Disclaimer. I thoroughly enjoy The Expendables films. They take me back to my childhood where I would watch Arnold or Stallone movies with my dad or my friends, quote them non-stop, and reenact them in the back yard with a half dozen blue and green (though realistically shaped) water pistols. As a young boy, guns and strange European accents were the name of the movie game. Then, action started getting all "realistic" and Bourne Identity-like. So, when Stallone and his group of has-beens decided to not only revamp the action style of the 80s and 90s as well as exaggerate it... it honestly could do no wrong. The first film was fun, but lacked any sort of a villain presence. (I'm sorry, but no one out there is going to take Eric Roberts seriously). The second film had a decent villain (haha, oh yeah, it was Van Damme), but it was borderline silly, with a lackluster third act. This latest installment of the Expendables series is one that is finally everything I wanted and more.
This is normally where I'd give a brief plot summary, but does it even matter? I could tell you that we begin with Stallone and his Expendables crew hijacking a prison train to get out their old cohort Wesley Snipes, who's gone just a little bit crazy. Then, from there, sent on a mission to a fictional country by Harrison Ford. During the mission Stallone realizes that the baddie he's after is Mel Gibson, one of the people who co-created the Expendables unit with Stallone. Oh, and he was also presumed dead. Oops. Finally, Stallone realizes that with him alive, these guys could get killed so he tells them all they're essentially fired. He, and Kelsey Grammar, round up a new young crew (because they're truly Expendable) and go on a mission to try and kill Mel. Well, obviously shit doesn't go down the way it is supposed to, the new kids get captured and Stallone has to go back to his old crew to save the new crew... uh... along with Antonio Banderas. See? Did you really need all that? Or did you just need me to say: Stallone and his cronies blow some shit up, Gibson retaliates and blows other shit up, then they blow more shit up and the credits roll? This is why I love the Expendables films. They don't get bogged down in plot or character or set ups and pay offs. They're out to entertain the audience at the highest possible level.
The reason I believe this film succeeds where the others were lacking is that it fills out the action formula perfectly. The best action films are comprised a few key components: a likable protagonist with some sort of inner struggle or problem, his quirky sidekicks, and his very worthy adversary. The best action movies always have a great villain. This is still a complaint I have about the Taken movies. If they focused on just one villain, it could ramp the badass meter up to 10. Think about the best action movies from the 80s and 90s. Die Hard showed us what a great actor we had in Alan Rickman. Face/Off had Travolta as a psychopath. Con Air had insane Malkovich. Even Air Force One had Russian Gary Oldman. All good action movies NEED a capable villain. There's a reason no one remembers Die Hard II, after Hans Gruber who is going to be a better villain? (This is probably when they realized they'd blown their load in the first film and brought his brother back to kill McClain in the third film... another great entry). In The Expendables III, we get Mel Gibson. Hate the man all you want... he's a great actor. The Lethal Weapon movies will go down forever as some of my favorite action movies, and the original buddy cop film. Yes, Gibson is a deplorable human being, but he puts everything he's got into this villain role where he's actually quite frightening. His bulk and stature aren't even comparable to Stallone's, but the insanity in his eyes leads you to believe that even in a fist-fight, he could best Rocky.
Snipes is also a fun addition to the crew. It made me remember the good old days of non straight-to-dvd Snipes action movies when he could smile, and laugh, and give crazy eyes, and shoot tons of people. Banderas may be the best character of the whole trilogy. He's obnoxious, he's annoying, he's abrasive, and yet there's an innocence and sadness to his character that tends to steal a lot of empathy from the audience. He's truly the comedic relief the series has been pining for. The only one who really seems to be phoning it in at this point was Harrison Ford. Not that he's bad in it, he just looks like he's reading off a cue card and doing this film solely as a favor to someone. Statham, Li, Lundgren, and mostly Schwarzenegger are all back to tear up the silver screen with some one-liners (including an amazing Arnold one-liner) and lots of bullets.
The weakest part of the film is the younger cast. Younger actors or action stars all tend to blend together today into one Taylor Kitsch-like entity. They have muscles and pretty faces, but there's no personality. They're all horrifically stale and terrible actors. Not to say that the action stars of the 80s and 90s were good, because when it comes to acting Arnold couldn't act his way out of a box... but they have personality. They have fun. Everything is too serious for today's group of action kids. They're not fun to watch anymore. None of them have any personality in which to lead a film. The scenes with the new member were, by far, the weakest. Thankfully, they don't go on too long.
Lastly, the film is getting a lot of flack for abandoning it's R-rating in favor of a more marketable PG-13. I was a little hesitant because it meant that they couldn't go as balls deep as they had before. After having seen the final product, I was pleasantly surprised. It's actually better as a PG-13 movie. There's almost hardly any blood in the movie which lends to a lot more realistic looking action sequences. In the first two, the blood was added in digitally and it gave a thicker layer of cheese to the movies that was truly unwanted. Now, without having to add fake-looking blood to the movie, they could focus on all the different ways to shoot and kill one another. Though it's PG-13, it is by no means tame. It's honest to God probably one of the most violent movies I've ever seen in my life. It might be because they kill thousands of people on screen or because my imagination is more violent than anything you can see on screen. When someone is to get their throat slit, the camera focuses on the knife for a brief second, then the arm is shown tugging the knife just for a frame and the rest is cut away from and left up to your imagination. My God is it violent. Violent and beautiful.
The Expendable III is certainly not for everyone, but it is a load of fun. There's good action, good characters, good humor, and a great villain. This is supposed to be the last entry into the series and if it was, they definitely went out on top. If not, please, for the love of God and everything holy... get Nicolas Cage in it. It's more than necessary.
B+
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