Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Expendables review

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The Expendables Review

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On August 13th of 2010, the world saw for the first time a movie that brought together many action stars of today and then. It’s goal was to bring a movie reminisent of the classic action movies of the 80’s. This Sylvester Stallone written and directed movie promised much from just the synopsis alone, never mind the fantastic trailer that sent a chill down everyone’s collective spine.

Among the people credited to star in this movie are some very well known actors as well some that might not ring a bell with a lot of people. Unfortunately, many of these actors are wasting their talent in this movie as most of the screen time goes to Stallone and Statham. Not even Jet Li, the third of the “big three”, gets a lot of screen time. Plus, he gets his ass handed to him by Dolph Lundgren. Jet Li can give Jackie Chan a run for his money and we’re supposed to believe that Dolph Lundgren can best him?
Another actor that was horribly underused was Gary Daniels, whose movies I quite enjoyed back when I was a kid. Charima Carpenter was horribly miscast as well as she is way too good an actress for such a small and insignificant part.

Early on in the movie I joked to myself that the scene I had just watched was as good as it was going to get. It was the scene where Sylvester Stallone met with Bruce Willis and Arnold fucking Shwarzenegger in a church to see who gets the job. The sheer awesomeness oozing out of the screen was only matched by the sheer amount of testosterone that almost made my TV explode.
Turned out that my prediction was true, it wasn’t going to get any better than that. Most of the action was shot like many action movies these days, at close range and editted by a guy with ADD. On the other hand you had the effects which looked like they were made by a guy with narcolepsy. Most of the time they just looked unfinished or just plain bad.
The sign of good music in a movie is that you can instantly bring up the scene in which the music was featured. Problem here is that I can’t even bring up the music. Was there music? I have no idea.

In the end, The Expendables is a fun, little action movie that really could have been a lot better than it is. It feels like most of the budget went out the window because of the cast and that the writing was done as an afterthought. The main thought being: ACTION MEN, THE GREATEST HEROES OF THEM ALL! 

6/10

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