The Expendables isn’t a great film. I wouldn’t even call it a good film, but it often makes for a fun experience. It could be an accurate example of an 80′s guilty pleasure action-adventure. You have the stereotypical villains, the macho heroes, and nearly two hours worth of gratuitous violence and explosions. It even has a Brian Tyler score that is on par with some of Jerry Goldsmith’s 90s action scores.

The film stars just about every major action star from the 80s with a few current ones tossed into the mix. Sylvester Stallone leads his small band of mercenaries to an island in the Gulf of Mexico. On his roster are Jet Li, Jason Statham, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, and the off-and-on Dolph Lundgren, whose character still has me scratching my head.  The target is a brutal dictator and a sharp-dressed former CIA agent, who, like most stereotypical villains, like to spend their free time killing people and bickering about their evil plots. As you can tell, a caveman could just as easily follow this story. Many would have you believe this is a a good thing, but I’m still not convinced.

The Expendables is a film fueled only by the desire to re-visit and pay tribute to “the classics.” It hardly adds anything new to the plate. It’s actually one of Stallone’s worst screenplays to date. In the past, he was often inspired by his need to make political statements, as with his Rambo screenplays. This time he is driven only by his testosterone. For the most part, the characters exist simply to serve the R rated violence. The one notable exception is Mickey Rourke’s character, a tattoo artist who gives an emotional recount of his experiences in the Bosnian War. That isn’t to say that all other characters aren’t in the slightest bit charismatic.But I suspect that comes from each of the actor’s personalities and not from the script.

What it does serve up properly is some incredibly intense action sequences that really get your adrenaline pumping. The pyro-technicians on the film must have made out like bandits, because the climax of the film is literally nothing but explosions, gunfire, and flying body parts.

Beyond its violence, mayhem and occasional humor, The Expendables isn’t a very satisfying film. Many of its scenes feel random, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s brief cameo, which exists only as a wink to the audience. His appearance has no impact on the rest of the film, and could have easily been excised, only to make the scene work better.  Lundgren’s role is awkwardly based on spontaneity, as he  jumps from bad to good at the drop of a dime, only to say “My bad guys!” Since there are so many action stars in the film, many of them seem like major cameos. Jet Li’s spotlight in the film is painstakingly short. When it is all said and done, all I know about the guy is that he hates being short and wants a hire cut because he supposedly has a family. Martial Arts fans will also feel disappointed as he hardly does any hand-to-hand combat in the film.

At the end of the film, I didn’t feel like any major issue was entirely resolved, as the story gets entirely lost in machismo. It didn’t matter who the characters were or what their motivations were. All that mattered was that they could do serious damage. The Expendables is a film for people who think that one explosion too many is not enough. If you are one of these people, this film will leave you smiling. If not, then enjoy the headache!

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