Sly Stallone teaches old dogs new tricks

The Expendables – Sly Stallone

I had low expectations coming into this film, i know many people had high hopes but i just didn’t feel the need to see it at the cinema as soon as it came out, but in the end, i gave in and finally sat down in my seat to be pleasantly surprised. The cast is pretty awesome with some of the best action heroes of all time being thrown in there, kinda wondering if Expendables 2 is made who will be in it, I’ve heard rumours of Steven Seagel, Jackie Chan, and Bruce Willis as the main villain and Carl Weathers. All of whom would make the next one a one to watch.

The plot of the film breaks down as followed: a group of mercenaries are called upon to kill a leader of a military unit on a small island on the Gulf but all is not well with the mission, where the leader seems to have back-up by a group of Americans who seem hell bent on causing destruction and getting in the way of Stallone’s gang of rough and tumble men. Throw in scenes of explosions, fights, angry shouting, funny quips and dodgy looks, and you’ve got a somewhat successful summer action film. Stallone’s directing is actually one of a high calibre, sure the action is fast, the fights are rough, but overall, he shoots it well. The camerawork was the main feature here because of the script not being great, Stallone had to rely on him capturing all of the awesome explosions and deaths to pull it off, plus to be able to capture all of the egos of the actors all on one screen is hard to do, just look at the Arnold, Bruce and Sly scene where all 3 can’t be shown on the screen at one time. It’s almost too weird to see Arnold and Sly in a scene together talking shit about the other. Willis steals it though as playing a bit of a dick, would be good if he does become a full blown villain in the next one.

WTF Moment: Quite a few to call upon, but i think the winner is, within the first ten minutes, some random dudes head and body just gets blown apart, and you fucking see it, it’s disgusting but at the same time, fucking awesome. Very Rambo-esque. Another moment that nearly steals it is Stallone slicing a dudes head off near the end! Also to add another level to the preceding, the OMFG moment goes to the whole sequence in the tunnel where Jet Li breaks a few bones (including someone’s neck), Terry Crews shotguns about thirty people but sadly a stone cold stunner is not seen!

8/10

Simon Childs