If you were a fan of action movies in the eighties and early nineties, then it is hard not to be excited for The Expendables.  Not only is the movie written and directed by its star and action icon Sylvester Stallone, but it also marks the first time that Stallone has appeared together with fellow action icons Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  The movie promises to be a throwback to the macho movies that used to dominate the box office, and in certain parts it succeeds.  In others, however, it just proves why those kinds of movies have gone the way of the dinosaur.

Stallone stars as Barney Ross, the leader of a group of mercenaries known as The Expendables.  As the film opens, they show up on a Somalian pirate ship to rescue some hostages and the movie wastes no time setting up its gruesome violence.  Back in the States, Ross and team are offered a job that involves overthrowing the dictator of a small island country.  While scouting the job, Ross and his partner Lee Christmas discover that there is more to the corruption than just a greedy dictator and they begin to realize that they are being used as pawns by the CIA.

That’s the basic plot, but the route the movie takes to get there is very uneven.  Instead of going through a series of recruitment scenes like Ocean’s Eleven or The Magnificent Seven, The Expendables are already a team when the story begins, but most of them disappear for much of the movie.  Jason Statham and Jet Li share above-the-title billing with Stallone and the script is seemingly built for Sly to take each of them out individually for their own moment to shine.  As Lee, Statham is along for the scouting mission which ends with an opportunity for him to show off his quick moves.  Then, for good measure, he is given another moment to individually fight off a woman-beater and his buddies.

Then Statham disappears for awhile and Li is along for the ride when a traitor confronts Ross in a high-speed pursuit ending with Li’s chance to show off his quick moves against a more brutish Dolph Lundgren.  It’s nice that Stallone realizes he can’t carry a movie on his own nowadays and he gives these guys a chance to shine, but as a director he doesn’t seem quite sure how best to showcase their talents.  Whereas directors of other Li and Statham movies give the stars room to play, much of their fight scenes in The Expendables are too tightly framed and edited.

Much like in Sly’s latest Rambo installment, the third act of The Expendables is reserved for an explosive, bloody, overkill action scene which may feature more fiery explosions than the rest of the action movies this summer combined.  Unfortunately, but maybe intentionally, the special effects here are way behind the times and the palace that comes crashing down looks as cheesy as a model from an action movie even before Stallone’s time.

Although to a much lesser degree than Li and Statham, the rest of the tough-guy cast each get their moments, none taking better advantage than former NFL player Terry Crews.  Mickey Rourke is underused and Dolph Lundgren is far overused.  Stallone’s also missed plenty of perfect opportunities to throw in his former Rocky rival’s memorable “I will break you” line, a line I’m confident I wasn’t the only one rooting to hear.

That’s about the only cheesy one-liner not used in a movie that really overdoes it a bit as most lines fall flat.  The same can be said for the machismo.  The movie is basically an excuse for a bunch of tough guys to flaunt how macho they are and although some of it is fun, it really shows how far we’ve move passed that phase as a movie-going audience.

As for the much-hyped scene between Stallone, Willis, and Schwarzenegger?  It’s a short but fun scene that features perhaps the best line in the movie.  It’s also very clear which of the three has aged better than the others.

The Expendables is worth checking out as a novelty for fans of the macho action movies of twenty to thirty years ago, but it is not something that is going to stand up in the era of superheroes and Jason Bournes.

The Expendables is rated R for “strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language.”  If you are not a fan of bloody, dismembered bodies and grotesquely broken bones, then stay far away from this one.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Jeff attended a promotional screening of The Expendables.