EXPEND4BLES (2023)
Tagline: They'll Die When They're Dead
(Action, Adventure, On A Boat) [R]
Remember this face…don’t shoot it by accident.
In this one, Rahmat runs an army that gets its hands on parts that will enable them to complete a nuclear weapon. Fearing that a completed nuke could be detonated in Russian waters, March sends the Expendables into the mouth of the lion to stop Rahmat’s men, but they fail due to Christmas disobeying orders to try and save Barney’s life. The Expendables will get a second chance, but this time without Christmas. Failure could mean WWIII.
First off, let me tell you who everyone is in this freaking thing because we have characters flying everywhere and if you haven’t watched much of this series like myself, it’s nice to nail down the who’s who.
Acting-wise, Jason Statham (MEG 2: THE TRENCH) plays Christmas and kills it as per usual. This is actually a great movie to watch if you like Jason Statham because, in spite of the fact that we have an ensemble cast, he is in a very large chunk of this movie by himself. Megan Fox is a newcomer to this series playing Gina. She ends up in charge of the second mission here and does a pretty great job. Some will argue that she wasn’t a fit for the role, but this isn’t her first turn playing a soldier. She was also solid in ROGUE. 50 Cent (ESCAPE PLAN: THE EXTRACTORS) is also new to the series taking on the role of “Easy Day”. 50 did a solid job in this and it’s actually his second time working with Sylvester Stallone. Dolph Lundgren plays Gunner and also does a good job in this with pretty minimal screen time. This is Dolph’s 4th film with Stallone and I think it’s been awesome to watch his career overall. He’s still got it. Sylvester Stallone is back as Barney. His screen time is cut significantly in this movie compared to the rest of the cast, but the dude is an acting legend. Iko Uwais (THE RAID 2) plays a fantastic antagonist in this as Rahmat. I know a lot of people aren’t down with Tony Jaa (MONSTER HUNTER), but I like him a lot. He crushes his role in this. Randy Couture returns to the series for the 4th time as Toll Road. I don’t know if there was anything special out of him in this one, but he definitely fits right in. Levy Tran does a good job as Lash and has a really cool weapon in this. Then rounding out the main cast we have Jacob Scipio (BAD BOYS FOR LIFE) who plays Galan. I am not trying to be a jerk, but this movie could have done without him.
The score is decent and the soundtrack is pretty solid. I thought the pacing worked, they really don’t waste any time getting this thing going and it certainly doesn’t feel anywhere near 103 minutes.
This is a full-blown action romp I assume like the other installments with a pretty basic straightforward story. They aren’t trying to trick us; it is what it is. It’s meant to be fun nonsense with a ton of ultraviolent action and it achieves that on every level.
Where this thing drops the ball is in some of the plot points. We are shown a sequence with the villains doing what they do, then taken back to America where the Expendables are. Then we are taken back to the villains who have made just seconds of progress and suddenly the Expendables are across the world trying to stop them. I am not sure this wasn’t the intended storytelling device, but without any timestamps or subtitles giving us when these things are happening, it gives the appearance that the Expendables flew across the world in 23 seconds. Stuff like that in an action flick is expected in today’s day and age, but a bit of attention to detail might have helped.
I also wasn’t crazy about the chemistry between Gina and Christmas. It’s not impossible that they would be dating in real life by any means, but their relationship in the film doesn’t make you root for them to stick together. They also had her basically acting like a lunatic in one scene and the next scene running The Expendables, which just seemed weird. Not knocking Fox on this one, it’s just odd writing.
If you walked into this expecting a lot of fun action and some solid one-liners, you came to the right place. If you came to this thing looking to nitpick it to death and just generally have a miserable time watching a movie, then yeah, this isn’t going to be any fun for you.
For me, it was a blast. I give this one a 5 out of 7. Clearly, it’s flawed, but whatever. I had fun.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF MILLENIUM FILMS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
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