The Expendables Review

The Expendables

Hey everyone, I originally wasn't going to actually do a review for The Expendables but after sitting down to watch it and quite literally getting the biggest 'WTF' moment I've had this year (within the first five minutes, no less), I was like a moth to a flame. I just had to write this up.

Boy am I glad I did.

The Expendables

Imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1320253/

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6RU5y2fU6s

This film is completely about finding and developing new stars for Hollywood, this is a film starring the actors of tomorrow...end joke. We all know who these guys are, the film knows that we know who these guys are, so there isn't much point in giving a detailed overview of the actors/directors involved. Check out the trailer above, it's a Hollywood line-up of manly men, the only person missing is the hulk.

This plot of this film is your typical group of mercenaries get sent to other throw some political dictator, that’s when the proverbial plop hits the fan. Explosions, guns and fist fights swiftly follow. The group is leaded by the one and only Rocky Balboa, oh sorry, Barney Ross (just imagine the mix between Barney the Dinosaur and Ross from friends, and then set fire to it). Portrayed by Stallone you know this film is about as manly as a fight to the death. With fists. Whilst on fire. Whilst riding a dinosaur. With Lasers on it's back. The great thing about this film is that instead of being set in the far east in a country only known as Generistan, it's actually set in the South American country of Generiville. So at least that's sort of original.

Review

I do have to make an apology for this review, instead of making notes whilst watching the film about the characters, the plot, the cinematography or whatever. I actually wrote more of a play by play instead of a formal review. Well, that's what I intended to do, before I actually got into the film.

Is it possible for me to slag off Stallone without me being hung, drawn and quartered? No? Well I'm going to do it anyway, I don't know whether or not he designed his own costume for this film or he had someone do it for him, but whoever did it needs to be fired. He looks like a ghetto gay pirate from jersey. Who has just been injected with an elephant level amount of steroids, honestly I was quite scared by him and his extraordinarily profound veins.

I'm only eight minutes in and I think I may have already grown another set of testicles from the amount of machismo flying around. I mean, the only people who don't actually have a mono-chromatic voice and a constant amount of 5 'O' clock shadow are Jet Li and Jason Statham, but that's only because they have borderline offensive accents, come on Statham doesn't even have that posh British accent, the one that frankly just doesn't even exist. C'mon America, we do in fact have more that one accent you know.

Oh expendables, I genuinely scoffed at the trailer when some fake actress pretending a part of the UK public, excitedly shouted “It's got everyone in it!”. Does that instantly make it good? Just because it's got big names, it means it's automatically entertaining and worth my money?

The Governator has just walked through a door......of a church....with a surprising amount of light behind him, the symbolism isn't lost on me. Arnie is a god, from his Austrian farmers accent to his stupendously bad catch-phrases. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Arnie, I love him, I think he is pure film gold. For me he a great summation of the phrase “Guilty Pleasures”, he's everything a action hero should be, whilst maintaining a somewhat aura of stupidity about him, he quite frankly is hysterical.

Arnie's just left the church, that was kind of pointless, except it did allow for one great self-aware joke, I’m not going to ruin it here, but I did laugh out loud when I heard it.

Jesus Christ, I was meant to be making notes about this film just to end up slating it, but it felt like no time at all since I was sniggering at Arnie's face, I just looked at the clock and it's around an hour later. I intended to write this film review in a bad light, saying it was crap, even before I had watched it. I guess the old proverb “Don't judge a book by it's cover” especially rings through here and twice as loud. There's a reason this film contains all these stars, it's because they are 'Veterans' and they're the best in the business, that statement also goes for the crew who worked on the film. With the incredibly well choreographed fight scenes, the awesome stunts, the thrilling soundtrack and the genuinely funny jokes. For this, I apologise to that woman in the advert that said it had everyone in it, I obviously didn't understand it, I still despise her though because she was an actress.

Hollywood knows action, it also knows mild gore, and it knows stars. In a way this film is an embodiment of Hollywood, but for men. It's reckless, mindless fun and entertainment. It knows it's target audience well and by god does it deliver right to their doorstep. In this particular case, mindless is by no means an insult, but that doesn't make it a compliment either. It's just what 'The Expendables' is, because it's exactly what it was designed to be. This is not an art-house film, it's not going to win a tonne of Oscars, comparing this to the art-house scene is like standing in a museum looking out at a theme park, you can stare at the Mona Lisa or the tomb of Tutankhamen for as long as you want, but it won't be long before you will want to just let free and enjoy that theme park. The Expendables is a perfect movie to let your hair down to, it contains some uses of “Movie Science” but that's okay, definitely when it's as thrilling as it is. Dare I say it? The best pure-action film released this year.

In one word this film can be summed up as: Testacular.

For those who don't know Testacular is the manlier version of spectacular, and I for one could not be more happy that they are making a sequel.

-Adam Dean.