The Expendables 3

Director: Patrick Hughes
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li
Length: 126 minutes
Country: USA

The Expendables 3 is proof that all the acting talent in the world means nothing if the direction is terrible, resulting in an action movie where the action scenes actually become secondary to the dialogue. No one goes into this type of nostalgia-fest expecting to learn something interesting or to be profoundly moved, but the least the average viewer can expect is some entertainment, and when it really matters, i.e. when people start shooting each other, The Expendables 3 becomes a chaotic mess of shaky cam, awful editing, and boring fight scenes with no blood – reaching a magnificent apotheosis of inanity when the martial arts legend Jet Li is brought in for five minutes and instead of doing any actual martial arts awkwardly wields a gun and is subject to a few dad jokes about his height.

You can star Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Statham, Mel Gibson, Antonio Banderas, Kelsey Grammar and Wesley Snipes in any film together and expect some them to generate some humour – but it helps if the director is also in the same calibre, and Patrick Hughes sadly doesn’t know where to put the camera, severely limiting the viewers chance of enjoying the movie. I like to imagine what this film would be like if it was directed by James Cameron or John Woo, or even Simon West (Con Air) – then you’d get some camera work and editing worthy of these actors time. What is incredible, with the welcome addition of Zorro, Indiana Jones, Mad Max and Frasier, is the third instalment in the trilogy reaches new lows of dull, bland entertainment. Whilst the first film was mildly entertaining and the second mildly diverting, the third film is mildly alive, with no real dramatic interest whatsoever.

Whilst the first film was mildly entertaining and the second mildly diverting, the third film is mildly alive, with no real dramatic interest whatsoever

Stallone’s cinematic output in the ’90s was bad, but even supposedly bad films such The Specialist and Cliffhanger were actually rather entertaining despite their many flaws. Maybe it’s because The Expendables 3 is too content to be average, believing that by merely referencing other, better films that will justify not being a good film on its own terms. Viewed on its own, it makes literally no sense. Viewed in relation to the swathe of great action movies before it, it is an embarrassment to the legacy of these (mostly) great actors.

This latest instalment starts with the Expendables busting Doctor Death (Wesley Snipes) out of prison for ‘tax evasion’ – which is a decent meta-joke considering Snipes’ actual incarceration. He is taken with the team to intercept a bomb sale, where Stallone meets his old nemesis – Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson). Here, because in the laws of Hollywood there can only be one token black character, Terry Crews gets shot by Stonebanks and the team is temporarily disbanded. To take down Stonebanks, Stallone recruits a new crew of boring yet ‘tech-savvy’ youngsters, the only highlight of which is the token female Luna, played by undefeated MMA fighter Ronda Rousey who does manage in her brief spotlight to impress with the fight scenes she has. However, the new team all get captured and (surprise, surprise) Stallone reassembles the old team to rescue them from some made up Eastern European country seemingly inspired by the Chernobyl sequences in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Once the entire group are together, they find themselves in a huge building under siege from the Uzmenistani (sic) army, who must be the worst army in all film history as they can’t manage to kill a single hero. I got excited as the siege started, thinking that with some decent cross-cutting, this could be a long, satisfying sustained piece of action that would work on many levels. But instead of delivering a film, with comprehensible direction, they seemingly got a small child to film it on his iPhone before calling final cut. This is a severe waste of what could have been a decent set-up for an enjoyable action showdown.

Amidst all the mediocrity however, there are still some excellent performances. Harrison Ford is great, as he seems to realise he’s in a piece of shit, and he scowls and smiles ironically throughout his performance as Stallone’s boss and has the best scene in the film as he professes not to understand Statham’s cockney accent. Antonio Banderas also provides some much needed comic relief, as his performance seems to be airlifted straight from his Puss ‘N Boots character and the craziness of his early Almodovar roles. The star of the show however, and providing an extremely convincing villain is Mel Gibson, channeling some of the wild manic energy of his performance in Lethal Weapon.

We have been let down recently by the efficient action picture – not the next-level $100 Million entertainment executed brilliantly in The Avengers or the The Dark Knight Rises– but good old b-movie fun, the sort so well-perfected in the ’80s and ’90s in films such as Commando, Tango & Cash and even Under Siege. Taken and even Hummingbird are a couple of anomalies in the recent failure to command a decent plot and direct comprehensible action scenes within the b-movie genre. If you want to see an action movie stripped back to the basics, but with breathtakingly good fight scenes where you can actually feel the pain of someone being clattered the shit out of – I’d recommend watching The Raid: Redemption and The Raid 2: Berandal make The Expendables look truly expendable.

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