Expend4bles – Ending The Franchise On A Pathetic Whimper

Expend4bles comes over 9-years after the last installment hit theaters, and has few remaining cast members left from the previous instalments. After a mission goes wrong, this incarnation of the Expendables are put under new leadership and must infiltrate and regain control of a cargo ship to stop a group of terrorists from starting World War III. The first Expendables film is enjoyable for what it is even if it could’ve been more, while the second film is without a doubt the best in the franchise and feels like they truly captured lightning in a bottle. The third film is perfectly watchable but was truly a big step down from the first two and took the series in a direction that most fans didn’t want. All that being said, the third film in the franchise is unfortunately terrible and easily the worst so far, spending most of it’s 103 minute runtime meandering on a cargo ship.

The reason most audiences go to these films is to see old school action stars from yesteryear shine and kick all kinds of ass on the big screen again, but Expend4bles completely misses this point of this. Aside from the returning cast, it barely even feels like a proper installment. The only two stars that would fit the bill are Stallone and Dolph Lungren, and neither one is given much to do as Barney and Gunner. Despite featuring a large ensemble cast, most are completely wasted while Statham’s Christmas is the only one who gets to do anything of substance to the point that the film should’ve been called Jason Statham and The Expendables. Meanwhile, it’s nice seeing Stallone, Lundgren, and Randy Couture’ Toll Road return (the only cast members aside from Statham to come back from previous instalments) but they all feel sidelined, especially Stallone. The new cast fails to leave any sort of an impression with both Andy Garcia and 50 Cent looking like they’d rather be anywhere else. Megan Fox fits in well but even she is hurt by the awful dialogue and a poorly written character.

Action can be tough to pull off yet this franchise has always delivered in that area even in its weaker entries, but most of it here is largely incomprehensible and not a single sequence is well filmed or exciting to watch despite the franchise returning to an R-rating, adding a lot more digital gore effects, and containing actors who are clearly doing their own impressive stunts (Statham, Iko Ukwais, and Tony Jaa deserve so much better than this). The visual effects and greenscreen are some of the worst to be featured in a big budget movie in quite some time and it’s both shocking and depressing that this looked so incredibly cheap in spite of its large budget. It’s never the best being overly negative about any film, but this one gets pretty much everything wrong and feels so cheapy made and produced from its scene transitions, editing, and writing which feel amateurish at best and embarrassing or laughable at worst. The only slight positive outside of Statham’s performance is that it’s not boring or else our score would be significantly lower than it already is.

In the end, the film is a belated, and wholly unnecessary sequel that ends this franchise on a pathetic whimper rather than a massive bang. Scott Waugh unfortunately just doesn’t know how to make a good action film, now 0/4 this past decade, so maybe it’s time to pick another genre. Ultimately, for fans of the first three films and completionists that may give this one a watch but in reality, they can gladly skip this one and won’t be missing much.

still courtesy of Lionsgate

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Connor Carey

www.connorsmoviereviews.com/