The Expendables

Oh, Sly.

As I've said, I want to like your films, I want to support your work, but sometimes you do make it hard. It seems hard for me to understand how you can be so open an honest with yourself when writing scripts about Rocky Balboa, and then so crass and empty with, well...just about everything else. I see that you try, I really do, but somehow putting pen to paper about that big lug from Philly allows a door to open inside you that lets you unflinchingly write about yourself.

Rocky, Rocky II and Rocky Balboa all feel like honest looks deep into your heart. Rocky III wasn't as good as those, but you seemed so open about how you had lost touch with yourself. Even Rocky V, I could see the shades of yourself, in the Rocky that had fallen from the top.

Let's just forget Rocky IV ever happened, OK...Great villain, but I don't want Rocky to be involved with jingoism.

There's other places where I can see the best of Stallone. Cop Land, Nighthawks, F.I.S.T., even First Blood, the guy can act. Thing is he keeps running back to the lowest common denominator. Rambo, from a few years ago, was trash. Pure trash, that used the Burmese situation to justify filling the screen with gore, in hopes of bringing in the crowds that had been expected to flock to Grindhouse. (Thing is, it worked out better for Stallone than it did for Tarantino and Rodriguez.)

The Rambo films were never about gore. Violence? Oh hell yeah, but there was also a point of respectful distance from reality. We do not go to these movies to see reality, we go to see a simple morality play wherein our guy does what is right, and kills those who do wrong. Yes, there are subtextual psychological elements you can pull apart for years, but, much like comic books, the idea is broad stroke morality.

Good guys stand up for the weak, the oppressed. They can deal violence, but do not revel in it, they are sickened by brutality. That line is hard to hold when the film, and the filmmaker, seems to be reveling in the brutality they can put on screen.

I write all this as preface for my thoughts, now having seen The Expendables.



First off, I really think the ad campaign for this is awful. They're selling it like a modern The Seven Samurai or The Magnificent Seven. First off...Look at that poster. There's nine guys on there. Only six of them are really "Expendables," and one of those is sidelined for the majority of the picture. Of those five, you've heard of three of them. The film is kinda like watching The Magnificent Seven, staring Yul Brenner, Steve McQueen, and five versions of Horst Buchholz. (Look it up.)

Then there's the much talked about scene with Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Willis sharing the screen. Well, it's "blink and you'll miss it" stuff. The Governator has all of 6 lines, maybe. Most of them are bad in-jokes. The real problem with this scene is kind of indicative of the problem with the entire film. There's clever jabs at your image, and then there's pandering.

There's a great moment of homoerotic humor between Schwarzenegger and Stallone that made me laugh out loud. That's a clever jab at one's image. Then there's a groaner about Schwarzenegger's character (who's last name is "Lugar," I think?...Ummm) wanting to be President. Pandering. Much to obvious a joke, relying on pushing your brain out of the movie to work.

Plus, and here's where I get into technical storytelling problems, this scene pretty much sets up the rest of the film. Lots of exposition, but we're being asked to wade through all the "hey, look at us all together" stuff, to process it. Willis, as "Mr. Church," is laying out the whole deal, and you're snickering because Arnie looks like he can't walk straight anymore.

Yet, that's the only real scene where Stallone actually has what he's selling. It's three ICONS of 80's action cinema on screen together. The rest of the time, it's just big muscled guys slamming into each other. I mean, at points it feels like Sly's just spinning a wheel for match-ups. Ok, Statham and Rourke challenge each other to knife throwing, then it's Lundgren vs. Lee, then Stallone vs. Austin, then Lee vs. Lundgren 2, then Couture vs. Austin. The plot revolves around a petty dictator and his rouge CIA handler on a South American island, but really it's just about who can fight who next.

There is some sense that Stallone is trying to make some of these lesser-known guys into stars. However, stars like this aren't really made, in my opinion. They emerge with a presence almost immediately, and then either grow as an actor, or not. That's the difference between direct-to-DVD stars and somebody like, say, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Giving Couture a painful monologue about his cauliflower ear ain't gonna do it.

Worst of all, the filmmaking is not crisp. It's not well shot, with scenes near the end with a ton of CGI fire effects just looking truly cheap and awful, and it's not well cut. The final assault/ battle is simply murky and confusing. I found myself sitting in the theater, thinking about Avatar. Love or hate that movie, James Cameron is a master of conveying battlefield geography. When you watch the final battle of Avatar, you know where all the characters are, and who's trying to target, or defend each landmark. You also understand how those things relate to each other.

The Expendables just becomes random shots of people running around, punctuated by shots of very large guns being fired. I kept trying to figure out if the team was inside or outside the Presidential Palace, and when it turned out they weren't, I wondered what other, huge building, not obvious in the establishing shots, they were supposed to be in.

So, in essence, you're watching actors/characters you have little connection to do things you can't quite understand.

Someone asked me if the movie was "fun." I certainly understand the question. There are truly awful movies I love because they are just enjoyable to watch. Yes, I did get a kick out of some of this movie, but I think "fun" would be overstating it. There is a sequence where Terry Crews unleashes a fully automatic shotgun that is full-on 80's action gold, and contains the best shot in the film. I laughed out loud. Statham is highly watchable, and is arguably the best actor among the Expendables, proper. Hence, he gets the romantic subplot.

So, yeah...it was "fun," to a point. However, not so much that I can recommend running out to see it.

A Few Words About "The Expendables"

I can see a lot of people out there rolling their eyes right now...

As a child of the 80's, Sylvester Stallone seems to think he made this movie for me. Which, I suppose, is a valid enough thing. I'd also say that the film he set out to make is a film I'd run, screaming to the theatre to see. The one he actually made....I'll see, but I'm not rushing.

I'd have to call myself a Stallone fan. I root for the guy. There's something about, well there's something about his performance as Rocky, which was brilliant no matter how you look at it, that makes him want to do well.

Rocky, and it's first and last sequels, I consider to be wonderfully entertaining films, with the first being a truly great one. Rocky suffers in the same way Jaws does, too many weak sequels have made the pure joy, and genius, of the originals suspect. Rocky is an American classic. Rocky II and Rocky Balboa are absolutely worthy follow-ups.

First Blood is a nice piece of action cinema, re-watching it has revealed a level of cheese I never saw when i was 16, but the film works. It's also got a bit to say about the Vet experience, without forgetting it's a popcorn flick. Rambo: First Blood Part II is a fine sequel, ramping up the cartoony aspects. Rambo III is OK, and Rambo...well, I dislike it. These films were never meant to be gore-fest, splatter, "grindhouse" fare, and that's what Stallone made his 2008 revisit to the character, and it unsettled me.


So, Stallone continues this latest comeback with The Expendables. Like I said, I think the film he wanted to make would've been really exciting for me. The idea seems to have been to round up as many of the old 80's action stars to make a Dirty Dozen-style romp. I know Stallone approached Kurt Russell and Jean Claude Van Damme about being part of it. I would assume offers went out to guys like Chuck Norris and Steven Seagal, as well. Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger actually do appear in the worst kept "secret cameo" scene, ever, but that's only about 5 minutes of screen time.

I guess those guys wanted more cash, or better screen time than what the team, reportedly, ultimately gets in the film. What we've ended up with only really includes one truly 80's-vintage action dude, Dolph Lundgren. There are stars, to be sure, Jason Statham and Jet Li, but they're hardly what I would call contemporaries of Stallone, both rising in the early 00's, I'd say. The rest? Wrestlers and UFC fighters...big whoop.

What seems to have been in mind was a convergence of actors that already had their personae in place, and would convey something just by being there. I mean, seeing Stallone, Van Damme and Norris try to out bad-ass each other would be entertaining on principle. I mean, watch The Magnificent Seven sometime, half the fun is about seeing all those guys try to upstage each other. Seeing the same thing with Randy Couture, who I'd have no earthly knowledge of without the internet? Not the same.

I know it's my caveman self talking, but I'm disappointed.

On Sly and Ain't it Cool News

I'm generally a Sylvester Stallone fan. I was a boy growing up in the 80's, how could I not be? Plus, anyone responsible for the creation of such a wonderful and indelible character as Rocky Balboa deserves respect.

Doesn't mean I'm always in his corner. I loved Rocky Balboa, because it got to the heart of that character, and made you believe in what was happening. The latest Rambo...I couldn't get over the fact I felt Stallone had made something akin to violence porn, and then attempted to justify it by "exposing the violence in Burma."

First Blood was relatively realistic, and had something to say about Vietnam vets. After that the Rambo films got all kinds of cartoony. That was fine, the politics were as cartoony as the violence, and I roll with them as pure entertainment. With Rambo, I felt like he tried to have his cake and eat it too, and the whole thing felt...wrong.

Anyway...Stallone is making a film right now called The Expendables, with an all-star cast of action stars, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, etc...Governor Arnie and Bruce Willis even show up in cameos. As a kid of the 80's, I can't help but see this as something that will be fun to watch...

But "good?" Jury's out.

The film was recently test-screened, and, as they are wont to do, Aint It Cool News posted some reviews of this screening...

You can find the first two of these reviews HERE.

My take on these two reviews? "The Recruiter" may have expected a bit too much from the film, especially at this early stage, but their review is very fair and balanced. A list of likes and dislikes by someone who can put together coherent thoughts.

"D?" Well, simply reverse everything I just said about "The Recruiter." "D" strikes me as everything wrong with these fan-reviews. It's dazzled by the pure excitement of seeing a movie so early, and wrapped up in a lot of hero-worship. It's not a review, it's an orgasm.

Well, Stallone apparently was unhappy with "The Recruiter's" take on his film. Read HERE.

OK, Stallone...You allowed people to see your film. You've opened yourself up for them to have opinions. You may have been "a tad annoyed" that someone didn't like it, but that review was in no way calling the film a "disaster." Top that off with the line about the "girl with braces?" It sounds like you're just upset that your "buddies" over at AICN would post something that wasn't glowing.

The real annoyance, for me, is Harry (Knowles) reaction. I mean, for God's sake...I'm fully aware that AICN has become pretty beholden to the Hollywood teat, and that Harry LOVES being "friends" with people like Stallone...he's falling over himself to try to convince his readers of...what? That Stallone is a big movie star and we ought to all kiss his feet for deigning to talk with us...er, well...Harry?

I mean that "Perfect movie for 1985" defense he mounts? It's idiotic. It's really, really stupid, and it makes him look like a mouth-breathing sycophant. The Expendables is not going to be To Live and Die in L.A., or Runaway Train, or Silverado. Those films are legitimate classics, and true works of art on top of being pretty kick-ass.

He's not doing The Expendables any favors making that sort of comparison. I, really, have no doubt I'll see this movie and enjoy it. However, that's a long way from being something I'll remember in 25 years.