‘The Expendables’ is unfortunately the nadir of the 1980s homages released this year so far (I can’t imagine ‘Piranha 3D’ can be worse), and while this is the third of the trend I’ve managed to see this summer having variously enjoyed ‘The Losers’ and ‘Cop Out’, this is such a risible B movie, I’ve now got no great rush to indulge further in the trend even with the remakes of ‘The A-Team’ and ‘The Karate Kid’ vaguely tempting me to give the sub genre one more try…

Perhaps I’m the wrong audience for this film; apart from Bruce Willis’ feats of everyman daring do in the ‘Die Hard’ series, I could only really stomach the early output of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger when they were starring in Sci-Fi / Fantasy films. As while I could accept their larger than life antics in scenarios that already required me to suspend my disbelief, the action films they made which were set in ‘the real world’ were always too tacky, dumb and violent for my palate.

However if you enjoy tacky, dumb, violent action films starring Sylvester Stallone, ‘The Expendables’ may be your cup of tea.

Personally, I have to admit I needed the various wrestling and UFC stars in the film pointing out to me as I thought Steve Austin was the lead character in the ‘Six Million Dollar Man’, but even with the star studded cast that this movie professes, it would take an audience with no discrimination whatsoever not to realise the film is absolute drivel.

Starting off with a reasonably entertaining rescue mission performed by the titular (but ultimately misnamed) ‘Expendables’ – Stallone, Jet Li, Jason Stratham, Dolph Lungren and the Ultimate Fighting guy – the film unfortunately goes downhill from there.

Bodies are blown apart in the style of an unrealistic computer game as the ‘heroes’ destroy bad guys with the kind of heavy artillery you would use on a tank rather than the human body, while the terrorists are subtitled (even though they’re speaking English) and the female love interests for Stallone and Stratham stay resolutely two dimensional.

Actually I’m being kind, Charisma Carpenter’s blink and you’ll miss it role is so underwritten she barely covers one dimension, existing purely to be beaten up by Stratham’s rival, so he can prove his worth as a boyfriend by rescuing her.

There are smaller cameos still, belonging to Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger – approx three mins and one min respectively – and while there is a certain frisson seeing them and Stallone on screen together, as the audience holds their breath to see if they’ll open a theme restaurant, very little is made of this opportunity and neither return in the twist ending I was desperately hoping for.

While the opening suggests this might turn into an enjoyable comedy in the vein of a live action ‘Team America’ (no such luck), it just results in a film that’s not funny enough to be a parody or exciting enough to hold its own with modern examples of the action genre.

I can only imagine that Stallone having seen the fun that the likes of George Clooney and Matt Damon had on the ‘Ocean’s 11’ trilogy, thought that he’d call his mates and see if they could all make a film together.
The Expendables isn’t a bad movie per se, but certainly miles away from being a good one. It’s just desperately, overwhelmingly average from start to finish. With nothing new to offer to fans of the genre, the film seems pretty much a waste of time for everyone involved.

There’s little wit, imagination or energy at any level of the production but a decent script rewrite would have made it at least watchable (why wasn’t Kevin Smith or Shane Black asked to polish this movie?), but we neither care for any of the characters or have any decent one liners to quote after the end credits…

While Stallone, Lungren and Mickey Rourke mumble through their hackneyed dialogue (which ironically often did need subtitling in order to be understandable), the second tier cast – Li, Stratham and David Zayas are at least engaging and watchable and a diverting short film could be made from the material by just cutting around their scenes.

The action set pieces are passable but interminably long to the extent of being boring, with obvious CGI blood being added to gunshot wounds making much of the enterprise feel like you’re watching someone playing a dull first person shooter.

Jet Li comes off best (as you might expect) when he’s given a change to let his fists fly with his regular action choreographer along for the ride, but no fight scene has any genuine gravitas and you never believe any of the main characters are in any actual danger.

That said, I find myself grudgingly suggesting that people should go and see this film. The reason for this is no merits as far as the production is concerned but rather because the film has been weirdly associated with the Force Select Foundation, which was recently set up to raise funds for military charities in the United Kingdom.

When the film’s association with the charity is properly ratified, you might as well go and watch the movie if you were planning to anyway – forewarned by how rubbish it is – to raise a little cash for a good cause.

Also, allegedly some of the crew and production team were underpaid – to the cost of $2 million – so if the poor Brazilians that were exploited by the film (in ironic contrast to the movie’s plot of saving an island nation from a dictator) are going to be paid, this sorry exercise needs to make a slight profit.

Overall, this is ‘adult’ entertainment resolutely aimed at teenagers with no experience of decent film making, and at fans of Stallone’s movies from the 1980s who should be old enough by now to know better.