The Expendables

I... I don't even know where to start here. Ok. Let's get one thing straight RIGHT OFF THE BAT. This is not, repeat, NOT an attempted satire of old, cheesy, bad 80s action flicks. It just plain IS a cheesy, bad action flick. Here, from the mind of Sylvester Stallone (God help us all. When his credit came up for screenwriter at the beginning. I sat forward with my face in my hands for about a minute and a half.) we have a movie for idiotic gun-fetishists, BY idiotic gun fetishists. This movie made me sad, REALLY sad. Because the combined action talent here is astounding. But they don't DO anything with it. You have Statham, Stallone, Rourke, Willis, and the MOTHERF*CKING TERMINATOR! How the hell do you mess that up? Well they do. Because what you have here is a macho, testosterone-filled shit movie. Yeah, it's shit. It's "Transformers" Bad.... yeah, THAT bad. What's sad is the directing sucks, the camera guy has AHDH apparently, the writing is sloppy, the story is nonexistant, the romance between Stallone (yes, he's the character that develops a romance, he wrote the movie too, coincidence? I think not. Statham is already in one but that's barely focused on except for one, admittedly, kinda cool action seen in which he beats up an abusive boyfriend and stabs a basketball with a knife with the line "Next time I'll deflate all your balls.") with the General's Daughter (who is the EXACT model of a Damsel-In-Distress type movie leading lady) is LAUGHABLE at BEST. Oh, and the action? It's terrible. Guns get shot, guys fall over, pyro blows, that's about it. Occasionally there's an uninteresting fight scene. Remember all that glorious ultra-gore in "Rambo?" Yeah, not here. It was obviously shot with one eye on a potential PG-13, so it's all quick hits and blink-and-you-miss-it inserts. The movie is straight testosterone. No emotion at all. Which should be expected from a Stallone flick, but come on guys. Rourke has one scene where he tells a story about being back in a war, and being shot up bad with stallone, and not thinking he was going to make it and that he got drunk and saw a woman about to jump off a bridge and he could've saved her but he didn't. And the ENTIRE time you're thinking, "Jesus Christ, why couldn't we be seeing THIS movie. THis sounds a LOT more interesting." and it's the only time in the movie that a preformance is, well, believable! Mickey Rourke is amazing in this movie, and the character they gave him was underplayed to a degree that quite frankly offends me. His preformance actually gives the scene emotion, and it gives his character a depth that they never play on. In summary. Expendables is shit. s-h-i-t. and for all the Macho, Explosion-wanking, stallone fans out there asking if they should like it because It has all the big action stars... Short answer: No. Long answer: No and go fuck yourselves you miserable, misinformed, cockbags.