Expend4bles

Tonight, on VOD, I saw “Expend4bles,” which came out theatrically in September. Since everyone knows where I stand on the first three, let’s find out how this new sequel is, which has been in talks for years.

The tone of the film can be summarized in a single close-up: a corpse’s severed hand giving the finger. To its director, Scott Waugh, and everyone responsible for bringing fans this resting action franchise, the middle finger gestures toward this fourth installment’s intended style: macho, smirky, and insolent. At its best, the film is all three. Amy Nicholson said in her review, “This all-star mercenary squadron composed of ’80s-to-aughts brutes is the cinematic equivalent to Slash’s Snakepit, a supergroup throwback to an era when men were meatheads and we in the audience merrily cheered them on.”

Nicholson continued, “I’ll admit I still did, at least for some of this swaggering inanity. Why resist the impossible physics of Curtis Jackson (better known as 50 Cent) body-slamming a baddie back and forth like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum with his dolly? Or Dolph Lundgren lampooning his aging vision by screwing a prescription lens onto his sniper rifle? Or Sylvester Stallone grumbling about a thumb-wrestling injury that he’s chosen to nurse with a tiny custom leather sling? Or Jason Statham, the comically gifted bruiser now promoted to the series’ lead, doing, well, pretty much anything?”

Nicholson noted, “In an even earlier era, Statham’s nimble skills would have awarded him a career like Jimmy Cagney’s.” However, he’s in our era, with a script that gives a few enjoyable lines – he calls an enemy “a sneaky little sausage” – but mostly lets him down. The screenwriters Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart, and Max Adams seem to share a mutual dislike of the story, chanting the words “detonator” and “World War 3” until the threats become background static.

These high jinks would be more fun if the actors didn’t look so calm. Nothing breaks their calmness. Not explosions or blood spills, not beheadings or nuclear bombs, not even seeing a warship sailing in the Sea of Japan. (Nicholson noted, “Perhaps because all of the above have been cheaply rendered in post.) Even a back-flipping, insult-slinging seduction scene between Statham and a new teammate, played by Megan Fox, climaxes without a lip-gloss smudge. It’s just one more artificial palpitation.”

The energy pops along on throwaway jokes, like when Jacob Scipio, as a loquacious young Expendable, drinks a cocktail with a pink umbrella at a wake. There’s a strangely enjoyable diversion with a lustful internet influencer, played by Samuel Black, and a shootout interrupted by a stereo playing 50 Cent’s P.I.M.P., which is just simply strange. Nicholson asked, “Is Jackson the rapper in the same universe as Jackson the assassin? Does he moonlight in carnage?”

Andy Garcia, Randy Couture, Levy Tran, and the great martial artist Tony Jaa are included in our cast of protagonists while Iko Uwais is the leader of a generic villain team, giving every intensity he can to a villain written with no identifiable traits than a scar. Nicholson noted, “When things get dull, there’s always Lundgren in the background, playing up his character’s nearsightedness with the daffy charm of Marilyn Monroe. But the film’s last reel is so awful — so sneeringly contemptuous of our good-faith efforts to play along with these shenanigans — that we leave the theater still thinking of that middle finger.” It felt as though it was pointed at everyone.

I’m sorry, but this one I’m not feeling. I don’t think this one was as good as the previous three. Maybe because of the amount of time it took to make this and the characters not giving their all like the others did. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was not going to return saying a general disinterest, neither did Terry Crews after being inappropriately abused by Stallone’s agent, Adam Venit. I just couldn’t get into this one so much maybe because of how dull it felt, especially with the obvious CG effects that you could point out were done poorly, especially with the green screen effects. I don’t recommend this one and I don’t know if they’re planning on making another one, especially since they cancelled an all-female spinoff of the franchise.

Thank you for joining in on the review tonight. Stay tuned tomorrow when I continue “Disney Month 2023” with another Original Movie sequel that was fine. Sorry for the late posts. I fell asleep because I was so tired from work today.