Movie Review: The Expendables and Bonus Stallone Love

Sylvester Stallone is the only celebrity I care about. I have mad love for the guy, and he has served as an inspiration to me and my writing ever since I can remember. Lots of people love to talk lots of smack about how he's so terrible at everything, but dude wrote Rocky in three days. He created one of the best characters ever in three days. THREE DAYS!

Yes, the man has been nominated for thirty Razzies and has won ten. He fully acknowledges that he's made some crappy films, and yeah, he has. But he's Stallone. The guy never gives up. In fact, the quote from Rocky Balboa pretty much sums him up (to me anyway), "I'd rather do something I love badly than to feel bad about not doing something I love."

I feel like if you're a creative person, you're going to need to have this kind of attitude. Not everyone is going to love everything you do all of the time (except when the person doing is Stallone and the everyone is me). I've pretty much accepted that I'm going to get knocked down and rejected when I put my work out there, and I'm all right with that. And once again, Sly says it pretty well: "No one likes to fail at anything, but I believe I'm a better person for it. I learned life's lessons. You're given certain gifts and that's what you should try to be."

Word.

Now onto the review. I rarely go to the movies at night, nonetheless on an opening night, but my husband wanted to go and I jumped on board. I had been watching the previews for The Expendables for over a year and I was all about it just for the cast alone: Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews and Mickey Rourke. I just remember seeing their name scrolling across my screen and thinking, "Wow, this is going to be the best movie ever."

It wasn't the best movie ever, but it wasn't bad. While I usually like the schlocky tough guy dialogue, a good 75% of the film was The Expendables trying to convince themselves that they weren't bad people because they had spent most of their adult lives as mercenaries. It was a little more emo than I expected, and there was one scene in particular where Tool (Mickey Rourke) begins to cry as he recounts an old tale. A little shocking.

I did enjoy the father figure role that Stallone played in this movie. Barney, Stallone's character, was a tough guy with a soft and just side, which he played very well. Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) was also a very complex character who while not being a mercenary was busy trying to reconcile his relationship with his ex-girlfriend. Stallone and Statham were actually incredible on screen together, making for one of the best drive-bys ever. Statham also had an incredible scene at a basketball court. Stallone definitely showed Statham a lot of love when he gave him that role.

The supporting cast was also pretty good, except for Eric Roberts, who played the worst evil guy ever. He was like a cartoon, and at times he was actually painful to watch. Not good. I enjoyed Terry Crews as Hale Ceasar, a dude who loves him some big guns. Jet Li was pretty fun too. Dolph Lundgren was a little silly but he played the crazy/angry/scorned role pretty well. (But really, how much can we expect from this guy?)

The movie ends in a big, over the top way that I loved. The fight choreography was awesome, the explosions were huge, and the energy was fantastic. I did enjoy the movie overall and think that if you're a fan of action movies, you'd enjoy this. There are a lot of really good things about the film and I think they're enough to outweigh the few bad things. Check it out.