Expend4bles

Last weekend, Expend4bles, the fourth film in the Expendables franchise, was released into theaters. Expend4bles follows Barney Ross and his team as they reunite to stop some dangerous people from starting WWIII. I had a lot of fun with the original three films. They may not be the best movies ever made but they were still a lot of fun with their star power of 80s action heroes. I was hoping this film would be able to continue that charm of big stars and big explosions.

Unfortunately, this movie was extremely disappointing. It had a few fun action sequences and Jason Statham was as charming as always but as a whole, this movie was not very good. One of the biggest issues is that this movie used way too much CGI. The original three films prided themselves on big practical action sequences with real-looking explosions and on-site action scenes. This movie uses so much CGI in the action sequences and painfully obvious green screens when they usually are on site. The movie is also surprisingly light on the action. The other movies all had these big action sequences with big explosions. This film had none of that and opted for a small-scale showdown on a boat. The movie also had a lack of big-name characters. There is no Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Harrison Ford, Antonino Banderas, or Terry Crews. On top of that, the movie essentially sidelines all of the characters except for Jason Statham. The biggest draw of this franchise was seeing all of these stars on screen together and not having that just causes the movie to lose any sort of charm. The newcomers in this movie are also extremely forgettable. Megan Fox, 50 Cent, and Andy Garcia don't add much to the story while Jacob Scipio just does a poor impression of the Antonio Banderas character. None of them have any of the chemistry with the original cast and are just not big enough to be in this movie. Finally, I was not a fan of the direction of the story particularly with the Barney character. IT just felt like it defeated the purpose of these films.

In the end, this is an extremely disappointing addition to the franchise that fails to capture any of the charm of the original films. I wasn't looking for something new in the franchise. I just wanted a big action film with lots of practical action and an 80s star cast and this movie just failed to deliver that.

Score: 4/10 Grade: D+ Recommendation: Skip it