It is the law of diminishing returns I
guess. For me, the first 'Expendables' was amongst the
most entertaining nonsense I had seen in the new
millennium. The second one… well… it certainly had more
action and a pretty awesome villain as portrayed by JCVD, but
I didn't find it nearly as much fun as the first. Now we
have 'Expendables 3' which was, to be kind,
disappointing. This episode might've even had more
action, and again the villain, Mel Gibson's character of
Stonebreaker, was the best part, but the action felt like
senseless overkill making this the least entertaining
Expendables yet.
As per usual, our heroes open with some over top the action
sequence, this time Barney (Sylvester Stallone), Christmas
(Jason Statham), Gunner (Dolph Lundgren) and Toll Road (Randy
Coutre) are in their chopper shooting at some idiots on a
train, the plan is to break out Original Expendable Doc
(Wesley Snipes) who has been captive for some eight
years. Eight years. The Expendables might want to
examine their No Man Left Behind policy.
This leads us to the next action sequence, where these cats
are on a CIA gig to bring down some international gun runner,
but to Barney's surprise it's his old friend Stonebreaker,
also an original Expendable who went rouge back in the day,
until Barney killed him. As many people as Barney Ross
has killed, and I believe this number to be in the millions,
you'd think he know when a guy was really dead.
Regardless, the op goes straight to hell, Expendable Caesar
(Terry Crews) gets all shot up in the process, Barney is sad
and fires the rest of his team.
Still, there's a job to do, new CIA honk Drummer (Harrison
Ford), taking over for Bruce Willis because he wanted way too
much money, has found where Stonebreaker is hiding out.
Not that this should be all that difficult as this is a guy
who really isn't all that low key, and with the help of
Expendable talent scout Bonaparte (Kelsey Grammer), Barney has
rounded up the baby expendables for the next gig.
Because he doesn't want his old school expendables to die on
the job. He obviously doesn't mind if these kids die on
the job.
Thing is, these kids bring all kinds of fancy
skills to the team, like the ability to use a computer.
Not that any of their fancy skills stops them from being
kidnapped. Now Barney has to get the band back together
to go save the kids, which shouldn't be all that hard since
the enemy has numbers in the thousands, have tanks,
blackhawks, rocket launchers, and the building that the kids
are in is wired to blow in a few seconds. Shouldn't be
hard at all. The Storm Trooper effect will be on full
display in this one.
What's good about 'Expendables 3'? A few things
actually. Mel Gibson for one, as he actually brought a
real live, living and breathing character to the screen in a
way that only a pro like Mel Gibson can do. Either that
or there was so much cardboard walking around that it just
seemed that way, but regardless, anytime Stonebreaker was on
the screen, which wasn't near enough, 'The Expendables' was
infinitely more interesting. Another thing that worked,
at least in the first half, was that this was the most
humorous installment, with a lot of that humor coming via the
expert comedic timing of Kelsey Grammer.
What didn't work, at least in my opinion, was the introduction
of the baby expendables. I think I know why the baby
expendables were introduced, get some new blood in the mix so
that young people might travel to the multiplex to see this
film. The failing of that is that young people really
don't go see these kinds of movies no matter how young and hip
the kids are in them. Plus screenwriter Stallone seemed
to care less about these kids than even Barney did since the
bare minimum of care went into developing these
characters. Stonebreaker has these kids strung up,
prepped to slaughter them, and quite honestly the audience
could care less. In fact, looking at the end credits and
seeing Stallone credited as the screenwriter, what was amazing
was that somebody actually wrote this junk.
But obviously no one really walks into an Expendables movie
looking for deep characterizations, we go for the
action. There is plenty of that, but as it has been
proven over and over again, action mated to bland characters,
no matter how spectacular, usually leads to bland
action. Just characters mowing down faceless goon after
faceless goon. Even Barney's final showdown with
Stonebreaker was lackluster, unlike Barney's final showdown
JCVD's character in the previous movie. It probably
didn't help that we were charmed by this villain, more so than
any other character in the movie, so we were semi-pulling for
him.
I was one of the biggest champions of the Expendables, but now
the diminishing returns has me doubting that there will even
be a part four, and sadly, I don't think we would be looking
forward to it anyway.
