Review of The Expendables (2010) by Mitchell B — 15 Jul 2014

The Expendables is a fun ride, but a disappointing one. I won't say it is bad. I had fun with the movie. However, it didn't really deliver what they promised, or at least not fully. This film is basically The Statham and Stallone show while the others are minor side characters or just have brief cameos. The action is good, but the film does suffer from some shaky-cam. This film just did not live up to its potential.

As I said the film is fun. When the action is there it is good for the most part despite the shaky-cam. Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham bring their A-game. They do a competent job acting-wise, the action scenes involving them are pretty good, and they do work off each other well. It's a good thing they do work well together because they pretty much have to carry the film for a major chunk. Without their chemistry this film would probably suck.

However, as I said previously, those two really hog the majority of the spotlight. You have other action stars like Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, and Terry Crews who do not get that much screen time. You see everyone together in the beginning action scene, and then they all just disappear leaving just Stallone and Statham for the entire middle portion. They then all come back at the end for the final battle. Then you have people like Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Mickey Rourke who just make brief cameos. Rourke appears more than the other two but he doesn't do anything. Schwarzenegger I can understand at the time but the other two really have no excuse.

Overall, if you want a fun action film with Stallone and Statham teamed up you will enjoy this film. However, this film promised a union of so many of the big action stars. We see them, but most are not in the film very much while others just make cameos. When they are there it's fun, but still. This is basically Statham and Stallone's movie. Again, I don't dislike the film. I had fun with it, but I still found it a bit underwhelming. Thankfully Expendables 2 and, hopefully, Expendables 3, improved upon the problems of this one.