Review of The Expendables 3 (2014) by Matthew J — 04 Jan 2015

There seems to be an annoying trend with successful action movie franchises to tone the action and violence down in order to reach a wider audience. The first Taken movie was awesome and the sequel was so tame it might as well have been on kid's tv. The same has occured here with Expendables 3 which is a real shame because the story behind this one is actually quite dark and they could have done something really decent with it. However, the lure of making more money takes precedence over making a decent film.

It's still entertaining enough in the naff 80's action movie kind of way but they've taken a step back rather than pushing the franchise forward. Also to make matters worse we have Antonio Banderas added to the already ridiculously large cast. Back in the days of his best movie (Desperado) this would have been an excellent addition but he's been added as some kind of annoying comic relief. The only problem is he isn't funny, he just comes across as annoying, like this franchise's equivalent of Jar Jar Binks.