Movies
“Expenda4bles” Knows Its Bad, And Its Right About It.
For a middle-school action mind like myself, Expenda4bles is just a short ride on the nostalgia tracks where the fuel is fonder memories of better films.
“Armed with every weapon they can get their hands on, the Expendables are the world’s last line of defense and the team that gets called when all other options are off the table.”
Director: Scott Waugh
Writers: Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart, Max Adams
Stars: Jason Statham, 50 Cent, Megan Fox, Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Andy Garcia, Sylvester Stallone, Randy Couture, Jacob Scipio
Release: September 22, 2023
IMDB
The perfect airplane movie. I saw it, and I immediately pressed play. Expenda4bles (2023) doesn’t give a shit if it’s a good movie, and that’s for the best. If we can be frank, Expenda4bles, is a terrible film. Its editing is atrocious, the special effects are elementary, and the story barely makes any sense at all. But does a film that’s called Expenda4bles need to make logical sense? No, absolutely not.
Expenda4bles is 103 minutes of action tropes and predictability. It’s made for a particular crowd, and I’m here to report on its absurdity.
Barney (Sylvester Stallone), Christmas (Jason Statham), Toll Road (Randy Couture) and Gunner (Dolph Lundgren) waste no time getting back into the violent swing of things. Marsh (Andy Garcia), who is some sort of government agent, has assigned the Expendables crew with the task of stopping a random madman by the name of Rahmat (Iko Uwais). This bad guy is working for a man who goes by the name of the Ocelot, who has tormented Barney and company for a long time. A mission in the present links to the past. What are we doing here, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning?
The mission goes horribly wrong, resulting in a truly shocking moment. And I mean it. Barney dies. Barney is shot out of the sky by Rahmat. Christmas, who broke a direct order, is first on the scene to see his friend’s charred body, which can be identified by his big ass ugly ring. There is a brief funeral at a cheaply built dingy dive bar, and there we learn that Christmas has been kicked out of the Expendables and his girlfriend Gina (Megan Fox) has been given the reins. Her first mission is to find Rahmat, stop him from using the nuclear weapons (which he stole), and if possible, find out who the Ocelot is. Seems easy enough, right?
The Expendables get themselves on Rahmat’s giant tanker boat, but the whole thing is a trap. The crew is taken prisoner (rather easily I’d say), and it appears that the mission of stopping World War III is going to be a bust. If only there was someone, or someones, to save the day.
Christmas doesn’t take being put on the sidelines kindly. He puts a tracker on a gift he gave to Gina and the bald beauty follows his friends to Asia. He meets up with Decha (Tony Jaa), an old friend of Barney, and together they boat out towards a giant vessel filled with endless bad guys. Christmas takes his time dismantling nameless foes in creative ways. While the happy holiday is knifing his way through trouble, Gina and company are able to escape their metal prison. There is a comedic meetup in a hallway, but the laughs can’t last too long. There is too much ass to kick.
Expenda4bles has a final 15 minutes that makes absolutely no sense, yet perfect sense at the same time. It turns out that Marsh is the Ocelot, and his betrayal sends Christmas and company into shell shock. It would appear that the bad guys have the upper hand, until Barney, YES THE THOUGHT DECEASED BARNEY, comes to save the day in a fucking helicopter. You think Sylvester Stallone is going to let someone else save the day? Absolutely not. Barney blows Marsh into a millions pieces, and Christmas has a great callback for those who know the franchise. It makes absolutely no sense, unless you buy into the idiocracy that is the Expenda4bles.
Listen, this movie is only worried about things on a surface level. Each character plays a specific part, and they are entirely one dimensional. Jason Statham knows exactly what he is doing, hamming it up as the charismatic muscle. Right from the jump when Barney knocks on his door, Christmas’ facial expressions are lifting mountains to keep the Expenda4bles fun. Randy Couture is great, and I don’t mean that flippantly. Having been in the franchise since the jump, he knows how to look good holding a gun and he makes the exposition dumps to 50 Cent tolerable. Sure, the character Toll Road has some bad lines, but that’s the script’s fault. And who expected a good script in Expenda4bles?
Megan Fox is very good at looking hot, because she is, in fact, hot. The scene of Gina and Christmas rolling around sexually followed by a pan up to a piece of lingerie handing on a doorknob is just giving the audience (which is 95% guys) what they want. Expenda4bles is rated R, but it is not for sexual content. It is for violence. It is for bloody violence. The Expendables 3 (2014) was rated PG-13 and that absolutely derailed much of what made the first two installments good junk yard fun. Expenda4bles does not have the most creative kills, but it does have plenty of kills. Its quantity over quality is a calculated decision.
What else do I have written down in my scribbles?
How silly are we the audience to think that Sylvester Stallone would kill himself off in a franchise that he built? When Barney died, I literally thought to myself: “Wow, good for you Sly. You took the growth step of handing your legacy off to someone else.”
What an idiot I am. Of course Barney was going to come and save the day. Of course he has to get revenge on a previously unknown mortal enemy. Of course the conclusion of The Expendables franchise needs to end with Barney on top.
Director Scott Waugh is a man who has swam in only action waters since his career in Hollywood began. Expenda4bles is his most star studded movie of his career, but based on reviews, it’s his least polished. The fact that Expenda4bles got panned harder than Hidden Strike, a straight to Netflix action movie with John Cena as its lead, is damning. But in terms of a career year for Waugh, you can’t deny the man is getting out there. He put out two movies, both of which have recognizable stars, Waugh has two movies on the slate, one of which stars none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Despite that lackluster critical praise, Waugh is doing everything he can to put himself on the map.
The people who need to take the most gruff are those on the writing crew. There are four different people credited with Expenda4bles, and while I am willing to bet much of the script was left to the performers and their wit, some of the planned parts are a bit cringe. The first sight we get of Barney’s ring is on a dildo, which just seems crude. The attempts at laughs in Expenda4bles are where the film falters most. We don’t need anything in terms of a complicated plot, but I don’t want face palming during the quiet moments.
Expenda4bles is not for anyone who wants high-brow entertainment. It’s for people who aren’t afraid of bad slow-motion, dramatic character entrances, bad CGI and egregiously middle-schoolish comedy. For a middle-school action mind like me, Expenda4bles is just a short ride on the nostalgia tracks where the fuel is fonder memories of better films.
STANKO RATING: D+
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