The Expendables - B-

In Theaters, 103 minutes
Rated: Hard R for violence

A mercenary team (including Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Jason Statham, and Terry Crews) returns to America after a successful trip to Somalia. One is starting to crack (Lundgren), one is having girl problems (Statham), and one is needing money (Li). Their handler (Mickey Rourke) finds them new jobs, the next being through a CIA agent (Bruce Willis) who wants the team to go to a Caribbean island to overthrow a dictator. Ross (Stallone) and Christmas (Statham) go to the island for recon and surveillance only to find a hopeless situation. After Tool (Rourke) tells Ross about a decades old incident that he still regrets, Ross decides to return to the island to set things right . . .

The first 35 minutes are rough with every character mugging for the camera and jokes that fall incredibly flat. The much ballyhooed cameo appearances of Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger are fine, but the writing goes for the obvious jokes that take you out of the movie and remind you of films when everyone was fitter and younger. Li is mostly wasted and the butt of short stature jokes. The quick cutting doesn't mesh well with Li's incredible physical martial arts talent which deserves to be seen with the camera pulled back in long shots. Steve Austin (a bad guy henchman) and Lundgren are impressive with their physicality and strength, but neither are given enough lines to create an actual character. Yet another 80s icon, Eric Roberts, has some good (if derivative) scenes as the main bad guy.

Much of the story relies on the chemistry between Stallone and Statham that just isn't there. They both have terrific charisma and charm separately and can obviously carry a film on their own. They seem willing to share the screen with each other but the relationship feels forced. Since Rourke and Stallone are friends in real life, their pairing works much better on screen. Rourke's first scene is awkward, with the actor flailing as he improvises, but he knocks a crucial scene out of the park. When he describes losing the last little bit of his soul and pupose, you can't help but feel writer-director Stallone saying the same thing about America (in the context of a retro-80s action film).

After leaving the island the first time by plane, Ross and Christmas decide to double back and take out (with spectacular flair) a bunch of bad guys who are still on the pier from which they just left. Not coincidentally, the film immediately turns from forgettable, sloppy, and mindless to exciting, respectable, and mindless. Stallone stages one of the best car chase scenes in recent memory and nicely delivers the climactic attack on a villa. Statham has a rousing scene all by himself, taking on several civilian basketball players. Stallone plays it completely straight with obvious plot points, even more obvious twists, and a predictable ending; but what he lacks in originality, he makes up for in execution. It doesn't hit the testosterone bullseye like his last film Rambo, where a group of similar mercenaries similarly go on a similar rescue mission. He was helped in that film by having a specific (and iconic) character that he created over several films. That specificity gave the film a distinctive personality. In The Expendables, character is indeed expendable - there's too many dudes given too little time to matter. But it really won't matter to the audience that liked Rambo.

First third: C
Last two/thirds: B
Total: B-