‘Expend4bles Review: Even Star Megan Fox Seems Bored By Tired Action Flick

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23 Sep, 2023

In 2010, Sylvester Stallone created the mother of all old teasers with The Expendables, bringing together all the action stars in one film as if they were Pokemon: Gotta Catch Them All.

Since then, our favorite monuments of masculinity have come and gone, but the consumables remain, whether we like them or not.

Nine years after Expendables 3, we have a confusing Expend4bles title with Stallone back in the cockpit and the believable Jason Statham riding shotgun.

Scott Waugh, the former stuntman and stunt coordinator who helmed "Need for Speed," directed the latest film, which follows a group of easily replaceable criminals who carry out various undercover missions like other trendy action franchises. It seems to be all about digital gore, fake CGI and genital nonsense, but the animosity behind these films is nostalgia for the kind of retro 80s and 90s action films where the men were fans and misogyny was cool for everyone. . - at least that's the picture presented to us by the wonderfully stupid "Expend4bles", a film bordering on self-parody.

Waugh and cinematographer Tim Maurice-Jones give the film a bright, cartoonish atmosphere, while screenwriters Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart and Max Adams provide the cute gags (Spenser Cohen contributes the story, Dave Callaham the character). This is especially evident in the opening mission, where Barney Ross (Stallone), Lee Christmas (Statham) and the rest of the Expendables team try to find a set of nuclear detonators being flown by the wily thief Rahmat (Iko Uwais). of Muammar Gaddafi's compound in Libya.

The plot is chaotic, the geography is indistinguishable, and some of the images look like they were cobbled together from a single pixel and a prayer. When Christmas laughs in an SUV while brandishing a .50 caliber pistol, it looks like it could have been filmed in rear projection, so bad is the green screen work. This scene is so bad and so bizarre that you just have to laugh in disbelief.

But it's much better than the rest of the film, which gets pretty boring. Stallone leaves and Gina (Megan Fox) takes over as leader of the Expendables, although Fox seems very disinterested in the whole thing. Maybe because this time Gina had to jump HALO in her look and fight bad guys in a glamorous crop top and very long and voluminous hair extensions.

Her look couldn't be more practical in 2023, even when Hayley Atwell wore her hair in a ponytail for her big action scene in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, you could barely see Fox holding her gaze. It's strange that, even though he walked away from his role as the object of lust in Transformers, he returns in this testosterone-fueled action movie with nothing to do but watch. It's not Fox's fault, but the filmmakers who couldn't get anything more for him, even though he seems to take control of the mission and explains the details of his plan in a few lines.

Gina's team must now remove the same array of nuclear detonators from a container ship bound for Vladivostok. But they are quickly captured by Rahmat's men and spend most of the film standing in a small room or wandering around the ship, gently taunting each other. Christmas starts this mission for a minor offense, but manages to tag along - and thank goodness, because it turns out he's the only one who can be replaced with the necessary drive.

Expend4bles is Statham's show, but is it really the show he wants? He performed his moves bravely, while Fox looked completely bored and delivered every line with sarcasm. Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson was also there. Randy Couture and Dolph Lundgren are two other original cast members expected to return, while Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson is also there. Randy Couture and Dolph Lundgren round out the team as Galan and Lash, respectively.

Even two of the most reliable action movie actors, legendary martial artists Iko Uwais and Tony Jaa, could not help "Expend4bles" achieve a breakthrough. Uwais has to make do with threats through a walkie-talkie for most of the film and only sees a fight scene at the end (dismissing Iko Uwais is a crime action film). Jaa livens things up a bit, and while the film may be mistaken for a martial arts film at first glance, there's a real spark of potential there.

But Waugh did not enjoy his work. "Expend4dbles" wants to be the kind of movie best watched on cable TV with commercial breaks or on a worn-out VHS tape, but there are plenty more entertaining classic action movies that can do that — you don't have to. join this tired team. .