SYNOPSIS:
The
only life they’ve known is war. The only loyalty they
have is to each other.
They are the Expendables: leader and mastermind Barney Ross
(Stallone), former SAS blade expert Lee Christmas (Statham),
hand-to-hand combat specialist Yin Yang (Li), long barrel
weapons specialist Hale Caesar (Crews), demolitions expert
Toll Road (Couture), and precision sniper Gunnar Jensen (Lundgren).
Living life in the fringes of the law, these hardened mercenaries
take on what appears to be a routine assignment: a covert,
CIA-funded operation to infiltrate the South American country
of Vilena and overthrow its ruthless dictator General Garza
(David Zayas). But when their job is revealed to be a suicide
mission, the men are faced with a deadly choice, one that
might redeem their souls…or destroy their brotherhood
forever.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Stallone should have thought of this long ago. The career of this once iconic action star has been pretty flagging in recent times. With the exception of his revisits to his past onscreen heroes, John Rambo and Rocky Balbao, Stallone seems to be at his career end till "The Expendables" which he wrote and direct came charging and amassing a worldwide US$266 millions in the coffer.
Assembling a cast of past and present action stars including our very own Wong Fei Hong aka Jet Li, He-Man aka Dolph Lundgren and Transporter aka Jason Statham among many others, "The Expendables" is a testosterone-filled, no-brainer action piece that dates back to the good old days whereby pyrotechnic plays as big a part as the star.
To sum up the 103 minutes movie in a single paragraph – Leader and mastermind Barney Ross (Stallone) leads a team of expendables (you can call them mercenaries actually) on a covert mission to overthrow a South America dictator, General Garza whom in turn is being manipulated by a rogue ex-CIA agent, Munroe (Eric Roberts).
It is admirable for Stallone to assemble such a strong cast but it’s a damn pity that he never spends enough time on any of them. Terry Crews’ Hale Caesar and Randy Couture’s Toll Road only appear a fraction of the duration despite receiving top billing. Mickey Rourke’s Tool is an ex-team mate of the expendables and we only get to learn about it through his mushy, boring exchanges with Ross. Statham’s Lee Christmas seems to be Ross’ right-hand man only perhaps he is the only one that always sticks close to him. Thus what you find in the end is merely a whole group of musclemen on steroids running amok, nothing more.
The Expendables portrays itself as a formidable action movie unfortunately it offers an obligatory car chase that you could have seen a million times before, a hand-to-hand sparring sequence between Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren that is disappointingly choreographed by (surprise, surprise) Corey Yuen and marred by other many frantically incoherent edited action scenes. The finale in the end marks another of Stallone’s trademark, a prolonged over-the-top deafening explosive act that remarkably works better for a Rambo instalment instead. And personally, getting all bloodied and violence with heads being blown up and hands chopped doesn’t really heighten one’s adrenalin.
Although Stallone proves to the Hollywood honchos he can still wrote, direct and stars in an actioner, he certainly needs a far neater execution and less reliance on hyper-editing in the next instalment. It’s definitely gimmicky to assemble all these stars but we are still looking forward to the sequel if it features Jackie Chan, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal as rumoured. With all the big guns and motorcycles going around, I doubt you hear their bones creaking. Recommended to gulp this with plenty of beer and pizza.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
A series of choppily edited Interview segments with the main cast members including Stallone, Statham, Jet Li, Lundgren and many more.
If you do not really have a lot of spare time on hand yet wishes to express your opinions on The Expendables to your friends, perhaps Highlights which summarizes the best scenes in the movie is your best option.
Behind-the-Scenes show you plenty of B-roll footages and let you have a feel of how Stallone directs his co-stars.
A Trailer and Photo Gallery round up the extras.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
This could be the year’s reference quality DVD given the massive amount of pyrotechnics presented however the disc only comes with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack which comes across as disappointing. The visual transfer appears grainy at some shots and some sequences look intentionally washed up.
MOVIE RATING:
 
DVD
RATING:
Review by Linus Tee
Posted on 7 December 2010
|
