I Watched Expend4bles, So You Don't Have To
Spoiler Alert: It's Bad, Really Bad
When the first Expendables movie came out, I was excited to watch it. Seeing my favourite 80s and 90s action stars team up for an ensemble over-the-top and ridiculous action film is a dream come true. Truth be told, I actually came up with the idea in 2000 during a gate guard shift while on a peacekeeping mission overseas.
Hollywood still hasn't sent any royalties my way, though.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first installment, and the second movie was a pretty decent sequel that upped the action and ridiculousness to an eleven.
Although the third installment was watchable and held my interest, it was the weakest entry into the franchise.
As far as I know, no one was asking for a fourth movie.
The Plot (If You Can Call It That)
The plots of any Expendables movies are weak at best, but this one is so thin that it might as well not exist at all. I don't ask a lot of these movies, and I certainly don't want to think too hard about the plot, but when it's so bad that my brain is assaulted with how poorly written it is, no amount of action or oneliners will make up for it.
The movie opens in Lybia, where a battle is taking place at an old chemical weapons storage plant. We then cut to Barney (played by Sylvester Stalone) standing in front of an obvious green screen and outside a door through which we hear a man and woman fighting.
The door opens to reveal Gina (Megan Fox) and Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) arguing about something. I couldn't tell what it was because the green screen that Christmas and Barney were standing in front of was so obvious it made me want to give up on this trainwreck already.
We are then treated to some exposition telling us that Gina is an Expendable and that Barney has lost his lucky ring in a thumb wrestling match to a guy named 'Jumbo Shrimp.'
To get the ring back, Christmas gets into a bar fight. The whole scene is pointless and adds very little to the overall narrative. It seemed tacked on to pad the runtime rather than provide anything meaningful.
Next, we meet Marsh, the team's CIA handler. We also meet two forgettable characters and a couple we know from the previous installments: Toll Road (Randy Couture) and Gunner (Dolph Lundgren).
Where are the other Expendables from the earlier movies? I guess the actors weren't desperate for a paycheck, or they read the script and didn't want their careers ruined by appearing in this dumpster fire.
Their mission is to go to Lybia and prevent nuclear detonators from being stolen. Do you remember that battle I mentioned right off the bat? Well, I guess it actually hasn't happened yet, or it is such a long battle that the Expendables can fly from New Orleans to Lybia, and it won't be over yet.
Absent from this mission is Gina. It's almost like the scene where we were introduced to her was added in post-production and was not in the original script.
We also find out through some half-assed exposition that the one stealing the detonators goes by the codename Ocelot, who, of course, has a history with Barney, which I'm sure will drive the story forward.
The team goes to Lybia and battles the terrorists. Christmas is forced to choose between saving Barney and completing the mission.
He chooses to try to save Barney but fails, and the bad guys get the detonators. How do we know Barney is dead? The burned corpse in the crashed plane is wearing his lucky ring. You know, the one from the bar fight.
I actually groaned out loud. I also almost turned the movie off at this point but I aint no quitter.
If you believe for one second he's actually dead, then you probably don't watch many of these kinds of movies.
We find out later that his death unlocks a secret file revealing the name of a person who can identify Ocelot. Since the mission to stop the detonators from being stolen is a failure, Marsh fires Barney's right-hand man, Christmas, from the team and puts Gina in charge.
This is where I rolled my eyes and almost stopped watching again. The Expendables are supposed to be a group of mercenaries that the government can send in when they need deniability. Mercenaries don't let three-letter government agencies dictate the makeup of their teams.
They are motivated by money, which is precisely what Barney says to Christmas, seconds before the bar fight to get his ring back.
Then there is the lack of loyalty Toll Road and Gunner have to Christmas. They just accepted that he was being fired and said nothing. They also seemed fine carrying on without him and letting his girlfriend lead the team.
I also found it funny that the Expendables all have the same tattoo on their arms except for Gina. So, is she an Expendable? What are her actual skills? All we've seen her do is yell at Christmas about something and act irrational and crazy. These are not qualities you want in a combat leader.
On that note, who the hell cast Megan Fox in this movie? They clearly used a body double in every scene where she was doing anything other than walking slowly or standing still, so they might as well have just cast the body double instead of Megan.
At least in Expendables Three, when they cast Ronda Rousey, it made sense because she is an MMA fighter and can legitimately kick ass. The action scenes were believable because Ronda can fight.
Anyways, back to the dumpster fire of a movie.
Christmas gives Gina a knife to take on their next mission after a weird, poorly edited fight scene where 90% of it was an obvious body double. The fight scene was foreplay to get them in bed together so they could have a moment where Christmas hands over the knife with a sob story to go along with it.
A shocking development that surprised no one is that the knife has a tracking device.
Again, I was ready to turn this movie off and invoice Stalone for my time.
The Expendables, under the guidance of Gina, are going to foil Ocelot's plan to detonate a nuclear bomb in Russian waters on a freighter disguised as an aircraft carrier. The goal is to start World War Three.
Holy flaming frog shit on a bush, it sounds even more ridiculous when I type it out.
Marsh is going to go with them on the mission.
Gee, could he be Ocelot?
The Expendables parachute onto the freighter and are taken prisoner. Then, the bad guys use Marsh, who is totally not Ocelot, to negotiate a prisoner exchange. They arrange to exchange the Expendables for the person from the secret file who can identify Ocelot.
I have so many questions about this plan, but the biggest one is why I am still watching this movie?
Christmas travels to the Far East and links up with a former Expendable, who takes him on a boat to infiltrate the freighter. He gets onboard with no issues, and even though he should be days behind them, he arrives just after they get captured. What follows are a whole lot of action scenes that are so stupid that I won't even go into them.
The Expendables are reunited, Marsh is exposed as being Ocelot, the nuclear bomb is activated and counting down to Armageddon, all the bad guys die, Christmas sacrifices himself to turn the freighter around and out of Russian waters, and Barney swoops in with a helicopter to rescue Christmas, sink the freighter and save the day.
How is it that Barney is still alive? He placed his ring on a body when his plane was going down, then parachuted to safety. Where did he get the body? Remember Jumbo Shrimp from the bar? Neither did I, but that's who he was apparently able to kidnap, drug, hide in the plane, and keep the others from discovering during the multi-hour flight from New Orleans to Lybia.
I've never been happier to see the credits roll.
What Made This Installment So Bad?
The previous films were light on plot, but they made sense in a weird sort of way. The first movie centred on Barney wanting to do 'the right thing.' The plots of the second and third movies were straight-up revenge-driven, but the plot of Expend4bles made no sense whatsoever.
Why was the file with the identity of someone who knew who Ocelot was sealed until Barney died?
Why would disguising a freighter as an aircraft carrier and nuking it start World War Three?
Why was there a random bar fight scene in the movie where Barney and Christmas get a ring back?
Why would the Expendables accept Christmas being fired?
Nothing made sense.
Then there was the CGI. The effects in this movie were so bad that I actually think they ordered the CGI from Wish.com. Seriously, sixteen-year-old kids make better effects with a laptop and a copy of Blender!
The cast was lacklustre at best; both Randy Couture and Dolph Lundgren were phoning it in and definitely were there only for the easy paycheck. The rest of the cast were forgettable, and their performances were poor at best.
The inclusion of Megan Fox in this franchise was the most confusing aspect of the film. She is not known for being an action star, and the Expendables franchise has never needed to rely on eye candy to get butts in seats.
Then there was Sylvester Stalone, who left the franchise during the production for a time. His scenes appeared tacked on, and his involvement in the film an afterthought.
The only positive thing about this movie is that Jason Statham delivered his usual strong performance, making the scenes he was in watchable. Even then, he couldn’t carry the movie on his own.
TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read)
Unless someone has a gun to your head, or the fate of the planet rests on you watching this film, save your time. The plot sucks, the acting is worse, and the CGI is so distracting it will give you a migraine. Do anything else but watch this movie.
Seriously, if someone gives you a choice between watching Expend4bles and having an unnecessary root canal without anesthesia, pick the root canal—it’s a much better use of two hours.