The Expendables (2010)

"Getting the band back together" ought to be a genre in and of itself, with Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables standing as a good (but not quite great) example what a metafictional throwback film - and a late summer blockbuster - should do.

Writer and director Stallone also leads the cast of "Expendables" as Barney Ross, co-headlining with Jason Statham as Lee Christmas and Jet Li as Yin Yang. The Expendables, a team of mercenaries for hire, are contracted by the shadowy Mr. Church (a fun cameo by Bruce Willis, accompanied by an equally entertaining cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger, late of the governor's office) on an apparent suicide mission: take out the dictator (David Zayas, of Dexter fame) of jungle island Vilena and his American backer (Eric Roberts, slathered in smarm). What follows is a fairly typical action adventure, but its nostalgic nature is kind of the point, so it's a good thing The Expendables has its action sensibilities screwed on straight.

I realize that this review is a little long in the tooth, so the target audience for this film has probably already been to the theater and back by this point. Which is to say that The Expendables has a very clear immediate target audience who will lap this right up - this being an action movie with a eye waxing on the past, a bygone era of action stars whose movies were essentially interchangeable. But there's a second sense about the film, one of old vs. new in which the old generation can fight side-by-side with the new in tacit approval of the second coming of the action hero. Seeing Stallone and Statham bumping fists and riding into combat feels cool, and it's exactly that sensibility that will draw filmgoers. Fortunately, The Expendables delivers.

The biggest surprise isn't the who's-who roster of action stars, nor is it the explosive action sequence lineup (which is precisely explosive, thanks to a few warhead-equipped bullet rounds). What I found genuinely surprising precisely because it seemed so incongruous with a movie promising guys with guns. Mickey Rourke appears as Tool, a liasion of sorts who helps accrue gigs for The Expendables, and he has a long-take monologue about why he's not an active part of "the life" anymore. It's a strange moment, unsettling because of its seeming displacement in a shoot-'em-up smackdown. Here, the movie takes a little breather, offers up a moral compass, and gives Mickey Rourke a chance to put a little extra polish on his Best Actor Oscar in a way that Iron Man 2 never could. For this moment alone, the film is worth the cost of admission.

But there's plenty else to enjoy. The performances (Rourke aside) aren't restrained - Stallone hasn't lost any of his bulked-up hero factor, and Roberts is one of the more entertaining one-note action villains in recent memory - but neither is the action scaled back. There are plenty of viscerally appealing battle sequences, with exaggerated gunshots and high-speed knife fights aplenty. There's a plot in here somewhere and a few competing agendas at play, but the film is more like Once Upon a Time in Mexico in that the movie is a vessel for a healthy dose of action (notice that word recurring throughout this review?).

If there's a complaint about The Expendables, it's that the film seems to be holding back a little bit. Sure, there are fun nods to where the stars are now (Stallone remarks of Schwarzenegger, "He wants to be president") and metafictional references to the action flicks of the past (that Stallone/Lundgren rematch you've been waiting for plays out here), but it seems a little less quantitatively than one might expect. There are no memorable one-liners, as there ought to be in a "next installment" throwback picture, and the action is fun but not particularly groundbreaking. What's more, Willis and Schwarzenegger are bit players in only one scene - the scene depicted in the film's marketing - but there's untapped potential there. With rumblings of a sequel already following the movie like aftershocks, here's a tip for Stallone & Company: Next time, don't be afraid to turn it up to 11.
The Expendables is rated "R for strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language." The blood flies fast in the film but doesn't dominate it; F-bombs are sporadic but negigible. As far as inappropriate content goes, it's like a tamer version of Sin City but in color.