The Expendables: Action's Biggest Failed Idea
Growing up in the eighties and nineties, action films seemed to almost always be about the three Bs: Big guns, Bulging muscles, and Babes. The bad guy always represented corruption (drugs, crime, financial power, or politics) or incited revenge (perhaps by wronging or endangering the good guy’s family). Sometimes that unlikely of evil, the terrorist, would rear its head. The good guys were guns-blazing anti-heroes, law enforcement, or martial arts experts. The movies themselves either became classics of the action genre (Die Hard, Predator, First Blood, Escape from New York, for example) or were clichéd formula pictures with forgettable titles that were mediocre at best (Hard Target, Hard to Kill, Eraser, The Specialist). Most of the time, regardless of quality, they gave us cool stunts or creative kills.
Those kinds of action films went by the wayside in the sobering aftermath of 9/11. We wanted our heroes to be relatable everymen who became super (Spider-Man) or are at least relied less on brawn than cunning (the Bourne series). Martial arts heroes like Jet Li turned fighting into a beautiful dance instead of the rough-and-tumble blood sport of Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Villains were either a terrorist of some kind that represented an immediate threat to a large population or someone who represented corruption in our government or military. It wasn’t enough to see muscles flex and things blow up; there had to be interesting characters and clever writing. Of course, these are the sort of things that made the action movies of old that we adore such classics (Die Hard is a great example of this). There have been few exceptions. Jason Statham has upped the insanity level of the genre, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has occasionally dabbled in rote revenge plots, and WWE star “Stone Cold” Steve Austin seems positioned to carry on the B-movie explosives of action’s past.
The Expendables, written and directed by Sylvester Stallone, seems to be an attempt to bridge these two generations of action heroes for one big explosion reminiscent of the good ol’ days. The premise of taking a dozen action stars, old and new, and mixing them together for one film sounds too good to be true.
The result tells us it is.
Wouldn’t it be great to see a film starring Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Kurt Russell, Steven Seagal, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Wesley Snipes, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Jason Statham, and Jet Li, with cameos by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Matt Damon? Word has it that Seagal and Van Damme were approached, but Seagal refused to be in a film with Van Damme while the Muscles from Brussels passed because he had better things to do. Chuck Norris was also approached, but unavailable.
As a result, we’re given a film starring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Mickey Rourke, and two guys named Terry Crews and Randy Couture, with cameos by Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s a bit underwhelming.
Too bad more of the real action stars of old couldn’t join the team. I couldn’t help wonder what some of the cast did to deserve being included in this film, especially Terry Crews and Randy Couture, neither of which have had a leading role in anything worthy of note, if at all. Mickey Rourke, one known more for acting than enacting brutal kills, is just as inexplicable. This leaves us with Jet Li, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Dolph Lundgren, and Sylvester Stallone who is the ringmaster of this bumbling circus. Schwarzenegger, having the state of California to repair, is understandably only in for a three-minute cameo. But Willis is deserving of a much larger role than he gets here. Li, Statham, Lundgren, and Stallone are the only worthy stars of this project given enough screen time and even they are let down.
Last spring’s The A-Team was somewhat exciting because its one saving grace was the chemistry among its action leads. The Expendables feels hollow, second-rate and like watching your favorite action stars be reduced to a direct-to-video action film; you know, like when direct-to-video guaranteed cheaply made and poorly acted schlock. Instead of stars of action’s past raising to their level those of action’s present, the former is instead lowered to the ranks of today’s WWE action star. In reading a recent article by Stallone about his writing process for The Expendables (which he wrote alone; the co-writing credit is to the writer of a story that Stallone bought with a similar idea), one is given the impression that not only does each character get a “moment”, but they all have dimension. That’s not the case at all. The Expendables are one-dimensional cartoons. We don’t care if they survive and because there are no stakes to the action, we have a feeling they all will. The team could’ve lived up to their name as a rag-tag group that courageously gets knocked off one-by-one. Instead all we get are weak attempts to make each member likable through piss-poor banter and action hero posturing.
The plot? Not that anybody cares, but it has something to do with the CIA hiring the Expendables to take down a corrupt leader of a small fictional South American island, a leader who is somehow in the palm of Eric Roberts’s hands. In a movie like this you don’t need much of a story – one would assume it’s about the cast – but it’d be nice to have a story we care about with a villain we love to hate (again, character). The Expendables completely lacks any of that so when we see bullets fly or things go BOOM! we can’t get excited about any of it. It feels too generic, too “been there done that”.
Speaking of which, in Stallone and Schwarzenegger’s prime the action and stunts were impressive. Here they feel rudimentary and fail to match the awesomeness of any one of these star’s mid-quality films. Go back and watch any of the classics mentioned above or even Demolition Man, Under Siege, or True Lies. To argue the action in The Expendables is acceptable by comparison is to lower standards, expect less, and be content with lazy filmmaking.
Many might say, “Leave it alone, it’s just a fun action film.” The problem is The Expendables is dumber than the talent deserves (especially Jet Li, who is known for his excellent kung fu films overseas). Stallone had his share of bad action films, but even he had First Blood and Cliffhanger, two films that could chew this movie up and spit it out. Judge Dredd, also a terrible movie, is more fun than The Expendables.
Stallone wanted to bring together the biggest names in action – past and present – to make a film that tried to remind us of a time when men were allowed to be gun-toting Neanderthals whose muscles were as big as the real estate they blew up to solve Third World problems. Had The Expendables been directed by a better filmmaker (let’s say John McTiernan of Die Hard) and better written (perhaps by Shane Black of Lethal Weapon) and featured a cast worthy of its premise, The Expendables would’ve been a booming victory cry. We are instead left with the scraps of an idea that reality tore the meat away from. It is the biggest disappointment of the year.
2/10
Should you see it? Skip
The Expendables is now available on Blu-Ray and DVD.