The Expendables is a good example of the type of lazy, bait and switch movie making that seems to be getting more and more common. They went through the trouble of signing a huge cast of action greats, they gave us some great trailers, and then they dropped the ball when it came to actually making the movie. I knew going in that the movie probably wouldn’t live up to the hype, but I at least expected the film makers to make an honest effort to live up to the expectations they’d set.

The Expendables is not a bad movie. The pacing’s a little off and the plot could be stronger, but it’s an action movie, so that’s completely forgivable. The pacing could have been greatly improved by cutting the pointless subplot involving Statham’s character and his love interest (Charisma Carpenter). While I love the idea of Charisma Carpenter working, the scenes between her and Statham didn’t add anything useful to the movie. I’m sure the subplot was meant to give the character some depth, but it didn’t really help. That’s the other big problem with the movie: the heroes are all just generic, all-purpose bad-asses, two-dimensional even by action movie standards. There are some variations (like the fact that Statham prefers throwing knives to gunfire), but action fans typically expect a bit more distinction and specialization in a “team” movie like this.

Of course, that brings us to the other bait and switch element of the movie: The Expendables isn’t really the Dirty Dozen/Magnificent Seven/Heat style team movie that the trailers promise. I knew going in that Bruce Willis and The Governator would just drop in for cameos, but I expected most of the movie to focus on the team as a whole. It doesn’t. After an opening scene with the whole team, there’s a big chunk of the movie that’s just Stallone and Statham, then a chunk with Stallone and Li. Lundgren sits out most of the movie, Steve Austin is basically the “boss” tough guy working for the bad guys, and Rourke takes on the mentor role, sitting out of the action entirely. Everybody finally gets together for the final “mission,” but there’s not really any kind of plan or teamwork, so the same sequence of fight scenes would have worked just as well with one hero as five.

The action scenes themselves are well done, but in many cases are a little too fast-paced. The action often moves so fast that you can’t really appreciate the individual punches, shots, and stunts. Occasionally you’ll notice something cool, but most of the action is just a blur of movement and gunfire. The bigger problem is that the action scenes are just a string of stuff we’ve seen before. There’s more action in The Expendables than most action movies, but it’s all pretty ho-hum. This is really the kind of movie where you need that “John McClane takes out a fighter jet with his car” moment--the huge, unbelievable stunt/fight/explosion/whatever. I kept waiting for it, but it never came. The closest they got was a super-cool shotgun, but it owed most of its awesomeness to great sound effects.

The Expendables is not a bad movie. In fact, it’s a pretty good action flick. The problem is entirely one of expectations: they promised us one of the greatest action movies of all time and epically failed to deliver. If you go in looking for a decent action movie and nothing more, you’ll probably leave satisfied.

Recommended: Yes

Movie Mood: Die-hard Fans Only
Worst Part of this Film: Script