No one watches "The Expendables" expecting Academy Award winning acting, writing, and directing.
The shoot-em-up, blow-em-up movie series is just that; a motion picture where audiences can delight in seeing their favorite action stars from the 80s and 90s strap on their AKs and rocket launchers one more time. In that respect, "The Expendables 3" does not disappoint. There are plenty of bullets flying and massive explosions throughout the nearly two-hour feature.
Still the bullets and bombs do not save "The Expendables 3" from a weak story full of cliches that will have movie-goers glancing at their watches as they wait for the shooting and killing to start again.
Georgia Unfiltered screened an advance copy of the film, and our review is below.
Spoiler Alert!!!
The movie begins with Sylvester Stallone and his team of Jason Statham and Randy Couture rescuing Wesley Snipes from a prisoner transport train. We find out, after the train and the prison are both destroyed, that Snipes used to be an Expendable before his capture.
(Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes star in The Expendables 3)It is revealed, by Stallone, that Gibson was the founder of the Expendables before he went rogue.
Arnold Schwarzenegger then arrives with bad news for Stallone. His team of Expendables are old, and need to be replaced. After unceremoniously firing Statham, Couture, Snipes, and Lundgren, Stallone begins to recruit a new team of Expendables (Kellan Lutz, Ronda Rousey, Glen Powell, and Victor Ortiz) with the help of Kelsey Grammer.Harrison Ford, who portrays a CIA operative, provide Stallone with the latest location of bad guy Mel Gibson.
Gibson remains elusive and takes the young, new Expendables hostage; leaving Stallone left with the job of rescuing his new team, using his old friends.
Backed up with air support from helicopter-flying Harrison Ford, Stallone and his old Expendables save the new Expendables, before the two groups team up to defeat Mel Gibson's mercenaries.
(Kellan Lutz, Ronda Rousey, Glen Powell, and Victor Ortiz join "The Expendables 3" as young, new Expendables.)Antonio Banderas functions as little more than a comic relief throughout the movie. And Terry Crews' role in the film amounts to a cameo. Crews bookends the picture with appearances in the first fifteen minutes and last five minutes of the feature.
While "The Expendables 2" contained the epic entrance of Chuck Norris through the smoke after he single-handedly killing an entire battalion of troops, "The Expendables 3" has no such moments. Sorry, folks. Schwarzenegger yelling, "Get to the chopper!," doesn't have the same effect.
The entire movie can be summed up as a story about a crew thinking they're too old, getting replaced by some young blood, having to save the youngsters, and realizing that old and young can work together to accomplish things.
Your best bet is not to spend your money on "The Expendables 3" in theaters. Wait until the movie comes out on Netflix.
"The Expendables 3" is scheduled for release 15 August 2014.