Review: The Expendables

In this video review I take a stab (pun intended) at reviewing the new Stallone movie which is fraught with excessive gore and violence…

WRITTEN REVIEW:
Whenever I think of the 1980′s I think of my youth misspent in front of a box watching hundreds, if not thousands of movies. I watched movies from every genre and must have rented 90% of what was in my local video rental store. Most of the movies I watched were, to be honest, a complete waste of time. However, some were really good, at least I remember them that way. Of the all the movies I watched I have fond memories of the 1980′s action genre.

Movies such as Predator, Commando, The Terminator, First Blood parts 1 & 2, Missing in Action, and Lethal Weapon, are considered by many movie aficionados as the creme de la creme, or the royalty of the action movie genre. Needless to say, when I heard about a movie starring some of the top action movie heroes of the 80′s it peaked my interest.

The Expendables is a homage of sorts to the 80′s action movie. Starring action men such as Sly Stallone (Rambo, Rocky), Dolph Lungren (Rocky 4, I Come In Piece), Jet Li (The One), Jason Statham (The Transporter), and with cameos (oh so brief) by Bruce Willis and the governator himself, Arnie, this could have been a great action flick. I must admit going in to the theater I was expectant.

However, within the first couple of minutes the die had been cast as to what kind of movie this was to be – ultra violent – as we witness someone (a bad guy) literally torn in two by a heavy caliber weapon. Within seconds the rest of the bad guys are offed and thus begins two hours of sheer violence.

Blood oozes, sprays, and gushes by the gallon as bad guys are shot, stabbed, sliced, decapitated, gutted, burned, blown apart, punched, and sent to meet their maker in generally nasty ways. In one scene Stallone chops off one guys arm, beheads another, and then rams his knife into the now one handed man’s throat, all in graphic detail. Furthermore, a woman is tortured and almost raped, a man has a HUGE Rambo styled knife driven through his chest, and hundreds of people are blown apart by gunfire.

I knew going in that there would be some violence, after all this is a movie with an R rating, but nothing could have prepared me for the sheer amount of visual violence on offer in this movie. Maybe I should have known what to expect; Stallone’s last movie Rambo was also extremely violent, yet most of the violence was integral to the story and actually helped to highlight the plight of people in countries like Burma. In fact, as uneasy as it was to watch, Rambo actually made me thank God for freedoms I enjoy on a daily basis. The violence in Rambo was aplenty, to say the least, but unlike most action movies wasn’t played for laughs or kicks. The Expendables unfortunately fell squarely into this category – a violent cartoon-like action movie played for laughs and kicks.

Another thing I found with this movie was that at times I found myself squirming in my seat at some of the excessive onscreen violence, while at other times I actually found myself yawning. Like last years GI Joe I found that the “action” came at the viewer fast and furious, but like the saying goes “less is more.” During the action sequences, which made up the majority of the movie’s running time, there was just too much going on. Add to this some really shaky camera work (think the Bourne movies) and very choppy editing and it was all too much – I found myself actually getting bored and hoping that the movie would finish sooner rather than later.

The story, as little as there is, is very similar to Rambo in that they both deal with the rescue of innocence. In Rambo the titular character sets about rescuing a team of missionaries who dared to go deep into the dangerous Burmese jungles. In The Expendables a team of mercenaries, led by Stallone, attempt to rescue a woman who is standing up to the powers that be and risking her life for a cause she believes in. It would seem that Stallone, who penned both screenplays, admires those who stand up for a cause whether it be reaching people for Christ (as in Rambo) or standing up to a violent and corrupt government (The Expendables).

However, unlike Rambo in which the message came through loud and clear, Stallone fails to deliver the goods, instead settling for huge action sequences tainted by rivers of blood. My hope is that Stallone, who publicly became a Christian a few years back hasn’t compromised his faith to simply crown himself the king of the action flick genre.

The bottom line: The Expendables is an extremely violent movie. I would guess that the gore on offer in this movie made many of the horror movie producers very jealous. I liked Rambo for it’s overtly Christian message, but The Expendables did cause me to question Stallone’s reasoning for making this blood drenched movie. As I don’t like movies with gratuitous and pointless brutal violence I would not recommend this movie to anyone. I made the comment after the movie that I felt like my eyes had been raped. The good thing about this movie is that it’s not one that will stay with anyone too long; as I think back to last night I am having trouble piecing together the various sequences in the movie… maybe I was just overwhelmed by the violence.