Review: The Expendables

I really rather enjoyed it.

Didn't win me over but it was alright.

The dialogue is terrible. Thing with the old school films is that whilst most of the words were just there to pad out the bits between explosions, they knew exactly when to drop in a perfectly cheesy line. Didn't seem like that with this - too much trying to pander to the audience with the little winks and nudges at the actors expenses. Fun but not quite the retro-fest Stallone was trying to deliver. Commando, for example: "let off some steam, Bennet" - timeless.

Li's fight scenes were a bit rubbish too - he'll do 2 or 3 better than that in one single film. A bit static. Statham was surprisingly bearable and seemed to fit well, despite being the most "outsider" of the bunch.

The "Fry or Die" scene is awesome. That's what won me over.

Got to see it last night, and I kinda loved it. Is it a great movie? No. Is it a badass movie that is tons of fun from beginning to end? Hell yes. Like Ali said, it is completely shallow in every way, but I still loved every minute of it. My only real complaint is that the action scenes are occasionally too chaotic, and suffer a bit from too much shaky cam. Beyond that, I wish they could have found a role for Van Damme. Hopefully he shows up in the sequel, and brings The Rock and/or Vin Diesel along for the ride. Also, Terry Crews and Randy Couture need more screen time, should we be blessed with another film featuring these characters. Other than those minor quibbles, this is a great throwback to the golden age of testosterone laden macho action films, and I heartily recommend it to anyone who can roll with that type o movie.

Keep meaning to write up my A-Team review too. In a nutshell: goofy fun, no more, no less.

Just read back through the Rambo review and comments. Remember being a bit peeved at the time that they'd used stock footage of real events, but beyond that it's actually a pretty good movie - delivers exactly what it promises with no remorse, and that's what I expect from this. Except multiplied by the number of big names (and a half for Ying Yang).

Actually three big movies I'm looking forward to this year - Inception and The A-Team being the others.

I will say that there are moments in The Expendables that are beyond parody. Jason Statham's accent is hilarious - I genuinely think he has no idea if he's American or English anymore.

Also, the character names are great. Barney Ross, Lee Christmas, Hale Caesar, Gunner Hansen, Toll Road (ahaha), Tool, Ying Yang (guess who) and Pirate Leader (could be a name, could just be a job description).