'The Expendables' is an exercise in nostalgia for the bygone era of muscly, macho action films. It's willfully out of date, like an aging hair band that can't pack away the spandex.
Sylvester Stallone, the director, co-writer and star, has said he set out to make a movie "with brains and brawn, not modern technology."
Stallone thus comes across as a kind of Rip Van Winkle, had Van Winkle only been a die-hard Guns 'N Roses fan. 'The Expendables' is awash in motorcycles, tattoos, black leather, glistening biceps and big guns. Though the 'Rambo' star's suggestion that contemporary movies have lost something of their masculinity and authenticity bears some truth, surely the answer isn't to pretend the last two decades never happened.
But here we are with 'The Expendables', which immediately -- and without irony -- announces its defense of such kitsch with, yes, a fade to a full moon.
Stallone is Barney Ross, the leader of a group of mercenaries who are played by most of the remaining defenders of high body count, testosterone-filled action: the British action star Jason Statham (blade expert Lee Christmas), the Chinese martial artist Jet Li (as Yin Yang), WWE wrestler Steve Austin (Paine), ultimate fighter Randy Couture (Toll Road), former NFL player and Old Spice commercial actor Terry Crews (as the absurdly named Hale Caesar) and Dolph Lundgren, famously the Russian boxer Ivan Drago from the 'Rocky' films (as the loose cannon Gunner Jensen).
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