The Expendables - Thoughts

I don’t get how I missed The Expendables, but I did, and with the teaser trailer of the third installment becoming available recently, I decided that I would watch the first two movies, in time to check out the third movie when it releases. What makes The Expendables stand out from other action movies is that its Sylvester Stallone’s brainchild; and part of his grand plan was assembling a team of action heroes, to create a larger than life blockbuster experience. In The Expendables, a team of mercenaries are hired to take down a villainous dictator and bring down his regime, responsible for a large scale drug operation.

Though this movie failed to enamor me at the time of its release in 2010, by the time I got around to watching it in early 2014, I was particularly eager to see it. Add to that, this was also the inauguration of my new Bluray powered home theatre. With all those expectations, it’s fair to say that the movie had its work cut out for it. Thankfully, Stallone and his crew of combatants managed to bring home an entertaining action flick. True to old school Rambo style action, use of CGI was limited, and a good deal of the onscreen action was created and performed by the cast, stunt men, and actually blowing stuff up. The plot, though more or less straight forward, is decent, and remains interesting throughout. There are many impressive action sequences, with ‘Ride & Die’ at the 40 minute mark, aboard the plane being one of the most standout. Pace is okay, and the movie never gets boringly slow. As expected there is a damsel in distress in need of saving, a twist within the enemy camp, and some traitors, all of which make for a slightly predictable, yet enjoyable action movie. If you’re in the mood for a good action movie, and would like to see several big names in the industry side by side, The Expendables is totally worth checking out.

If you’ve ever wanted to see Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, Terry Crews (former NFL player and actor – Arrested Development), and Mickey Rourke in a movie together, this is your chance. And add to that mix, short appearances from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis! If there ever were a star cast of leading men, this is it. It makes little sense to speak of their performances, with most of the popular action stars playing their usual action personas, and doing-so well. Randy Couture and Steve Austin are perhaps the only two amateurs to movies, and they did a good job too; fitting in well into the group.

The Bluray I was sampling was a Region C disc, purchased in India. The video was good, as expected with a Bluray, definition staying consistently sharp, even in the dark scenes. Blacks were rich, and the entire presentation was impressive. Note that the visual quality really shows on a big screen TV, and also that the difference isn’t as stark as moving from VCD to DVD. The sound was presented by means of a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track, which complemented the actions sequences well. Positional sound was noticeable in some of the scenes. The extras on the disc included a Comicon conference with Stallone and several of the other lead actors. It was quite interesting, with the teams respect for Stallone being quite evident, with several of them speaking of film studies being a distant second to working with Stallone, who practically created and defined the action genre.

My Recommendation: Watch It (The ultimate all-star action cast)