The Expendables Review

By: Robert Acosta

Cast:
Sylvester Stallone as Barney Ross
Jason Statham as Lee Christmas
Jet Li as Ying Yang
Eric Roberts as James Munroe

Plot: An elite team of mercenaries take a mission in South America that turns out to be more difficult to take care of then originally planned.

Review: From the moment The Expendables was announced and the intentions of the movie were clear, I expected just an all out bloodbath, heads rolling and tons of explosions. For the most part, that is exactly what happened.

For me, this movie was all about expectations of the audience. If you saw the trailer, read about the cast and expected a great story with good character development, don't even waste your time and money. The Expendables is just a full out battle for the most part with breaks in the action just to either explain situations or give tiny bits of the story.

What can I say about the action? It's damn good! Explosions left and right, blood everywhere, death is in the air. Jason Statham and Jet Li were the bad asses of the bunch which is pretty predictable. Statham was wielding knifes and the way he killed his victims gave the movie some of the best action scenes. Jet Li is an obvious bad ass with his fighting style, very quick and powerful.

The casting was pretty spot on. Gather some of the best action stars of the last 25 years, put them in a movie together and have an all out war. Everyone seemed to play their part perfectly. Stallone was the veteran and leader of the group. Li and Statham were the fighters of the group. Terry Crews and Randy Couture carry the big guns and throw in some witty remarks every now and then. It works out pretty well.

The run time for the movie is supossedly at 1 hour and 43 minutes but I can say, I don't think it was that long at all. The trailers run for a little while in front of the movie and for some reason, the movie felt like 1 hour and 20 minutes. That could be just me. Action just seems to speed things up.

Throw in Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger with little cameos, Eric Roberts and Stone Cold Steve Austin as the villains of the movie and overall, The Expendables is one hell of a time at the movies. Just don't ruin the fun by expecting The Expendables to be anymore then it is, a full out action movie.

Rating: 4 Out of 5