Carlos_the_Mackerel

24 May 2012

Unremittingly awful

The Expendables has staggered me- how did they manage to throw so muchmoney at a film, and miss so completely? I love silly action movies,and will normally happily watch low quality, over hyped, tongue incheek dross... I'm quite happy for a movie to be mere "fun" rather thanchallenging or beautiful. This though has literally nothing going forit- script, character, plot, sense of humour... are all tragicallylacking. Even the incessant action scenes are formulaic and ratherdull.Honestly, with all those big names in the cast, how did they fail tohave even a single entertaining performance? How hard can it be to putyour tongue in your cheek?

RockyBalboaV

23 May 2012

Thank you Stallone, thank you

Wow.. this movie was very good. I have been looking forward to thismovie for over a year and it did not disappoint me. Yes the story isnot the best. But that's OK because you don't need a 'very' good storyline as long as the movie is entertaining as hell. The acting couldhave been better but its still good acting. This movie has action,funny moments,intense moments, insane violence just anything you wantin an action movie! Most Critics are giving this film negative reviewson but this movie is mostly for the fans. Bottom line very good actionpacked action movie thats brings back the memories of the 80's.Stallone, Statham, Li, Couture, Crews, Lundgren, Austin, Willis,Schwarzenegger, Rourke, the gang is here!Very nice work Stallone!

23 May 2012

Very Expendable

OK, I will admit it is cute to see all these past their prime, except Mickey Rourke, actors trying to have that one last fun in the sun round up. But all in all this is a terrible flick with bad acting, worse dialogue and violence that would make Bugs Bunny roll his eyes. I enjoy turning my brain off sometimes for something silly and stupid but this goes beyond the pale even for that. Long story short there are much better, dumb action movies out there than this one. Don't waste your time or your money!

22 May 2012

expendables

This review is from: The Expendables (Three-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy) (Blu-ray) to have all these actoin stars together in one movie must of cost alot of money. But the bottom line is it was worth every penny.The only thing I can say ia AWSOME. Must see

rattler_cv63

20 May 2012

Finally an action movie that is an actual action movie.

If you're a guy and didn't like this movie, you should call yourparents and ask them why they sexually reassigned you. Hell, that cantbe the case because my wife, who is very much a woman, loved thismovie. This movie rocked, it was so like the movies of yore. And byyore I mean the 80's, when men were men, and plots were simple. Savethe girl, kill all the bad guys. and walk off into the sunset. Slynailed it, and gave us something we forgot existed, a simple shoot emup, complicated plot be damned, guy movie. Thanks Mr. Stallone forhaving the balls to sway from what Hollywood calls action and trustingyour gut as to what action fans really want.

v-makarov83

20 May 2012

Dont expend your money on The Expendables,

Whenever a movie has so many stars in it, it is likely to be set forfailure. I did not want to believe that statement until i watched TheExpendables. Poor, very predictable plot. Really bad acting. Constantclose-ups, shaking camera. One good joke concerning Arnie's character(what the hell was he doing there anyways?). CGI and action towards theend of the movie. About 20 minutes of solid action where only devilknows who is who because of constant close-ups and shaking camera.After i left a theater, i found myself asking people around me : "whatwas that whole thing about?". Bunch of misfits with combat skillstaking over a dictator? Yes. Naive and simple. "What more to ask from agood action flick, right?" - several replied. I don't know, but i wasgoing to see The Expendables after watching Rambo 4. It too was naiveand simple, although it looked realistic. That was a movie that showedgruesome reality of war and how people were forced to react to it. Iwas hoping to see something along those lines, but i didn't see it.

BA_Harrison

18 May 2012

Whats the matter, Arnie... been pushing too many pencils?

I'm not stupid: I realise that 'x' times the number of action starsdoes not necessarily equal 'x' times the amount of action, but with thebiggest names of the genre together in one supposedly bad-ass, bigbudget, testosterone fuelled film, directed by Rambo himself, I atleast expected to feel a mild rush of excitement at some point duringthe whole thing. Instead, I just found myself cringing throughout,which was a tad disappointing, to say the least.Not only does The Expendables have a plot so weak that it probablywould have been rejected for the A-Team (not the film, but the TVseries, and we're talking Season 5 here), but it also suffers fromcharmless performances from its stars (who are not exactly helped bythe absolutely dire dialogue), a very dull first half hour, and some ofthe most ill-considered action direction, lousy cinematography andscrappy CGI effects I have seen in years.The photography is inexplicably grainy and frequently out of focus, thescatter-shot editing is absolutely diabolical (does any shot last morethan a second?), and the digital blood splats frustratinglyunrealistic, but it is Stallone's overuse of 'shakycam' that isparticularly appalling—seriously Sly, what's the point of signing upsuch an impressive all-star cast if you're going to turn every actionsequence into unfathomable visual mincemeat?Oh, and Arnie.... next time, either grab a gun and get stuck in, orjust stay behind the desk. Ta!

Maverick300382

18 May 2012

Perfect Action Movie!

I read some really hard reviews about this movie and i almost lost myhope of seeing a great action movie, as it was promised. But afterwatching this, i'm surprised and all but disappointed.That was the kind of movie is wished to see. Every action star had hismoments and his funny lines. I especially liked Lundgrens part. He wasalways an underrated actor for action movies and i wish, he played inmore blockbusters. Sly's and Stathams parts were also great andentertaining and Terry Crews had some shooting scenes, that just blowyou away! Jet Li had a very funny dialog with Sly, about how hard hislife is. Eric Roberts finally was back on the big screen and played aproper villain.The fighting and shooting scenes are just awesome and blows you out ofyour seats! After all don't expect anything more than straight in yourface action. And that is, what you will get!

18 May 2012

Classic except that now means, america bad woman righteous

All in all I liked the film but i couldn't help but wondering that withall the build up about this film and the old action heroes, "wouldthere be some classic themes." Unfortunately, Sly is Hollywood enoughto make woman his moral compass, the American cia as the great evil andthat all men who are willing to fight as loners. Lets see some an action film where America isn't the great Satan. Let'ssee an action film where a man actually has a good woman, not aho...and why is every guy aching to be burnt out shell of a man....Ican't relate to those heros and in fact the only people who canare....no wonder too few people go to the movies.. and there are toofew stars left....none of them are real heros anymore...

chucknorrisfacts

17 May 2012

Crappy action movie

Whenever a movie has to boast an "all-star" cast, it usually means it'strying to make up for a lame script with star power. Unfortunately,"The Expendables" is no exception to this rule.At first glance, it seems to be a great idea to throw in as many starsas possible into one movie. That is, until you realize that the morecharacters a story has, the less time it has to develop all of them.I realize this is an action movie but even action movies need todevelop their characters. If we're to care about these characters atall, we need to know who they are and why we should root for them. Thatsimply doesn't happen in this movie.Let me take some time here to throw out my thoughts on each of the mainactors in the movie and what I liked/disliked about them: Sylvester Stallone: I consider myself to be a fan of Stallone's. Iloved both"Rocky Balboa" and "Rambo" and really thought he was going topull off something cool with this movie, but he didn't. He seems kindof tired throughout the movie, at least in his performance but hisaction sequences come off well for the most part.Jason Statham: I do not consider myself to be a fan of Statham's,although I will admit that in this movie, he stole the show. He andStallone's characters were probably the most developed of all, butthat's not saying much. His action sequences were pretty awesome.Jet Li: He's poorly utilized in this movie and has a significantlysmaller part than either Stallone or Statham and his lines are allpretty stupid. His action sequences were good, but there wasn't enoughof them.Eric Roberts: He was decent as the bad guy in the movie, I wanted tohit him, so I suppose that counts for something. I couldn't tell ifRoberts was annoying or if that was the character he was trying toplay. Either way, he's pretty grating to watch.Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger: I put both of these guystogether for no other reason than neither one of them is in the movielong enough to justify a separate paragraph for each. In the churchscene, where Stallone, Willis and Schwarzenegger meet discuss thepossibility of going on a mission (which becomes the main plot line ofthe story), both Stallone and Schwarzenegger seem to be out "alpha'd"by Willis. Although it was cool to see these guys share the screentogether, the end result left something to be desired, in my opinion.Although Randy Couture was far from a main character in the story, Ifeel he deserves a special mention for what is quite possibly the worstacting I've ever seen aside from Robert Pattinson. This guy needs to goback to fighting in a cage for his money. Wow! Horrible, horribleactor. There were many attempts at humor in this movie that fell completelyflat. I didn't laugh not once, nor did anyone else sitting in the movietheater. That's kind of unusual for an action movie these days not tofeature any great one-liners. Action movies are known for theirone-liners and yet this movie didn't produce not one of them.The blood/gore effects were pretty cheesy and were obviously computergenerated. It was distracting and really took away from the intensityof the action sequences. I guess nobody ever thought to use good ol'fashioned fake blood? It looks so much better on screen than thedigitized crap they subjected us to here.I don't really know what else to say about the movie other than tostrongly urge anyone reading this who hasn't seen it already to avoidit at all costs. For the people that have seen it, tell your friendsand family to save their money and go see something else.

16 May 2012

ALL BUSINESS FRONT AND CENTER!!!

This review is from: The Expendables (DVD) This movie doesnt make any apologies for not being a "Bourne Ultimatum" or a "Matrix" type of movie. But what it does have is wall to wall action,and its very well done. It certainly is realistic enough not to be a movie where one guy walks into town and turns into a one man wrecking crew! It shows what a team can do together, and it tons better than the "A Team" movie was earlier this year. As of this writing, Stallone and Lungren were cruising the scenery in Mexico for a sequel to be released late next year.These guys really earn their money in this movie. The action scenes are incredible especially when Stallone and Statham , after escaping from a battalion of mercenaries, destroys a pier along with a couple dozen of those bad guys. Pretty ingenious from the air in fact. Incredible!! As with most action movies, the dialogue is a little better than the average action movie. I highly recommend this movie, and I cant wait for the sequel.

15 May 2012

Good action movie

This review is from: The Expendables (Three-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy) (Blu-ray) This was a good action movie. I liked it very good. P.S. you can't do any better on price than Amazon, they rock. And don't forget service, they are very service oriented.

15 May 2012

Most Epic Man Movie ever Created! Cant wait for the projected 2nd one!! -D

This review is from: The Expendables (DVD) This movie I was seriously amazed from start to end in the theater, and that didn't change watching it again! Best movie of 2010 :-D Love it Love it Love it!

15 May 2012

It is what it is

I figured I would give Sylvester another go after hearing good things about this movie. All I can say is, it is what it is. The Expendables is meant to be a pure action movie. There is a plot, though you really can't figure out what it is. Some of the scenes are as awkward as that moment when you can't decide to either shake hands or hug and at times the script seems forced. But if you want a typical shoot em up tough guy movie then this is spot on. Ladies be warned, if enough of us men get together and watch this the testosterone alone is going to destory the house.When people told me this movie was low budget, I had really expected worse. I must say that I was surprised with how it all turned out. Sure it wasn't the best, but 90% of the scenes were extremely well done and most of the action was maxed out. A bit of a slow start but once it gets to rolling it doesn't stop. I was disappointed in the star-studded cast. The meeting between Bruce Willis, Stallone and Schwarzenegger seems to be more of an empty gesture to fans. Expendables could have existed fine without this scene and it is confusing, seems to be a space filler, and just an opprotunity to give Willis and the Governator a few seconds of time. Statham did his usual five star job, Jet Li was the kind of character you just have to love, and Rourke was off the chain entertaining as a tattoo artist bad a** named Tool. Steve Austin? Awesome actor, baaaaaaad character. The rest of the line up seem to be supporting cast.If you want something that will blow your windows out when it comes through your surround sound, something that men can get together and eat beef jerky while watching and then go out and shoot up the neighborhood road side trash cans then this is it. Gotta be in the right company to enjoy. Personally I would give it 4 stars but I'm going by this: Can just anyone pick this up and truly be entertained? I don't think so.

MBunge

12 May 2012

Lots of booms but no boobs

This cartoonish combo platter of action stars from the last threedecades blows stuff up real good…and that's almost all you can ask ofsomething like this, isn't it?Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and his right hand man Lee Christmas(Jason Statham) head up a mercenary band made up of predictablycolorful characters named Ying Yang (Jet Li), Toll Road (RandyCouture), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) and the normally named butabnormally huge Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren). After saving a shipfrom some Somali pirates, Barney and company are hired to kill ageographically dubious dictator. General Garza (David Zayas) is styledlike a Central American strongman, yet lords over a Caribbean-styleisland in the Gulf of Mexico.Barney and Christmas head to the island and check it out, where theymeet Garza's daughter Sandra (Giselle Itie). She's sort of a crossbetween rebel leader and Nicole Richie. Sandra is captured by the evilex-CIA agent (Eric Roberts) who is the power behind Garza's throne,leading Barney and company to storm the island and free her with acombination of mixed martial arts, bullets and a ludicrously unlimitedsupply of explosives. Assed are kicked. Bodies are blown apart. Stuffis set on fire. The bad guy gets the hell killed out of him in the end.The 80s action movie is one of the more maligned modern genres and TheExpendables is a good reminder of why that is. It's all fairly dumb,unsophisticated and macho almost, but not quite, to the point of beinghomoerotic. When the punches and knives are flying; when Stallone ispretending to be the fastest gun on Earth; when Randy Couture and SteveAustin hook up in the ultimate UFC vs. WWE battle; basically anytime agood guy is doing something extremely violent to a bad guy, TheExpendables is also fun. There's a way too long lull between theopening action sequence and when things finally get going on Garza'sisland and the quality of one-liners in the script is pretty bad, butThe Expendables is a solid B as 80s action flicks go and gets bumped upto B+ for putting a bunch of genre legends on screen at the same time.There are a few things in this film I really don't understand. There'sa scene that explains Couture's cauliflower ears and another where Licomplains about being short that seem like inside jokes where I'm onthe outside. I also can't figure out why Charisma Carpenter is in thisfilm. She plays Lee Christmas' girlfriend and that role exists just togive Statham a little more screen time, but it doesn't make sense forthat role to be played by a 40 year old actress who doesn't take herclothes off. Don't get me wrong. Carpenter is the personification ofMilfy goodness, but I don't know why such a slight and mechanical partdidn't go to some 20something babe who was willing to get nude.In fact, there are no naked chicks at all in The Expendables. Not evena gratuitous scene where somebody goes to a strip club. I really don'tget the point of making a testosterone-fueled festival of violencewithout having a few chicks take their tops off. While it's true thatnudity was more the province of 1980s horror movies than 80s actionflicks, this is 2010 and a bare boob or two is the least this filmcould have given us.The reality of The Expendables isn't nearly as good as the idea of it.That reality is good enough to make this something all action fans, 80svariety or otherwise, should see.

12 May 2012

The Expendables DVD

This review is from: The Expendables (Three-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy) (Blu-ray) Both my husband and I really enjoyed this movie. It was filled with top actors and very action packed with a twist of love.

thunder_tank

08 May 2012

great action film

I grew up in the 70's/80's and fondly remember all the action classicsof that era. Also, bear in mind I own films that divert from the actiongenre by some degree, such as 'Gone With the Wind', so I can appreciatemany other types of movies.Before seeing the film, I read several reviews of it, and was feelinglike I would be let down.I was wrong. This film is one of the best action films I have seen, theplot is sufficient to deliver what is essentially the good guys wipingout the bad ones. Acting from Stallone/Statham is good and they workwell together. Rest of the cast do a good job too, Lundgren has someclassic one liners too! I don't understand the comments people makeabout the CG effects. To me they blended well and in the majority,didn't stand out like a sore thumb (like in most modern films).If I have to make a negative comment, I think the shaky camera stylewas slightly overused but it didn't detract too much especially as theaction was mostly fast paced.Sometimes films are supposed to just be fun and not be taken tooseriously, this is one of them. Watch it with this frame of mind andignore the so called 'expert critics' that can't see this.

Gautama Ramesh

08 May 2012

B-Movie Blast!

Ah, The Expendables. This little film is probably the best film of theyear. Truthfully, after John Rambo, I didn't know what to expect fromThe Expendables. I wasn't sure if it'd be raw or more laid-back. It wasn't anything I imagined it to be.With amazing humor and some of the classiest one liners even heard, TheExpendables starts off in style and pace, pace which continuesthroughout the film. Grainy and with classic biker shots, this littleB- Movie pays homage to probably every 70's action film we've seen.The film's strongest points are the1) The Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sly Stallone scene. 2)Arnold's pronunciation of the word "idiot". 3)Terry Crews and hisshotgun. 4)And yeah, The Music!EXPENDABLES!!!

LuboLarsson

02 May 2012

Great action film

As we all know The Expendables has an amazing cast of Action stars ledby arguably the greatest action star of all time and if Stallone isn'tthat guy the other one makes a cameo appearance. Of course I'm talkingabout Arnold Schwarzenegger who makes a brief appearance with BruceWillis in a scene many action fans never would have dreamt possible. Myonly problem with this movie is perhaps it has too many stars whichmeans each one has too little time to make an impact. Jason Stathamgets the most screen time bar Stallone and he is excellent, Jet Li hasless impact but has a great fight with Dolph Lundgren who I have to sayproves that he really should be on the big screen more often. StoneCold Steve Austin also makes a fabulous bad guy and the rest of theteam get brief chances to shine. Mickey Rourke also shows what anincredible actor he is even with less than stellar script to work from.Stallone really is truly back on top now and I hope that if Expendables2 does happen he works a little more on the script and story. Whattruly saves this film is the astonishing last half hour or so of actionand that is really what most of us turned up to see. Highly recommendedfor action fans. 8 out of 10

jdkraus

02 May 2012

Exactly what I hoped for.

I haven't seen a really good, hardcore, shoot 'em bang 'em up actionflick in a long time. When I went to see this movie with a couple ofbuddies, that's what I was hoping for. My wish came true. As a kid, I have grown up watching the big action heroes portrayed byStallone, Schwarzenegger, Willis, Statham, Li, and many more. Seeingclose to a dozen action stars together in one movie is a real treat.All of the actors do not just deliver classic one-liners, brutal actionsequences, and plenty of testosterone and macho attitudes, but theyalso immerse themselves into their characters. It's easy to love thetough good guys and hate the cruel bad guys. Unfortunately,Schwarzenegger and Willis only receive mere cameos, but at least theywere present in the film. I will note that Schwarzenegger, however,gets the best intro and exit of any character in the movie. The action sequences is another thing worth noting; they're not onlygreat, but the immerse CGI adds a somewhat stylized/cartoonish look tothem. There's a somewhat 300 style to the violence in the excessiveblood splatter, yet no slow motion is used. Instead, all of the actionis very quick and crisply edited—this makes it hard to keep up with thebody count I might add. In regards to plot, do not expect much. I predicted it all from thebeginning, but there is a nice twist that I didn't see coming at theend. I don't hold this against the movie though, because plot is notits purpose. The film's goal is to provide mindless action—the perfectescapism. That's what I like about this film. When this comes out onDVD, I'll certainly pick it up and if Stallone decides to do a sequel,I'll definitely go see it on the big screen. The one thing that I did not like about this movie is the sound design.My buddies and I noticed that the music and effects were very loud, butthe dialog was real quiet. I have nothing wrong with loud explosionsand gunshots in a film, but I do not appreciate quiet dialog—which issupposed to be the most important aspect of sound in cinema. Other thanthis, I thoroughly enjoyed this film. If mindless, bloody, hardcoreaction with tough guys as the heroes is your fetish, then go see thismovie!