Sylvester Stallone:  Barney Ross
Jason Statham:  Lee Christmas
Jet Li:  Ying Yang
Eric Roberts:  James Monroe
Mickey Rourke:  Tool
Dolph Lundgren:  Gunner Jensen
Steve Austin:  Dan Paine
Terry Crews:  Hale Ceasar
Randy Couture:  Toll Road
Chrisma Carpenter:  Lacy
Gisele Itie:  Sandra
Bruce Willis:  Mr. Church
Arnold Schwarzenegger:  Trench

Release Date: August 13, 2010
Studio: Lionsgate / Millennium Films
Genre: Action
Rated: R     1 hr 43 mins

CAST:

The Expendables

August 17, 2010

Reviewer: Rottenbucher

DIRECTOR:

Sylvester Stallone

*Comments:

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When a movie’s main point is up-selling the amount of stars, you know you are walking into trouble.  Ensemble casts usually don’t work well as the audience (and the director and producers) is too busy paying attention to who is in the movie, not what the story is about. So when Sylvester Stallone decided to hire nearly every action star from the 80s, 90s, 00s and Direct-to-DVD world for an action extravaganza, it looked either too good to be true or a complete mess.

If you are a complete cinema snob, looking to only watch artistic gibberish that is more boring than profound, The Expendables is offensive, brutish and obscene.  But if you really don’t care about plot but rather explosions, beheadings, full-auto gun play, kung fu fury, sneering villains, busty damsels in distress and crazy car chases, The Expendables may be more arousing than a Christy Canyon classic.

Here is what you need to know: Yes, there are action actors in big roles and cameos.  Yes, there are oodles and oodles of action.  No, the babes do not get naked. Yes, there are plenty of bulging biceps for the wives and girlfriends.  Yes, the body count outnumbers the Friday the 13^th franchise and even the recent Rambo film.  So if you want to see bad guys get blown apart, impaled, slashed, gutted, vivisected, pulped by full-auto shotgun mayhem and even set afire, The Expendables is for you.

Is The Expendables too good to be true? No. It’s simply a bombastic B-movie with an impressive cast.  It’s eye candy. Cinema for guys that rather be neutered than trade in their V8 trucks for a compact hybrid. The plot is pretty pointless and painfully predictable. However, the action is non-stop, only pausing to give the film some sort of purpose that really doesn’t matter. So if you need a testosterone boost or a therapeutic release, go see The Expendables. Let the pansies debate if Inception is the best movie of the year or if 3D is the better than HD.  The Expendables is low on brains but big on balls.