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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nOutside of what you see on the posters, the \u201cExpendables\u201d movies have never been particularly ambitious. Sure, it was great that the action stars of previous decades like Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jet Li, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Antonio Banderas, Mel Gibson, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Harrison Ford could come together for a series of action movies in the 2010\u2019s, but the films were never more than just an excuse to sell tickets based on the actors\u2019 names. The reviews were rarely good, and the good ones were usually of the apologetic \u201cit\u2019s dumb, but it\u2019s fun\u201d variety. Now it\u2019s a new decade, it\u2019s been nine whole years since we\u2019ve had one of these movies, and whatever fun there was to be had in the first three entries is sorely missing from \u201cExpend4bles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That groan-inducing \u201c4\u201d in the title (reminiscent of the awful \u201cFant4stic\u201d) may as well refer to the number of actors that are back. Stallone and Statham are leading the team as Barney Ross and Lee Christmas, respectively, while Dolph Lundgren serves as aptly-named sniper Gunner and Randy Couture is among the ranks as demolitions guy Toll Road. New to the crew are audience surrogate Easy Day (Curtis \u201c50 Cent\u201d Jackson), CIA operative and Christmas\u2019s girlfriend Gina (Megan Fox), former Expendable brought out of retirement Decha (Tony Jaa), son of Banderas\u2019s character Galan (Jacob Scipio), martial artist Lash (Levy Tran), and ally of Ross\u2019s since the 1980\u2019s Marsh (Andy Garcia).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Opposing the Expendables\u2019 ability to waste another night at the bar is a team led by Rahmat (Iko Uwais). They\u2019re trying to steal a nuke and start World War III and somehow make a lot of money in the process. Actually, Rahmat is just the temporary leader, he\u2019s really working for a mysterious boss called Ocelot whose identity Ross was very close to uncovering in the 80\u2019s, but just barely slipped away. No, the obvious suspect isn\u2019t a red herring, the movie really thinks you\u2019ll consider Ocelot\u2019s identity a shocking twist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A mission to stop Rahmat and Ocelot in Libya goes sideways thanks to Christmas disobeying an order, and the team is forced to press on without he and Ross. The failure supposedly has a devastating consequence, but the movie isn\u2019t stupid enough to make it stick. It\u2019s stupid enough to think the audience will think that it will stick, but it isn\u2019t stupid enough to actually make it stick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rest of the movie mostly takes place on a cargo ship whose deck looks like a second-rate laser tag arena. There the Expendables do battle with an army of bad guys, most of whom inexplicably cover their faces. Well, I think I can explain why the movie has them cover their faces, I just don\u2019t know why the characters would. I wouldn\u2019t have thought about the likelihood of the movie reusing stunt performers during these sequences, except that the conspicuous face coverings drew my mind to the matter. I had to think about something more stimulating than the many interchangeable fights and shootouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s no shortage of things to dislike about \u201cExpend4bles.\u201d The action is cheap and tedious, the script is a joke, the jokes aren\u2019t funny, and a twist toward the end means that a team member committed a completely unnecessary murder. On top of all that, the franchise\u2019s greatest asset \u2013 its sheer star-power \u2013 is greatly depleted. Did the studio really think that 50 Cent and Andy Garcia would make up for a lack of Schwarzenegger? \u201cExpend4bles\u201d lost in its opening weekend to the third weekend of \u201cThe Nun II,\u201d and its $8.3 million domestic take still feels like audiences were too generous. You want an exciting ensemble movie? Go see \u201cA Haunting in Venice,\u201d it could use a boost in ticket sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: D-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cExpend4bles\u201d is rated R for strong\/bloody violence throughout, language and sexual material. Its running time is 103 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver Outside of what you see on the posters, the \u201cExpendables\u201d movies have never been particularly ambitious. Sure, it was great that the action stars of previous… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":58764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[2555],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58763"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58763"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58766,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58763\/revisions\/58766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}