The first Expendables movie from 2010 is an average, forgettable action movie that is probably now on heavy rotation on TNT, but it made enough money to earn sequels. We are now up to Expendables 4, or Expend4bles as it is being called, and it's unsurprisingly just an assembly line cash in.
No one involved seems to be invested in this project. I mean, the star of this series, Sylvester Stallone, is barely in this one! Then there is the overabundant use of cheap green screen shots, and turning that into a drinking game would be a bad idea because you'd probably die from alcohol poisoning.
Stallone and Jason Statham star as Barney Ross and Lee Christmas, respectively. These two are the leaders of an elite band of mercenaries that take on dangerous missions that no one else will. Their crew this time consist of a motley crew of characters played by Megan Fox, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Jacob Scipio, and Levy Tran.
On the Expendables' latest mission, they are attempting to stop arms dealer Rahmat (Iko Uwals) from swiping nuclear warheads and handing them over to the mysterious Ocelot.
Besides an exciting motorcycle chase on a ship, the action is pretty monotonous. We get so many stabbings that you begin to feel sorry for the henchmen on the receiving end.
Apparently the plan was that Expend4bles would be Stallone's final appearance in this series, and that Statham would take over the lead, so that is why Stallone's role here is small. However, I have to talk about it. You see, Stallone's character "dies" when his plane crashes in an early action scene. We see a charred corpse that looks hilariously like The Incredible Melting Man wearing a beret. It's obvious that the character has faked his death, but I'll admit, I had to see how he did it. When we do, it's an implausible howler. It's almost worth the price of admission...almost.
