Movie review - The Expendables

Ever notice how one object/substance can be of one particular look or feel in the presence of one thing but then something else when something else is around. Two examples would be a bucket of water when you change temperature and height of people. Take a bucket of body temperature water and soak one of your hands in ice cold water and the other hand in really really hot water. When you place your 'cold' hand in the body temperature water the water feels hot but when you put the 'hot' hand in the same water it feels cold. Another idea would be if you look at a person and say he is average height then put him in a room with shorter people you would describe him as tall, but put that same man in a room of basketball players and he is suddenly short.

Now what does all this have to do with the movie The Expendables (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1320253/ ) you might be asking. To describe the acting in this movie, you have to keep this in mind. I know that some of the actors in this movie can act when given the right opportunity (Stallone nominated for an Oscar in 1977 for his writing and acting in Rocky, and Rourke was nominated for an Oscar in 2009 for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in The Wrestler) and I also know that a few of the actors can't really act (namely Dolph Lundgren, who has worked with Stallone before in Rocky IV and is basically just an action hero). However this movie seemed to want to throw the acting out the window and just go for non-stop action hero-ness, which is basically shoot and kill anything that moves with a one liner attached to the end. In this aspect and mind, Jason Statham has to be one of the better, if not the best, actor of the bunch of action heroes...which isn't saying a lot. Put Jason in a movie with Oscar winning actors trying their hardest and Jason looks like a 1st year acting student fresh from the theatre, put him with a bunch of action heroes that only want to fight and not act and he suddenly looks like a real actor.

That is what this movie was all about, total and complete destruction and carnage. I decided that if I didn't see something explode in the first 5 minutes of the movie then I would be extremely disappointed. I have to say that I was not disappointed. Granted it wasn't a fire and blast kind of explosion but an exploding human due to high powered long range shot gun, or maybe it was a mini grenade launcher I am not really sure, was close enough as an explosion to me. That sort of set the scene and feel for the whole movie right then and there.

I went in the frame of mind of total action with no real acting or drama and I was not disappointed. The whole story line is basically fed to the watcher on a silver platter so you really don't have to engage any thinking skills or brain power to come to the conclusion on what is happening but you can simply sit there with your brain turned completely off and just enjoy the mindless action of it all.

One thing you will have to do though is prepare yourself for the blood and gore. I see the trend of director Stallone to be going more in the way of blood, guts and exploding humans. In his last movie "Rambo" and this one there were quite a few exploding humans from high powered guns and lots of heads/limbs being cut off by swords/knives and you get to see the stumps wave around for a bit before the person drops. Now whether this is because he is becoming an old man and is slightly out of touch of what people want to see today but THINKS he knows what we want to see today OR it is because he is adding some realism to gun shot hits and fighting scenes I am not sure since I honestly have not seen, nor do I think I want to see, the real effect of a shot gun blast on a person at point blank range to the chest. Who knows, maybe people do explode like water balloons filled with ground beef when hit by a bullet or high powered rifle.

Anyways, on this movie all I can say is that if you are going to go and see it be in the frame of mind to actually see it for what it is. An assembled cast of action heroes that are in it to show their action fighting skills and not their acting dramatic side. Go for the explosions and the noise, not for the tears or the drama.