glorious macho bullshit: THE EXPENDABLES

Everything will be like back in the day - from male bonding and one-liners to over-the-top action to the baddies trying to escape via helicopter in the end.

I don't remember seeing such massive shoot-outs at the cinema before,
at least not since Stallone's ridiculously action-packed RAMBO, which felt still a little less epic than THE EXPENDABLES.
Big cheers to Sly for bringing Gary Daniels, Eric Roberts and, of course, Dolph to the big screen again.

Thanks to Stallone anyone can buy a ticket and enjoy seeing:

-Stallone and Schwarzenegger in the same frame.

-Dolph Lundgen giving Gary Daniels a bitch-slap and trying to impale Jet Li on a metal spike.

-Lots of gratuitous violence and stuff blowing up.

Yes, THE EXPENDABLES is an unapologetic dumb movie without an ounce of meaning.
Script is typical straight-to-video fare, but oh my god - the cast, the budget, the panache of it all!
The very fact that this sort of thing is back at the cinemas after years is
e x t r a o r d i n a r y.



THE EXPENDABLES was produced by NU image, a company that for years has been putting out low-budget action and sci-fi mixtures: SHADOWCHASER series, OCTOPUS 1-2, SPIDERS 1-2, Tobe Hooper's CROCODILE (and it's sequel) to name a few.
They've produced a stock footage masterpiece that is TICKER (by Albert Pyun) which used footage from SWEEPERS with Dolph Lundgren, PROJECT: SHADOWCHASER 2 and OCTOPUS, among others.



Seeing them raise their profile dramatically in recent years was a shock.
First they did some very decent Van Damme straight-to-DVD films like THE REPLICANT.
And now they have the biggest blooming stars and have gone massive!

They obviously tried to make the finale epic and sure have succeeded.
Buildings collapse, numerous obligatory barrels explode while generic 'battle music' is threatening to drown out the gunfire noise.

The only real(minor) complaint would be use of 'shaky-cam' during the fight scenes. That is annoying, surely guys like Jet Li can do their stuff convincingly in a static wide shot, without all the editing and jerky shots?
As long as there still chance of films like THE EXPENDABLES appearing on big screen I will keep going to the movies.