Review of The Expendables (2000) by Mark D — 10 Feb 2013
The perfect example of a guilty pleasure. This is not, by any means, a good movie. The story is ridiculous on top of ridiculous. The action set pieces are so over the top and unbelievable, that it's hard to suspend disbelief, even in a movie sense. There is no way a single person would survive what goes on here. Then, of course, we have the classic "damsel in distress" to top it all off. And YET...I was kind of entertained. Why is that? All my bad movie senses were screaming code red, but my nostalgia for wacky 80s action movies allowed me to push some of the nonsense aside and wallow in the fights and explosions. Even I let my barriers drop on occasion.
It truly does harken back to days of Commando, Missing in Action, Rambo, etc. Not a great movie among them, but they were still fun as hell to watch.
Stallone is kind of creepy looking nowadays. The man is 66 years old! How can he be this pumped without "help" of some kind? It's a little distracting.
Jason Statham is in his usual thug mode, but I've always kind of liked him for some reason.
Jet li is awesome as Jet li.
Everyone else is just kind of there.
I was avoiding this because I knew it would be bad. I was right. Without the 80s nostalgia, I can't see how anyone could like this. Heck, even WITH that a lot of people won't like it. Unless your only requirement for a movie is explosions. Then go for it. You'll be thrilled.
This review of The Expendables (2000) was written by Mark D on 10 Feb 2013.
The Expendables has generally received mixed reviews.
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