Expend4bles
0/4
Now, I wouldn’t say that The Expendables is my favourite action franchise by any stretch of the imagination, but I did have fun with the first three movies. So it was with cautious optimism that I recently walked into a movie theatre to see Expend4bles. And I’ll tell you what: I was going to be nice, but this movie has gone too far. Within the first 20 minutes, it almost became the first movie I’ve ever walked out on. I was so offended by how this movie was put together that steam was coming out of my ears.
This entire film, from the plot to the dialogue, looks and sounds horrible. A great example of this is when Lee Christmas (played by Jason Statham) is at a party after being fired from The Expendables for incompetence. He’s there protecting an internet influencer—this scene is every stereotype in the book. From the jerk of a boss to the violent action hero, they’re all there and it’s just horribly offensive.
But that’s all secondary to the two things I really hate about this movie.
The first thing is that everything looks, sounds, and acts fake. The guns look like they are made out of Play-Doh; the vehicles—whether it’s a truck, car, or plane—look even worse. Then there’s the middle-school drama class of an acting show. Everything the actors do is completely phoned in. Most of them look like they are sleepwalking through their lines like movie zombies. “Give me money. This movie sucks and I’m only here for the money, so give it to me so I can tell my kids and grandkids I’m a real actor!” That’s the acting level of this movie.
The second thing I hated about the movie is its sad excuse for special effects. These are not special effects. They are a burnt movie marinara pizza that they melted cheese on and then, in defiance of man and movie gods everywhere, put underdeveloped, green-screen sauce on top of and put on display like some sort of Christmas ornament from movie hell. And who uses fire that looks like it’s made out of Lego to make an explosion? I’m not kidding; I saw more realistic effects in The Lego Movie than I did in Expend4bles.
The best thing about my whole Expend4bles experience is the quiet, empty theatre I got to sit in, and not because I like to enjoy my movies without people on their phones all the time, but because it gave me hope for humanity, because they refused to pay money to see this atrocity.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for me.