The Expendables

When I first saw the trailer for The Expendables, I thought to myself, this film is going to be amazing and it also should have an American flag in every corner of the screen. There are tons of action heroes from the 1990s and 2000’s and they all have guns and are blowing everything in sight into small bits. What’s not to like about this film? Or so I thought.

Sylvester Stallone apparently called his buddies and begged them to be in what is sure to be the greatest gun- and explosion-fest ever known to man. He rounded up all kinds of names for this film: Jason Statham, Jet Li, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Randy Couture, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke, and Eric Roberts. (There are abundant rumors as to who was asked and who turned him down, but I won’t get into that tabloid crap.) Stallone then put guns or knives in their hands (except for Mickey Rourke) and set them loose on a movie set and told them, “Blow as many things up as possible. We’ll CGI the rest of it and piece it together”. (I might have made that up, but that’s what it seems like.)

Stallone is the leader of a mercenary group of fighters who get paid to do missions the government can’t be linked to. They are hired killers and don’t ask questions. The opening scene is the Expendables taking out pirates on some sort of ocean tanker without losing a single civilian. Then, Stallone and Statham are sent to break up some cartel in South America and Stallone falls in love with some guy named Sandra, played by Giselle Itie (mean, but she honestly isn’t pretty, especially for a romantic interest). Turns out, she’s the daughter of the dictator (or Heneral, in Spanish) (yes, I know how to spell it, dingleberries) who’s taken over the island and is running drugs and weapons. The Heneral is sadly only a puppet being controlled by Eric Roberts – a really bad guy who uses Stone Cold Steve Austin as his body guard.

Stallone and Statham barely escape but the girl won’t come with them. They end up blowing up the bad guys on a dock with a sea plane, some gasoline, and a flare gun. This is why people hate our country. Sandra won’t leave her home or father, even though she’s trying to thwart his power. They hang out with Mickey Rourke, a tattoo artist who shoudln’t try to act dramatically, for a while, who apparently hasn’t finished like 4 letters on Stallone’s tattoo. Really? Stallone can’t fight his love for Sandra, so he heads back to the island. He intends for it to be alone, but his buddies join him, except for Dolph Lundgren, who has turned traitor (it isn’t a plot spoiler if it’s amazingly obvious and not a surprise, am I right?).

Stallone and his boys blow up an incredible amount of stuff and kill all kinds of people. There’s a particularly intense and loud gun that blows people in half. That part is far-fetched, but chuckle-worthy. Blood is spraying, there’s fire and explosions everywhere, and corpses are piling up. This again, is why people hate America.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!

Rocky wins. Again.

Let me start by saying this movie made me angry. Legitimately furious. In fact, it ruined my night it was so terrible. I yelled (I mean LOUDLY yelled) “HORSESHIT!!!!!” or “COME ON!!!!” at last 25 times. People were outright laughing at the editing during conversations and at the awful CGI blood and crumbling buildings. I’d venture to guess the special effects crew from Megafault had a hand in this terrible piece of crap. I was so angry after this film, I was actually yelling at my friend. We left the theater and went the newly opened Toby Keith’s “I Love This Bar” Bar and I had to leave after less than 5 minutes because I was still livid and was having trouble keeping my mouth shut around douche bags wearing plaid shirts with snaps and drinking beer out of mason jars.

The dialogue between EVERY one of the characters was awful and contrived. None of it was believable. I’m not even sure they guy that played Heneral was Hispanic. And, I’ve seen Kindergarten drawings that were more realistic than the CGI in this film.

At one point, I was even hoping Jason Statham would take his shirt off or something so I could man-crush out a little bit, but no. He just kept reading a script that Stallone wrote for him in jr. high instead of acting. Terry Crews didn’t deliver a single line I believed and I’ve seen better acting on a Midwest car dealership commercial. Randy Couture shouldn’t speak, he should just fight – he’s REALLY good at fighting, even in this movie, he was good at fighting. But, please stop talking about your cauliflower ear. Dolph Lundgren should stick to playing Lurch on the Adams Family and Jet Li should stand up for himself and not let Stallone write racist parts for him. At least put some ridiculous martial arts in the film for him to be featured. Don’t make him whine and complain about working harder because he’s short. WTF!?!?! I’m getting angry all over again. Here, try this: take your blood pressure before this film. Then immediately following the film (don’t bother staying for the credits), take your blood pressure again and see if you can double it and add thirty to have metric blood pressure – I’ll bet you can.

Stallone should never write OR direct another film. Take his crayon away immediately. Sure, he can throw all the money he wants into being a producer, but leave the action and the CGI and the writing to the pros, my friend. This movie made ME hate America. This movie made me want to kill. Please don’t waste your time or money and allow Stallone to think you’d see another of his drain bamaged action films.

Thanks for ruining my night, Stallone...