers has left him for another man named Paul. On Vilena, Ross and Christmas meet a local contact, Sandra (Gisele Itié), and drive to the vicinity of Garza's compound to look the situation over. A truckload of Garza's soldiers suddenly appear. When one of them grabs Sandra, he calls her the "General's daughter." He drags her to their truck, but before he can take her Ross and Christmas kill them all. Ross learns that Garza is backed by ex-CIA agent James Munroe (Eric Roberts) and his henchmen Paine (Steve Austin) and The Brit (Gary Daniels), who manipulate and keep Garza in power by making his people fear him. Ross decides to abort the mission and make their escape, but they return and attack Garza's men on a pier, killing 41 of them. Jensen, offended at having been fired by Ross, approaches Garza and Munroe and hires on to help them.Christmas visits Lacy again to find that her new boyfriend Paul has beaten her. Christmas easily beats Paul and several friends in an unfair fight, showing Lacy what he does for a living, and she leaves with him. Ross, Christmas, and Yang deduce that Mr. Church is with the CIA and that the real target is Munroe, as the CIA is unable to control him. Mission coordinator and former teammate Tool (Mickey Rourke) makes an emotional confession to Ross about letting a woman commit suicide during the Bosnian War and how it damaged his soul. Sandra is captured by Munroe's men who waterboard her in an attempt to learn what the Americans had been doing on the island.Ross decides to go back for Sandra. Yang insists that he come along. As they leave, they are ambushed and chased by Jensen and others during an intense gunfight and car chase. The pursuit leads to an abandoned warehouse where Yang and Jensen fight a second time. Jensen attempts to impale Yang on a pipe and after an intense fight, Ross retrieves a weapon from his truck and shoots Jensen. Jensen, severely wounded, apologizes and tells him about the layout of Garza's palace. Ross boards the plane with Yang and finds the rest of the team is also on board, ready to aid their friend.The Expendables infiltrate Garza's compound. Christmas, Yang, Caesar, and Toll plant explosive charges throughout the site, including the storage area full of drugs. The Expendables team fights and shoots its way through Garza's compound and dozens of soldiers. Ross rescues Sandra as she is about to be sexually assaulted by two of Munroe's men, killing them both, but they are both captured by more of Munroe's men, who beat him. He's rescued by Yang and Christmas, assisted by Caesar and other members of the team. After Garza sees Munroe torture his daughter, he changes his mind.They are cornered by dozens of Garza's soldiers. Garza calls out to them to remove the American disease, referring to Munroe as well as the Expendables. Munroe kills Garza. In desperation, Ross blows the charges inside the palace, destroying it and disrupting the attack. They attack dozens of soldiers throughout the compound, destroying them with all the weapons at their disposal: Noveske Rifleworks Diplomat assault rifles, AA-12 12 gauge automatic shotgun firing FRAG-12 explosive rounds, Beretta pistols, knives, and M67 hand grenades.Christmas and Yang kill The Brit and Toll kills Paine. Ross and Caesar destroy the helicopter Munroe, with Sandra in tow as a hostage, was set to escape in. Ross and Christmas fight Munroe and kill him, saving Sandra. Instead of taking payment for the mission, Ross gives it to Sandra to restore the village of Vilena. The team celebrates their victory at Tool's tattoo parlor, with the reformed and recovering Jensen. Christmas and Tool challenge each other to a game of knife throwing and Christmas recites a poem about his respect for Tool, before throwing the knife perfectly in the center of the board.

Tags: boring, murder, violence, cult, psychedelic, action, revenge, sadist

Review:
With a cast like Jason Stathum, Randy Couture, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Terry Crews, Dolph "I Must Break You" Lundgren, and cameos from Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, you'd think it would be one crazy mess.
So let's get them out of the way first shall we?Q) Is the plot descent, with a substantial storyline including dramatic arcs, twists and/or turns?A) Not particularly.Q) Are there character arcs and meaningful character developments?A) A little.Q) Is there romance?A) Next question, please.Q) Is the overall film original?A) Not at all.Q) Is it a likely Oscar nomination contender?A) Hell no!Q) Is it still awesome?A) HELL YES!!!!!Critics should be banned from reviewing films such as these.
Anyone with half a brain can tell exactly what kind of film this is and what they're in for purely by the film's trailer alone.This is a film made for action movie fans and not just regular action movies - I mean REAL action films in the style of the classic 80's action movies where plot and substantial character developments and dialogue took a backseat to intense over-the-top violence, explosions, car chases, sex scenes and catchy, memorable one liners!The 80's action hero (and villain) breed was a rare phenomenon which will likely die with those very actors who gave them life.
No 90's or new millennium "action" movie star will ever come close to being anywhere near as genuinely tough and just plain bad-arse as their 80's predecessor's!
Even now with the main 'Expendables' cast pushing 60 +, you know that they would snap Matt Damon's spine in 2 with one hand tied behind their backs!The 'Expendables' cast consists of Sly Stallone as the fearless leader of the team, Jason (Basketball stabber) Statham as the trusty knife-throwing sidekick, Dolph Lundgren as the treacherous giant one, Jet-Li as the small one, Terry Chews as Wesley Snipes, Mickey Rourke as the tattoo/previous knife-throwing sidekick and Randy Couter as the "who the hell is this guy, oh he's a UFC fighter" guy.I still can't believe the unbelievable shape these guys are in!
It is certainly not for the faint hearted, or for kids, but for any true action movie lover this is the ultimate manly film.Sylvester Stallone, NICE JOB!.
Maybe that was the idea behind this one, too, though I heard a quote from somewhere that after seeing wimpy Tobey Maguire as "Spiderman" full of CGI and a stuffed/padded suit, he realized action heroes like himself were, well, expendable.This is fantasy baseball and fantasy rock-n-roll camp for adults all rolled into a wonderful action flick with enough of a plot to give the characters motivation for their action.
This movie is really loud!If you are a fan of big macho action cinema as it was like in the '80s, you will not be disappointment.
The first hour gives you the two 'big' cameos, which weren't worth the hype (or any hype for that matter), and an out of place Mickey Rourke emotional moment but not much else.The real payoff comes in the last half hour or so of the movie which is a beautiful symphony of mindless violence, and more than makes up for the beginning.Overall the movie seemed a little rushed as far as the story goes and I won't be surprised to see a extended cut when this comes out on DVD but it is a solid action movie and worth the watch.
And hats off to Randy Couture who actually steals the movie a little bit during the big action scene at the end..
Every last single aspect of this movie was a disgrace to the whole genre of action film.I already knew in advance that the plot was not the money maker of this movie, however, i would've appreciated a little more effort in making each scene flow smoothly into the next.
It didn't make any sense.I went into this film ready to see giant battle sequences with every single member in the cast that the trailer perpetually advertised, but instead I was given low quality action,atrocious dialouge, and scenes that that simply felt half done.For example, the big cameo with Arnold and Stallone,felt over played and...quite frankly...
Maybe just with Stallone and Statham playing off each other, this movie would've amounted to something more.Today's coolness and manliness then, according to this movie, consists of riding motorbikes or hot rods and killing lots of bad people for money.
Some of the jokes actually make me feel sorry for Sylvester Stallone and the movie as a whole made me lose all respect for him.You can write, direct and produce a film practically all by yourself.
Movie should be named "league of botox gentlemen", hope Slys face didn't melt down.Great cast, in the way i can compare it to a "Space Cowboys" not by the quality of acting or story.
Every bad scene, every bad story line, every bad one-liner that Stallone ever dreamt of during his entire career on set (but which were always duly rejected by directors with more sense for quality) found their way into this film.
So, why don't you do yourself a favor to end Summer 2010 by watching this explosive, action-packed movie, "The Expendables".First things first, the cast is obviously awesome.
Meet your favorite actors: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Steve Austin, Dolph Lundgren and even Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Of course we all know things are going to go horribly wrong at one point or another, but lets just pretend that a proper plan had been forged before our die hards have to resort to out and out carnage.Lastly, the one thing that attracted me to the movie in the first place -the fact that there were so many action heroes involved- ultimately led the movie to fail.
I'm not stupid: I realise that 'x' times the number of action stars does not necessarily equal 'x' times the amount of action, but with the biggest names of the genre together in one supposedly bad-ass, big budget, testosterone fuelled film, directed by Rambo himself, I at least expected to feel a mild rush of excitement at some point during the whole thing.
Instead, I just found myself cringing throughout, which was a tad disappointing, to say the least.Not only does The Expendables have a plot so weak that it probably would have been rejected for the A-Team (not the film, but the TV series, and we're talking Season 5 here), but it also suffers from charmless performances from its stars (who are not exactly helped by the absolutely dire dialogue), a very dull first half hour, and some of the most ill-considered action direction, lousy cinematography and scrappy CGI effects I have seen in years.The photography is inexplicably grainy and frequently out of focus, the scatter-shot editing is absolutely diabolical (does any shot last more than a second?), and the digital blood splats frustratingly unrealistic, but it is Stallone's overuse of 'shakycam' that is particularly appalling—seriously Sly, what's the point of signing up such an impressive all-star cast if you're going to turn every action sequence into unfathomable visual mincemeat?Oh, and Arnie....
It was supposed to be a outstanding movie, with all those cool actors coming back, all the hype and great action scenes without CGI to show that it's possible to do real action without too much annoying special effects made by computer.
"Could it be the greatest action movie ever?" some magazines breathlessly asked themselves, assuming perhaps that the cast could somehow just produce a good film by virtue of all just being in it.
It plays out just the way you expect it to do and those looking for action sequences will enjoy the many fights and scenes where everything blows up (Terry Crews in particular demonstrating to the world why Infinity Ward were out of their minds to make the AA-12 a "secondary" weapon in Modern Warfare 2!).
Of course looking at it fairly, the film is not great – the plot is obvious and full of "groan" moments that we have to have simply because of the genre plus it is hard to shake the feeling that the film is more for the stars benefit than it is about the viewers, like perhaps they enjoyed it more than I did?
During the 80's and 90's it was a common question whether action film superstars could ally and face evil enemies.Sly never allied with Arnie, and each superstar continued to trash evil guys by its own.Until today!In this film everything the audience could expect from the action movie genre is here:hard language, tons of big and small explosions, black humor and a small army of film heroes blowing away a large army of bad guys.All the stars we loved are here, along with our memories from past movies coupled with fresh stars like Jason Statham and Jet Li.Don't expect great acting here,neither a script that will be awarded an Oscar.Acting is decent,storyline absolutely predictable and the script is humorous and entertaining,simply perfectly fit for such a movie.
As a kid, I have grown up watching the big action heroes portrayed by Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Willis, Statham, Li, and many more.
Offer old dogs like me more of this type of thing and enjoy my "expendable" income as well.MR Stallone has come full circle and produced something both nostalgic and contemporary and above all, more fun than i've had in the cinema for a long time, good on ya Sly, now Expendables II please lickety-split !.
It's just a disjointed collection of silly action and comedy scenes that were cobbled together and eventually given the title of "movie".Anyone who gave this pile of poop more than 2 stars is obviously an industry shill, because anyone who finds it anything less than an insult:a) Can't count to three b) Can't form coherent sentences c) Can't pronounce "computer" let alone figure out how to work one well enough to submit an online review d) Is confined to an institution that doesn't allow access to the outside (or online) world.Just....so very sad.
If you want to enjoy "The Expendables", you have to forget all the good action movies of the past.
It is one of those state-of-the-art-shaky-cam things with some actors that were known in the 80s, but you can't tell that in the action scenes, not only due the mentioned filming, but also due to the editing, where they tried to set a new record for as many cuts as possible.
Nowadays however, action movies are a lot more family friendly, with bloodless action, few swear words, over use of CG and an annoying shaky cam.But when I heard Stallone (The star of Rambo) was going to make a big cheesy, 80's style action film with an ensemble cast, I couldn't be happier.
When I finally went to see the film however I was sadly disappointed.I was hoping for a simple plot, with an awesome team, an over the top villain (Unless Dolph Lundgren counts), cheesy one liners and old school action scenes.
Sadly the film only briefly delivers...The plot is just a bunch of terrorism propaganda which is very incoherent, Stallone and Statham seem to be the only characters the film focuses on, no memorable villain, not enough one liners (and some weren't even that good) and as for the action.
I was expecting a 'Predator' like film with a lovable team just wielding huge guns, killing bad guys and spouting quotable one liners.The action is still quite fun at moments and very explosive, but I just wish it was shot the same way something like 'Commando' was filmed.
It's a kind of action movie that has not been seen in decades, in that it's not about cramming explosions into a 90 minute block, rather telling an exciting story that involves characters you care about.
There are very few movies which give you nausea while you are watching them and ultimately you puke after some time.It has nothing,no story,novelty,nothing.I hate these guys for what they have done by participating in this sham.At least they could have tried one new picture frame.All it had was banality and shameless dialogs,which did not seem coherent at all.They were just there so that everyone seemed so cool.you can be forgiven for making a bad movie when you make a sincere effort but there is no forgiveness for it when its intentional.I do not know how many people will permanently hate cinema after this movie and how much damage it may have done to their psyche.I will like to vote this movie and all people who are associated with it for Razzies this year and pray to God that they win.America hates the terrorists and mercenaries after 9/11 and this is what they produce after that, a movie mercenaries are cool killing machines..
I love action movies, but I HATE this movie, it is a real abomination.An awful script, terrible Direction, wooden acting and rubbish explosions that would shame even Steven 'Straight to DVD' Segal (though this movie missed him, Van Damme, and Carl Weathers)When I first heard the '12 hardened mercenaries travel to the jungles of Central America' thing, I thought it was going to be a serious action movie, with jungle scenes like those in 'Predator', or even 'Rambo IV', not the half-assed attempted action-comedy that it is.Stallone's god awful rucked up in the neck toupee, Jet-Li's grating Beijing accent (sounds like a seal), Steve Austin's cretinous goon, Eric Roberts pantomime villainy !
So many reasons to hate this on a character level alone.What we discover happened to Dolph Lundgren's imaginatively named character; 'Gunnar Hansen' at the end of the movie just beggars belief, and is truly a Plan 9 From Outer Space moment !The only good thing for me was seeing Sly with Arnie and Bruce - although poor Arnie walks like a 63 year old man crippled with arthritis.That 28% of IMDb members have voted this as a '10' (the largest by far) is just laughable..
The meeting between Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis is little more than a boring cameo.This leaves the expendables actually consisting of Old Man Stallone, Dolph Lundgren ( where's he been for the last decade or two?), Statham, Jet Li and a couple of people I've never heard of.Mickey Rourke is an ex-Expendable who reminisces in an unintentionally hilarious scene.There is very little action in the first half but there is a massive action scene in the end where the Pensionables take on a vast army.
Ever since the film was first announced, way back in November 2008, Stallone's action ensemble spectacular, The Expendables, has been in the forefront of every genre fans mind since.
There is a sense that dramatic moments are forced in, but that was also a trait of the 80's action film in any case, and the now completely unsurprising scene with Willis, Stallone and Arnold has lost any enigma for first time viewers, which is a shame.
It's just great to watch an old school action film again, and to see a collection of tough guys doing their thing.
action packed it is but the plot sucked monkeys ass, as if we haven't already had millions of other movies made about old has-been actors trying to make a come back.
Well this is one of those movies that makes you say why I spend my hard money on this, this movie is pure crap,I remember the time when I watched Shaolin Temple,why I mention that because after Expendables Jet Li has to stop shooting for Hollywood I speak that because I love Jet Li movies and movie like this just made him look poor and boring,Sylvester Stallone has shown that not he only is a bad writer, he also is a bad director,Eric Roberts has proved to be one of the worst actors in Hoolywood,Steve Austin.......back to WWE thats all I can say,Randy Couture I don t know who he is but he was not the right choice for this movie,Dolph and Jason Statham is only good thing in this movie, everything else is crap.Only good fight scene is fight between Jet and Dolph.Sylvester Stallone should retire this his worst movie ever,worst than Rocky 5..
It is good old fashion action pack of the 80's-90's...There is no deep romantic conversations, there is no super unpredictable twist, there is no time for exploring and reveal deep each character, it is movie which goes straight to the point with good sense of humor...Those of you who LOVE rap and hip hope music, can't complain that rock or heavy metal don't have bit because it is ridiculous, it is different genre.
For me it was like sentimental memory of all old action movies which I watched with those people playing inner and I think it is extremely good to see them in Expendables.
However, it seems that the 64 year old liked the familiar taste of the now-outdated genre and has decided to attempt a loving comeback for it, bringing together the very best action heroes working today for its primary cast, including Jason Statham and Jet Li. Steven Seagal can suck it.The Expendables stars Stallone as Barney Ross, the head of a group of professional mercenaries, consisting of Lee Christmas (Statham), Ying Yang (Li), Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) and Toll Road (Randy Couture).
Very high expectations, given the long list of great actors.However, the plot is obvious, the acting is wooden and the only saving grace is a constant stream of special effects and explosions.Arnold S does a 5 minute appearance, seemingly preparing himself for the end of his Governorship, when he needs employment again.I like a good action movie myself and do not need a complicated plot to enjoy it.
Stallone has shown a real knack for bringing back the hard action movie of the 80's and he does a good job here.
I am always more than happy to see Stallone coming out and do movies like this, Rambo 4, and the expendables are the reason why actions films are worth watching.
I guess it's a p***-take, because it's so bad, but I thought p***-takes were meant to be funny?It's a world gone wrong when people think that this film could be considered a "great movie".103 minutes has been stolen from my life, actually a little less, because I didn't bother watching it to the end.Get off the crack Stallone and retire already..