Review of The Expendables (2000) by Huw G — 16 Sep 2018

Strengths: The entire appeal of this movie was a combination of the cast and their history of action movies. Most of the cast are used quite well. Sylvester Stallone (Barney Ross), Jason Statham (Lee Christmas), and Eric Roberts (James Munroe) seem to get most of the key scenes. Roberts is fun as the villain, while Stallone and Statham play well off each other. I dug the fight scene between Jet Li (Yin Yang) and Dolph Lundgren (Gunner Jensen). It was creative and played so well off the tall vs. short dynamic. Most of the action is solid. I got a kick out of the scene where Statham beats up a bunch of dudes at a basketball court for hitting the woman he loves, played by Charisma Carpenter (Lacy). The scene with Bruce Willis (Mr. Church) and the Arnold Schwarzenegger (Trench Mauser) cameo was also fun.

Weaknesses: I wanted one of the wildest action movies in history. While most of it was good, it never packed the punch I wanted it to. If you're being hyped and advertised as having all these massive action stars, do that. They failed to deliver something memorable. None of the characters really felt cool and that was mostly because they were trying too hard to be cool. Look at the tattoos, the motorcycles, the outfits, etc. It's as if they saw things from their past that were cool and forced them onto everyone. Some characters felt like clichés, especially Yang. Terry Crews (Hale Caesar) and Steve Austin (Dan Paine) felt underused. Meanwhile, Giselle Itie (Sandra) gets too much screen time and isn't interesting enough to deserve it.

Overall: For being billed as a major action flick, there's no reason this should be as boring as it is. With stronger action, better sue of certain characters, and less attempts to try to be cool, it could've worked.