Like most young men my age, yes I said young, I’m still kind of young, grew up on the action films of the 80s and 90s. The two biggest names in action were easily Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. They dominated the testosterone fueled action genre of the 80s and 90s and I loved it. LOVED IT! I’m not embarrassed to admit it.
I recently watched Predator again to get prepare for Predators and it held up very well. It was far superior to this years Predator film. So when I first read about The Expendables and Stallone’s desire to make a throw back of sorts to the action films of old, I knew I had to see it.
Well, this past Sunday my dreams were finally realized. (How sad would my life be if my dream actually was to see a Stallone film?) Well, Stallone was successful. He brought back the 80s in a big way.
The problem is, he brought back the shitty parts of 80s action films. All of the one liners sucked. There was no plot. The violence was actually pretty weak. The brotherhood and camaraderie I had expected from the men wasn’t there. Instead we mostly see Jason Statham and Stallone attempting to find some kind of chemistry, but failing miserably. Oh and Dolph Lundgren.
Lundgren is still a creepy mother, but he’s as shitty as he was 20 years ago. So my question for Sylvester Stallone is where the hell was Carl Weathers?
Le’s mention the obvious reason why Carl Weathers would have been a great addition to the team:
Predator- Apollo Creed (Rocky I, II, III, IV)
- Action Jackson
- He still looks like he could a punch.
I just don’t understand it. The other obvious problem I had was why didn’t they name Schwarzenegger Dutch after his character in Predator. Obviously Dutch would have to be some kind of mercenary these days, and he didn’t die, so why the hell not? If they had done just that one thing, I probably would have fallen madly in love with this movie.
Obviously The Expendables dominated the box office this weekend and a sequel is probably guaranteed, but I don’t want that to encourage Stallone to make the same bad film. If he should be thanking anyone it’s the marketing team that went full force behind this film creating buzz that was entirely unwarranted.
The move wasn’t entirely bad. It was actually kind of fun. Mostly to laugh at, but still fun. There were a few shots that stood out. Like in the final “battle scene” there is a shot when Stallone is firing his handgun and when the clip is empty it pops out and he reloads it in a fraction of a second. He never lowers the gun. Just drops the clip, pushes in a new clip. I’m not doing it justice in my description. Mickey Rourke struggled to make the best out of the script, and he so nearly pulled it off. He by far seemed like the one who was not destined to be a part of the film.
Randy Couture and Terry Crews definitely got screwed. They were on screen maybe 2 minutes between the two of them. So if you’re going just because you love them, don’t. And poor Jet Li, he was essentially comic relief, while in reality he’s probably the baddest mutha of them all.
I really want to hate this movie, but in the end it was what I expected. Maybe the real problem is I must reassess the quality of the action films I loved from the 80s. I watched them with my baby brain. Maybe now I must watch them with my man brain.
