Review of The Expendables (2000) by Liam C — 20 Aug 2014

Should hit harder? Really? Unless you walked out after about 25 minutes, I have to question what movie you saw. The Expendables delivers on all the wishes you had of taking the stars of yesteryear and putting them all in a movie together.

Saying that though this wasn't the movie I was expecting, I was expecting a load of old men jokes making fun of the fact that they are old with a bunch of winks to the audience but that wasn't what we got, I have heard the sequel does this but I won't judge the movie on what I expected; the movie was still a very good action movie that was entertaining the whole time. There is actually a story to this and for about 20 minutes near the start, besides the opening scene, hardly any guns are fired at all and there are some quiet moments where characters talk but nothing to get in the way of the action. I know, you don't go into this movie looking at the story because why would you even do that but it is still nice that some attention was spent on that. The only problem I had with it is that the Dolph Lundgren side plot was weak and results in a laugh and given what happens, makes no sense, but I'm not going to think about it too much because, who cares?

The action on the other hand is really well done and satisfying to watch. It's surprisingly bloody and hits hard and what makes it better is that there are no quick cuts to the point where you cannot tell what is going on; all the fistfights are well filmed, well choreographed and just interesting to watch. It's nice to know that someone out there still knows how to film action instead of just cutting every other second to mask the fact they don't know what they're doing. The movie is actually funny and the jokes do work, they don't just make you groan, roll you eyes and make you go 'oh you' and they even take a jab at one of the stars in his cameo about being president which I thought was very funny.

For awhile you do start to question where the rest of the team are because for the most part it is Stallone and Statham doing most of the work but the finale happened and then it all came together, I would have liked to have seen more of Mickey Rourke, though. Bruce Willis was just confusing, his name is on the front cover in big letters as well as his image but he is hardly in the movie at all, I know he was filming another movie at the time but they could have gotten someone else to be in that role, right? I have read it was difficult to cast but still, hey, we have the sequel for that. I thought the whole gimmick of The Expendables was getting old actors of action movies past and putting them all together in a movie but half of these guys are modern action heroes, nothing wrong with it as they are all awesome but it was still a little strange, maybe I just had a totally wrong idea of what these movies were.

The villains were a little average, both fine actors for sure and David Zayas fits his role perfectly and it is good to see him in a big movie but I can't help but feel Eric Roberts was miscast. He was fine in the role and did a good job and nothing against the actor but I just thought they could have gotten a bigger named actor of yesteryear to be the bad guy, like the sequels did. Ben Kingsley, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino were all considered for his role and while I can see all of them saying no for one reason or another, at least they would have made sense.

All in all, was it satisfying? Oh hell yeah it was. It's a big action movie with all your favourite action stars and it does what you would expect it to.