The Expendables 2

I enjoyed The Expendables.  It was a movie where past-their-prime action stars punched the faces off of some bad guys.  Sure, it wasted almost a third of the movie with inept attempts at character development, but it was gloriously dumb fun.  The success of that film made a sequel inevitable, and the debut trailer made it look like they were going to pack in more stars, which virtually guaranteed less plot, less development, and more boomsplosions, which is what The Expendables 2 should be about.

Aside from the returning cast (everybody but Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mickey Rourke), we get Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and...Liam Hemsworth?  Not even the Hemsworth that was in Thor?  The one they choose for the biggest, dumbest action movie ever is the guy who doesn't do anything in The Hunger Games?!?  He's obviously the least famous actor billed in this movie, but that was still an odd casting choice.  It makes you wonder what other odd decisions went into The Expendables 2... 

...like a dance scene, perhaps?

Barney's (Sylvester Stallone) crew of good-guy mercenaries is back to work.  This time,they find themselves in a tight spot.  Instead of picking their own missions, as is the norm, they are forced into doing the dirty work for Mr. Church (Bruce Willis), or else risk being thrown into double-secret probation CIA jail for the rest of their natural lives.  That means trying to recover a mysterious something from a plane wreckage site in Albania.  Correction: scenic Albania.  The team (Jason Statham, Terry Crews, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture and the new guy, Liam Hemsworth) accomplishes their mission, thanks to their chaperone, Maggie (Nan Yu), and is ready to extract, when they are ambushed by a bunch of villains.  The villains, led by the appropriately named Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme), murder poor, innocent, three-days-away-from-retirement Liam Hemsworth, and get away with their "Get Out of Jail Free" card.  That shit's personal.  Enter extreme violence and minimal plot.

Look, it's the one expendable member of The Expendables!

The Expendables 2 was directed by Simon West, which should be an improvement over Sylvester Stallone's direction in the first Expendables film.  The key words there are "should be."  West isn't bad, exactly, but his work here is uninspired.  West is no stranger to dumb action movies, but he doesn't quite make a successful transition from dumb to enjoyably stupid action films with this entry.  What's the difference?  An enjoyably stupid action movie keeps up a rapid pace and varies up the gratuitous violence enough to keep the audience entertained.  The Expendables 2 has some solid action in it, but there is also a hefty amount of downtime, where we are forced to watch Stallone emote; at this point in his career, the only emotion Stallone's face can convincingly portray is "lumpy."

"L" is for "Lumpy"

Overall, though, West makes sure there is action, and he makes sure the biggest names in the cast receive a few moments in the spotlight (for better or worse); in other words, his direction is less than I had hoped, but certainly within expectations.

So, how's the acting?

"Heh-heh.  The blogger made a funny."

Honestly, that just depends on your standards.  I went in with pretty low expectations, acting-wise, but I was still a little underwhelmed.  Stallone does his best to add some depth to his character --- and I think he does a decent job --- but the attempt is misguided in this movie and this role.  If he was just a little more gleefully destructive instead of angsty, The Expendables 2 would have been a hell of a lot more fun.  Liam Hemsworth probably did the best job acting, although his role was clearly designed to justify the extreme violence in the rest of the movie.

...which is, admittedly, a tall order

It felt like Jason Statham had a lot less screen time in this sequel, but I guess his character just didn't have much to contribute; Statham is present in every major action scene, but I thought his role was far less important this time around.  As for his acting, he did a pretty good Jason Statham impression.  Jet Li was barely in the movie, so we didn't have to suffer through the unintelligible banter between him and Dolph Lundgren.  Lundgren was particularly mush-mouthed, and I found it hard to believe he was ever an action star.  But then I re-discovered this little gem on the interwebs and my faith in Dolph was restored:

As for the other Expendables, Randy Couture and Terry Crews weren't given a whole lot to do, which I think was a poor choice, since they both seem to have a decent sense of action movie humor.  I wouldn't mind seeing Crews in a buddy action movie in the near future.  The big news in The Expendables 2 was not the main cast, though --- it was the featured cameos.  Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Chuck Norris all had scenes focused exclusively on them.  Norris' scenes were the funniest, if only because they lived up to his internet reputation; he actually came across fairly awkward, like he didn't get why his part was supposed to be funny.

If they had CGI-ed a fist under his beard, I would have given it a pass

Bruce Willis was okay at first, but as soon as he stumbled into catchphrase territory, he was pretty damn hammy.  Arnold was the worst, though; he looked awful and made his Conan-era acting look like Daniel Day-Lewis by comparison.  Perhaps the biggest surprise in this film was how fun it was to watch Jean-Claude Van Damme as a villain.  Van Damme has never been a very good actor (understatement!), but his accent and lack of charm plays surprisingly well as a bad guy.  This is easily his best work since he lost his mullet.

Without having to smile and be likable, Van Damme actually looks cool here

His number two man, Scott Adkins, wasn't as entertaining, but his physical stunts helped make up for the fact that the rest of this cast is too old for stunts.  Nan Yu wasn't bad as the resident damsel in varying degrees of distress, but she wasn't terribly important and basically gave Stallone opportunities to brood.  Charisma Carpenter returned as Statham's girlfriend, but she didn't really do much except look age-appropriately attractive for a few minutes --- bonus points to the movie for giving Statham a love interest that is roughly his own age, a rarity in action movies.

Seriously, though, does anyone care about the acting in The Expendables 2?  Of course not.  This movie exists only for the action scenes, of which there are several. 

Not this one.  This is an exposition scene.

If you're fan of explosions and lots and lots of CGI blood, this is the movie for you.  Especially if you like the middle third of the film being filled with plot and poor attempts at drama.  That's really the problem I have with this movie --- it has action bookends, but the movie slows to a crawl when they try to make the audience actually care about the characters.  Of course, the attempt was hilariously inept, but the mere fact that it was attempted shows how misguided the filmmakers were.  There are eight action movie headliners in this movie, with a healthy supply of supporting action movie veterans, and yet the pace would have to speed up to earn being called "plodding."  There is no excuse for that.  Who the fuck wants a movie with all these action stars that spends any time whatsoever on Stallone's feelings?  Can I see a show of hands?

Exactly.

Here's the thing with The Expendables 2: it was meant to be a ridiculously stupid action movie, but the filmmakers misunderstood how to make that happen.  Instead of stuffing this movie with action heroes doing action stunts that couldn't be believed, like some sort of action movie turducken, they gave into Stallone's ego and let him try to emote.  And then they made the ill-advised decision to let Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Willis trade catch phrases, which made for possibly the most painful ten minutes I spent watching movies this year.  Even with those problems, it's still got enough action to satisfy most viewers.  Too bad it's kind of boring.

Twins

My memory of movies is kind of shoddy.  I can remember, in detail, where I was and who I was with for certain movies, but others just float in a memory vacuum.  I remember the movie fine, but I don't know when or why I watched it.  Twins is one of those mystery movies for me.  I know I enjoyed it as a kid, and I can recall a decent portion of the movie, but I don't know why I liked it or who I would have seen it with.  Maybe a look at the trailer will help jog my memory:

Even though I have seen Twins several times over the years, I can hardly believe that trailer was real.  It looks like someone trying to make a legitimate movie from a discarded SNL sketch.  It looks awful.  And yet I have positive memories of it?  I am definitely starting to doubt the merits of my nostalgia.  

Twins begins on a remote South Pacific island, where the inexplicably accented Julius (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is told for the first time that he has a twin brother.  Naturally, he assumes his brother will be a lot like him: impossibly fit, scientifically brilliant, and eager to be reunited with his family. 

Yes, I said "brilliant."  If you suspend your disbelief now, this movie will be much easier to watch.

Julius then hops in a raft and paddles his way to California to find his brother.  Naturally.  As it turns out, Julius' long-lost brother looks and acts nothing like him.  Hint: that's where the comedy comes in!  Vincent (Danny DeVito) is a short, fat, bald weasel of a man.  He aspires to white collar crime, but is willing to settle for stealing cars and selling them to chop shops.  In his free time, he constantly disappoints his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Linda (Chloe Webb).  When Julius finally (after one, maybe two scenes) tracks down Vincent, Vince is in jail.  Being a loving brother, Julius offers to pay the steep bail with his enormous briefcase of cash.  Of course, Vincent doesn't believe he is the twin brother of an Austrian bodybuilder, but he's not going to deny anyone the pleasure of getting him out of jail.  From that point on, all Julius has to do is convince Vincent that they are brothers and track down their missing parents.  And all Vincent has to do is stay one step ahead of some ruthless criminals who want to kill him.  That sounds like a pretty full plate for these two, but keep in mind that they both have to grow as people, learn to love, and waltz to a Jeff Beck cameo.

This is the movie that inspired the "Sounds legit" meme

The acting in Twins, while broad, isn't as goofy as the film's concept.  What is perhaps more surprising, in retrospect, is Arnold Schwarzenegger's competence in a comedic role.  Sure, he'd been funny on occasion in his action movies --- my personal favorite is him punching a horse in the face in Conan the Barbarian --- but this was his first real comedy.  His acting chops are clearly limited...

Arnold, reading his lines

...but his timing is actually pretty good.  Ahnuld is not a natural, but his stilted acting fits the innocence of his character and his broad expressions fit the gags in this movie.  Danny DeVito's performance is harder to describe.  In the beginning of the movie, he is the closest thing the audience has to a character that is thinking what they are thinking --- specifically, the phrase "Yeah, right," over and over again.

DeVito, discussing the plausibility of this script

As the film progresses, though, Vincent starts to believe.  That makes sense, because the audience is (hopefully) going through the same transition, if the film is working.  The way DeVito handles that change is to start acting consistently goofy to match Ahnuld's awkwardness.  That silliness is amplified by the fact that DeVito is forced to carry the dramatic moments in this movie because Schwarzenegger simply can't.  The ladies (Chloe Webb and Kelly Preston) were just fine in their supporting romantic roles.  They didn't have a lot of personality, but it was enough for their limited screen time.  It is worth pointing out that a young David Caruso has a small part in Twins as the parking attendant.  Sadly, he does not wear any sunglasses in this film.

YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHH!

Twins was directed by Ivan Reitman, toward the back-half of his incredibly successful run in the 80s and early 90s.  Reitman's skill set as a director seems to be allowing the talent to do their thing in front of the camera and edit it into a cohesive story later.  That method works when you've got an improvisational master like Bill Murray in your movies.  Replacing Murray with Schwarzenegger doesn't get the same result.  One side effect of that is a reliance on much, much broader comedy in Twins than in Reitman's best films, Stripes and Ghostbusters.  That's not necessarily a terrible thing, but it makes for a far more generic and formulaic comedy.

Except for the part where the brothers prepared to crush those poor, poor children

Reitman deserves credit for taking an absolutely ludicrous concept and making it into a watchable, even likable film.  That was not inevitable. 

It could have been much, much worse

What makes Twins work is how warm it is.  Yes, the plot is idiotic.  No, the acting is not very impressive.  Yes, the main concept also serves as the bulk of the film's jokes.  But it's pretty damn cute.  The physical comedy of the two brothers in sync, while not subtle, is well done.  The same goes for the ludicrous plot; as much as I want to hate this movie, seeing DeVito and Schwarzenegger with those puppy dog eyes, asking about their mom is downright adorable.  Is Twins a classic?  Definitely not.  It's pleasant, but utterly disposable entertainment that is almost immune to logic and scrutiny.  And it's pretty good for what it is.

Terminator Salvation

I love the Terminator series.  Until I experienced the rapture that comes with repeated viewings of Road House and Purple Rain, Terminator 2: Judgment Day was my most viewed movie as a teenager.  I can even point out the single bullet that, had it not been dropped, would have ended the movie twenty minutes earlier.  While the first two Terminator movies are obviously classics, I'm even okay with the far inferior Terminator 3: Wanton Destruction of Property.  It's not great, but it could have been much, much worse.  As the fourth movie in the franchise, Terminator Salvation sits in an unenviable spot where it wants to recapture the fans that were turned off by the last film while relaunching the series by setting it in the Terminator future.  That is a tough trick to pull off.

How successful is this film?  Well, on paper it might work.  Christian Bale signed up to play the main role of John Connor and the supporting cast was partially filled out with Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, and Helena Bonham Carter.  Not bad, right?  I liked the notion of taking the series into the post-apocalyptic future instead of retreading the "to save the future, John Connor must live" plot from the last three films.  Also, Arnold Schwarzenegger's sagging man boobs should have no reason to show up, since he was busy governing California at the time of filming.  I love me some vintage Ahnuld, but the man stopped making good movies in 1994.  Oh, and this movie doesn't feature time travel, which automatically makes it slightly less ridiculous than any of the other films.  All in all, this movie was theoretically promising.

And then it starts to fall apart when you take a closer look.  Counting Bale, the pivotal character of John Connor has been played by four different actors in four movies and one TV show.  That implies that there is no true vision for the character, so despite him being a recurring role his character's presence does not indicate any particular level of quality.  The director ended up being McG, which is the most obnoxious Hollywood name in recent memory.  Oh, and he committed the cinematic sins of directing the Charlie's Angels movies.  The rest of the supporting cast consists of Bryce Dallas Howard (I don't care if she's prettier than her dad, she's not very talented!), Moon Bloodgood (whose acting is nowhere near as awesome as her name), Common (who still hasn't convinced me that he can act), and Michael Ironside (whose name should have belonged to a general or linebacker, not a B-movie actor).  And this movie was rated PG-13, not R, like the rest of the franchise.  Add all that to the fact that the script went through several rewrites, and this thing starts to sound like it will utterly suck.

As with so many things, the truth lies somewhere in-between.  In the year 2018, the future is a great big pile of crap.  The sentient computer program, Skynet, has instigated a nuclear holocaust, leaving mankind on the brink of extinction.  The remaining humans are trying just to eke out survival or they are active in the human resistance.  John Connor (Christian Bale) is a member of the resistance movement; despite having some knowledge of the future from his mother and his time-traveling Terminator friends from previous movies, he is not one of the leaders of the movement.  But, apparently, he is the voice of "Human Resistance Radio," the presumably made-up-by-me title to his occasional radio pep talks to the remainders of humanity.  The resistance has just had two major breakthroughs:

1. They have discovered Skynet's "kill list" of humans most in need of being murdered...John is #2, behind Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin)---John's father, who hasn't yet aged into Michael Biehn, gone back in time or slept with Linda Hamilton in The Terminator.
2. They have discovered a radio frequency that disables Skynet's killer robots.  Oh, and Skynet also is planning to kill the leaders of the resistance in one week.  How nice of Skynet to squeeze the leaders of humanity in on that day...I thought they'd be booked!  

Anyway, the resistance leaders are planning to nuke Skynet's central base after using the new robot-disabling technology to turn off their defenses.  The only problem with that is that Skynet has been capturing humans to experiment on them in that same base.  Casualties of war happen every day, but not on John Connor's watch!  He heads to the base to break out the humans before Skynet gets bombed.

Meanwhile, we are introduced to Marcus (Sam Worthington), a man that is being executed in 2003.  The next thing he (or we) know, he awakes in 2018 with absolutely no idea what is going on.  He meets the young Kyle Reese and his fellow survivor, the nine year-old Star (Jadagrace Berry), and they get kidnapped by Skynet machines and taken to the Skynet central base for unknown reasons.  Marcus feels obligated to break his only friends out of the base, so he finds and teams up with a Human Resistance member, Blair (Moon Bloodgood), and is taken to the Resistance base.  Once there, the Resistance discovers a startling secret about Marcus that explains the fifteen-year gap in his memory.  With that reveal, many questions arise:

• Is Marcus one of a kind, or is he a sign of things to come?
• Can Marcus be trusted?
• Can John Connor find Kyle Reese before the Resistance nukes Skynet's base?
• Will Skynet win by being nuked and killing John's soon-to-be father and wiping John out of existence?
• Will Skynet win by drawing John into their main base and killing him before the tide in the man vs. machine battle has turned in favor of man?
• Will Edward Furlong, Nick Stahl, or Thomas Dekker (the other three actors who have played John Connor) show up and really confuse things for viewers?

Let's start with the good things first.  I will admit that, while watching this movie, I was entertained.  It is nowhere near as intelligent a film as the rest of the series, but it has its own charms.  I liked Anton Yelchin's performance; it was reminiscent of Michael Biehn's work in The Terminator, but not indebted to it.  The movie looked good, too.  It can be difficult to capture the dirtiness of a post-nuclear world, but I thought the sets looked great.  I thought the design work for the various Skynet machines was imaginative and pretty cool.  There were a lot of cool mini-tributes to the first couple movies sprinkled throughout; the best was definitely the inclusion of the Guns 'n' Roses song from Terminator 2.  There was a lot of action, too, enough to keep you from thinking about the movie's plot or logic.

That is where things start to sour for this film.  Despite avoiding some time travel problems by setting this in the future, including a young Kyle Reese has the same effect as sending a Terminator back in time to kill John or Sarah Connor; if the Terminators succeed, then the entire time line is disrupted and, I assume, everyone wakes up in a delicious swimming pool of vanilla pudding.  Or, we blink out of existence; until the time stream is totally disrupted and I can be proved wrong, I'm sticking with my theory.  That headache aside, there are a lot of little things that don't make sense in this movie.  How can so many machines that are specifically designed to kill people have such awful aim?  How is Marcus able to swim, considering his presumed body weight?  Why don't Terminators just crush John Connor's throat or punch through his face?  Whenever they get their robotic mitts on him, they just throw him across the room.  Why would sentient machines have a radio frequency for an Achilles' Heel?  When the final plan is revealed, why is it so ridiculously convoluted?  Seriously, when I heard the plan explained, I thought I was listening to Cobra Commander, or possibly underpants gnomes.  And yet, we are supposed to believe that a brilliant and devious supercomputer came up with this?  I am insulted by the filmmakers (probably fair) assessment of the average American's intelligence.  And what was the deal with Skynet targeting Kyle Reese?  In the first Terminator, the father of John Connor was unknown by Skynet, but here he is their number one acquisition priority.  Did John, the only living person who knows the identity of his father, blab his daddy's name?  I'll just mildly state that I doubt it.  But let's say that, yes, John Connor spilled the beans...when Skynet captures Kyle, why don't they just squish him into meat jelly?  It couldn't hurt their evil plans, right?

Despite all that stupidity, though, this isn't a bad movie.  Yes, McG is a pretty bad director in terms of cinematography, storytelling, and working with actors, but at least the movie never drags.  Most of the actors turn in uninspired performances, but not necessarily bad...although Christian Bale was uncharacteristically one-dimensional.  And Sam Worthington still has the range of a box of Triscuits.  If you look at this as a continuation/reboot of the ultra-successful Terminator franchise, this was definitely a disappointment.  On its own, though, the movie is a fun, dumb little flick.  As much as the logic-loving part of my mind might disagree, I give this movie

***EDITED ON 9/27/10 at 14:20 PM***
An excellent comment from nobulljive has forced me to amend my rating.  Yes, it is incredibly stupid for Skynet to have designed a base that conforms to human proportions.  With so many uniquely shaped pieces of machinery, there is absolutely no reason for a base for robots, by robots, to be designed like any modern-day processing plant.  And it is even stupider for the interface for the central Skynet computer to have screens or speakers for Helena Bonham Carter to speak through.  The central computer in Skynet should just have ports for any machine to link up and communicate through. 

Man, I can't believe I didn't think of that; I am now equally upset with myself and this movie.  These logical flaws in the story, on their own, wouldn't bother me too much.  I can forgive action/sci-fi movies for some stupidity.  On top of all the other issues I had with Salvation's plot, though, I cannot in good conscience recommend this film.

The Expendables

What you get out of The Expendables depends entirely on what you expect to get out of it.  If you watch this, expecting it to be drenched in testosterone and blood (ugh), to have awful dialogue with worse delivery, then you're absolutely right.  On the other hand, if you're expecting it to be drenched in testosterone and blood (woo!), to have awesome action and ridiculous amounts of violence, you're still absolutely right.  As long as you're not expecting an Academy Award-winning period piece romantic comedy, you pretty much know how much you'll like this movie before the opening credits.

The Expendables are a group of mercenaries that handle the dirtiest jobs.  Barney (Sylvester Stallone) is the group leader, with Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) and Ying Yang (Jet Li) as his trusted confidantes; the other members of the group include Gunner (Dolph Lungren), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) and Toll Bridge (Randy Couture).  While those names aren't quite descriptive enough to be GI Joe names, they're amusing nonetheless.  The film opens with the Expendables on a mission to save hostages from pirates.  Obviously, that doesn't end well for the pirates.  In fact, Gunner blows the torso off a guy --- he doesn't cut the guy in half, he blows the torso off the rest of his body.  Gunner later decides to hang a pirate for fun, but that is crossing the line for the rest of the group, so Gunner is stopped and kicked off the team.  So, keep that in mind: blowing people to bits is a job well done, but hanging pirates is taboo.

Barney is later approached by a mysterious Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) for a dangerous mission; actually, Barney's group isn't the only group being considered, but the other group, led by Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger), is allegedly too busy.  The mission is to kill a drug despot, General Garza (David Zayas, of Dexter fame), on the Gulf island of Vilena.  Barney and Christmas go to the island to do some reconnaissance and discover that General Garza is obviously a puppet dictator, with former CIA operative James Munroe (Eric Roberts) pulling the strings and Paine (Steve Austin) providing the muscle.

The film takes a slight detour to add emotional depth and (probably) earn its weight in Academy Award nominations.  Apparently, mercenaries don't have rich family lives.  **PSSST!!!**  Pick your jaw up off the floor!  Christmas stops by his girlfriend's (Charisma Carpenter) house, only to find that, after being gone for an entire month without warning or communication, she has gotten a new boyfriend.  What a tramp!  The boyfriend is a prick and beats her up, so we get to see Statham beat the jerk up and then tell his ex-girlfriend that he was worth waiting for.  That, Charisma Carpenter, is the sound of you being served!  Tool (Mickey Rourke), the group's resident tattoo artist/bar owner/pretty boy is a former member of the team who now spends his time surrounded by slutty young women; he actually is required to cry while giving a monologue about being alone.  For his part, Barney has become obsessed with his contact on Vilena (Giselle Itie), a woman who opted to risk her life on that island hell hole instead of coming to the US with him.  Barney's is not a romantic obsession, but and idealistic one.  He hasn't cared about anything in so long that the notion is incomprehensible to him.  To be fair, the word "incomprehensible" is probably also incomprehensible to him, so it might just be a vocabulary issue.

After the recon mission, Barney and friends (Why didn't they call the movie that?) were going to pass on the offer, but Barney's obsession drives him to take out Munroe, General Vargas, and anyone else that might threaten his idealistic contact.  The rest of the team agrees to go with, because the bond of brotherhood that is formed when bathing in the blood of a common enemy is stronger than any other.  Or, you could just say that they all have a major bromance going on.  After a brief battle against the angry Gunner, the team decides to topple an island dictatorship by blowing the whole island to hell and shooting whatever is still breathing.  Whoops, did that need a spoiler alert?

This film was directed and co-written by Sylvester Stallone, with all the subtlety you would expect from him.  As in any of his action movies, Stallone's direction is hard to gauge.  The action sequences are awesome, particularly the hand-to-hand stuff.  The acting...well, what do you expect?  The top three billed actors are Stallone, Statham and Li; only Statham can speak English fluently.  Actually, Statham's acting was much better than it needed to be in such a dumb movie, and Stallone was correct to give him one of the more emotionally complex roles.  Judging from the rest of the movie, though, it is clear that Stallone can't direct (or write) witty dialogue to save his life.  The plot is (mostly) perfect for a big, dumb action movie, but the dialogue is often awkward.  Do we really need to put up with Stallone, Couture, and Jet Li trying to deliver funny lines?  They couldn't get the timing right for a joke if they had a DeLorean.  That is forgivable, since action movies require poorly executed one-liners, but there is a glaring flaw with the plot.  Why does Stallone bother with the attempt at depth?  Look, I don't give a flaming crap about how these guys feel.   Aww...the elite murderers for hire are lonely when they go home!  >:-[  Did we ever need to understand Schwarzenegger's backstory in Predator?  No!  That is just 40 minutes that could have been better spent shooting people's faces off.  Or they could have had Arnold's team try the mission and die!  That would have been awesome!  Or they could have added a Predator on the island!  Or...well, pretty much anything would have made more sense in this movie than talking about feelings.

The acting is a lot like the writing and directing: not too surprising.  Bruce Willis is good in his cameo, Arnold gives us a reminder that English is not his first language, and Mickey Rourke cries to remind us that he has a Best Actor Oscar.  Randy Couture shouldn't have been given the "smart guy" role, but everyone else is as good as you expect them to be.  Statham is obviously the best actor out of the bunch, Terry Crews is amusing, and Stallone and Li are both pretty bad.  Fulbright scholar Dolph Lungren, while not a good actor, was much better than I remember him from the 90s, so that was a pleasant surprise.

I feel the same way about The Expendables that I feel about Transformers: I paid to see giant robots fighting, and I got my money's worth.  I wanted to see a bunch of action heroes kill the faces off of some bad guys, and The Expendables delivered.  As usual, Stallone tries to give his characters emotional layers, but does it in his typically inept way.  The violence was great, even though the blood was clearly CGI at times.  If Stallone had cut the emotional crap and just blown stuff up and garroted butts off, this movie would be perfect for what it is.  Since he tries to reach for something more than a stupid action movie --- nay, the stupid action movie --- it ends up falling a little short of perfection.  Still, this is a great example of the brainless fun that action and explosions can provide.  I would like to offer one more bit of criticism, though: in a movie called The Expendables, how many team members should die?