Review: The Expendables


Thanks for checking out our The Expendables Review

Genre: Action/Adventure/Thriller
Directed by: Sylvester Stallone
Staring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Mickey Rourke and Terry Crews
Released: August 13, 2010

THE GENERAL IDEA

A team of elite, highly-trained mercenaries known as The Expendables are sent into South America to overthrow a ruthless cold-blooded dictator. But once the mission begins, they discover a plot far more sinister than they were led to believe. With innocent lives in the balance, The Expendables are forced to take on an even more difficult challenge.

THE GOOD

The star of the film is the action. Stallone promised it, and he delivered in every possible way. From car chases to C4 explosions, I myself was so pumped up at the action scenes, that mostly all of my popcorn ended up on the floor. I’m not kidding, Stallone basically slaps you in the face and tells you “Hey boy, this is how we did it back in the day; and yes, we still can do this shit if we wanted to!” Boom, boom, boom!

Another highlight for me was that with such a crowded cast of action stars, Stallone did a pretty good job of balancing the parts for each character. Each star gets the opportunity to contribute to film by acting and kicking ass in their own way. I particularly liked Eric Roberts on this one; it’s been a while, but he nailed this one.

The amount of ammo wasted, and the body count at the end of the film is insane!

THE BAD

The plot is of course, ridiculous; but for this type of movie, that’s ok. Each time they went into mission, the guys simply had no plan. For the whole movie, it was just simply “hey, we’ve got 20 minutes to kill and blow everything”. When the action scenes end, it’s where Stallone strays a little bit by trying to make this bunch of guys have hearts and souls. During some spots, we get some side plots that maybe weren’t necessary. But I do understand what Stallone was trying to do here; and I appreciate it. It’s something that he did in both the last Rocky and Rambo films.

Also, something that took me out of the film about 2 or 3 times, was the fake cgi sprays of blood. Mostly it goes undetected, but in some spots one can notice this. Although it doesn’t bother me at all in the end, it’s quite weird at times.

OVERALL

In general, The Expendables is pretty awesome. It’s a great, action B-movie in all it’s glory. I thought Stallone delivered big time on the 80s/90s style action, and that all of the personalities clicked and shined in a well balanced way. The actions scenes were great, the fighting and stunts were insane, and the camera angles were comfortable. Although it dragged in the emotional parts and wasted time on some unnecessary side plots, the movie ends up being what everyone expected: Big actions stars fighting big bad guys, with big fists and big guns. Bring on The Expendables 2!

I give The Expendables a 7.5 out of 10

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28 thoughts on “Review: The Expendables

  1. You are right that some parts of the plot deviate from the main thrust of the story. The portrayal of Christmas’s troubled relationship with his girlfriend shows Christmas’s ability to love despite all the killing he does. However, I wish the writer of the movie would have shown Christmas’s humanity in a way that was more relevant to the plot.

  2. ya its awesome but i still want to go for the movies which have soul in therms of the story and the plot. this movie really gives action packed 90 mins. but hey, all action but no sense distinguishes them from “die hard”.

  3. saw the movie it was awesome.actuallly i am a action lover and the movie is all about it.thought the movie should have been a bit longer to have jett li and some others a greater screen space.i literally wanted arnold to be a part of it rather than to have a cameo.looking for the part 2

  4. in bruce willis team ‘s i forget one guy :
    Scott ADKINS – black belt kung-fu,taekwondo,jiujutsu,judo( danny the dog, the tournament, X-MEN origins wolverine )
    you have six fighters with bruce willis .

  5. bruce willis team’s for the expendables 2:
    -Rick YUNE- Hapkido black belt ( Ninja Assassin, Die another day)
    -Viggo MORTENSEN – close combat (history of violence ),psychokiller
    -Peter AERTS -“the high” Kickboxing k-1 champion
    -Michael JAI WHITE – Great karaté Kyokushinkai champion ( universal soldier, Blood and Bone )
    -Mark DACASCOS ” the special” kung fu wushu ( Crying freeman )

    a new wife for yang ying(jet li) it’s THE BEAUTIFUL lucy LIU.

  6. People get hung on the dumbest things (CGI Blood, ect ect) This movie is a throw back flick with some of our greatest action stars of yester year. I had a blast with my two brothers and close friend. We yelled we whooped and hollered. If you went there to have fun you weren’t disappointed. If you went in with a stick half way up your ass im sure you can fill in the rest.

    Dolph = Awesome, and Statham has never been more badass (kunai?!)

  7. Awesome movie! Saw it last night. I went in clean shaven, came out with a beard by the end of the running time. This movie was the definitive Man’s Movie! I really hope he gets a part 2 greenlit for this.

  8. Haha.. Rodney. Haven’t seen the movie yet so I can’t critic but I wonder why Van Dam isn’t in it, not that I like he’s movies that much but I mean you got Ivan Drako in it.

  9. “hey, we’ve got 20 minutes to kill and blow everything”

    hehehe. I’m sorry, but the sexual innuendo of this statement is AWESOME, and I don’t think it was on purpose!

    1. hey luchismo u sick freak the sexual ennuendo of this film ??? Ur a nut job. This was a man’s movie not a fags movie and yea terry crews scene was awesome, the joke on arnold was classic !!

      1. Wow! First he wasn’t saying the movie had alot of sexual innuendo, just the statement that was made in the review. It says “blow everything” and I think it meant to say “blow up everything.” It was kinda funny. Also, the use of the word “fags” in your comment was a little unnecessary. It was a man’s movie. That implies people with penis’ not people who like to have sex with women. Now of course I don’t know you. But from the way you took this persons comment way out of context, it sounds like someone might be a tad insecure. BTW, before you come back with some silly comment, I’m a happily married hetrosexual male who enjoys all kinds of movies and feels anyone, gay or straight, can do the same.

  10. Corey is right about the blood it was so fake I hated how it was CGI reminded me of the blade movies.Terry crews stole the movie with a 30 second gun fight but messed it up by saying “remember that on Christmas” bad one liner he needed to ask Arnold for some pointers who is the king of one liners.over all I ranked the movie in the top 20 movies I’ve ever seen a must see if you love action movies with great fight scenes that make you go ooohhh!!!

  11. just saw the movie and it was AWESOME. loved it.

    great action and really the plot wasn’t bad. not too over the top ( everyone has their own perspective) and the film did have heart. just those scenes wont connect to everyone due to perspective.

    over all i love the film. i would give it a 8/10

    and hell yes bring on The Expendables 2

  12. I got to see this 2 nights ago so I could go to the midnight showing of Scott Pilgrim and it was better. Not to say I didn’t like the Expendables, though. The cgi blood was Really distracting for me at times. Some of it kind of reminded me of Wolverine. Overall it was mostly what I expected, guys getting killed and stuff blowing up

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