Review: “Expend4bles”

Generally poorly executed in story, dialogue, and action, the one pure pleasure the Expendables series had to offer was the joy of watching aging 80s action legends like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris, and Bruce Willis appearing together on screen, quoting their iconic lines back-and-forth to one another in bouts of fan service banter so cheesy it verges on charming. But even that simple gimmick on which the entire franchise, Stallone’s baby, in a way (he directed the 2010 first installment, and served as screenwriter on subsequent entries) turns proves to be expendable in Expend4bles, a sequel nine years in the making whose laughably stylized title is one of the sole mildly clever things it has to offer an audience who deserves much more than this drivel.

Expend4ables, directed by series newcomer Scott Waugh, does not build directly off of its predecessors, which is great for those who haven’t seen—or don’t remember—the previous movies, but if you have happened to be paying attention, the continuity, or lack thereof, in the casting (new members appear as if they’ve always been there and old ones are mysteriously gone without an explanation) is an early indicator of the film’s slapped together feel. The Expendables, a group of elite mercenaries led by Barney Ross (Stallone) head to Libya to stop a mercenary called Rahmat (Iko Uwais) from stealing nuclear warheads for Ocelot, a mysterious figure who Barney has been trying to apprehend for decades. Ocelot’s endgame: kick off World War III by launching the warheads in Russia from an American aircraft carrier. The mission goes south, however, and the team’s second-in-command, Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), who jeopardized the mission trying to save a teammate, is prevented by the CIA agent in charge, Marsh (Andy Garcia), from joining them on the follow-up attempt to nail Ocelot.

Stallone and Statham share an easy, amusing chemistry. But they’re really the only two big names in Expend4bles, and they barely share any screen time. The cast here is significantly scaled down from the previous movies, which included the likes of Antonio Banderas, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Wesley Snipes, and Jean-Claude Van Damme, in addition to the aforementioned names, and it isn’t as if there was a shortage of names that could have been thrown into the mix (Pierce Brosnan and Jackie Chan are among those who have been approached for or rumored to appear in Expendables movies in the past). The only other cast members held over from the previous films are Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture. The quality of the scripts likely didn’t help retain interest in the series, but this story in particular seems preoccupied with transitioning from the old guard to the new—the antithesis to the premise the series, built to pay homage to macho 80s action movies. The new faces, which include Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and Jacob Scipio, aren’t particularly engaging, with the exception of Megan Fox as Gina, a member of the team and Christmas’s sort-of girlfriend. She, like the others, isn’t given exceptional material to work with, but her boisterous presence as she flirts, schemes, and fights her way through this boy’s club is enough of a reminder of why she is often so fun to watch. Statham takes the lead from Stallone, and while he’s more than proved throughout his career that he’s a capable solo action star, the ensemble dynamic that’s been the series’ most redeeming factor up to now is still virtually nonexistent.

Even if the cast wasn’t so lackluster, the rest of the film wouldn’t be up to par with them. There’s a taut action thriller at the heart of Expend4bles; virtually the entire movie is centered around infiltrating, fighting through, and escaping from the aircraft carrier. But the action is poorly staged, hand-to-hand combat scenes shot so tight on the characters and chopped into so many quick cuts that focus is turned away from the performers’ physicality. And the special effects are shockingly garish, more like something from a mid-90s PC video game than a major blockbuster movie being released in theaters in 2023. It reeks of phoniness, from the actors who clearly green-screened into locations to the poorly-rendered explosions and aircraft to the cartoonish splatters of blood that erupt unnaturally from every kill. After The Expendables 3 was granted a PG-13 rating, Expend4bles returns to the series’ R-rated roots, but there’s little entertainment value to be derived from its violence, which from scene-to-scene straddles the line between comic glee and deadly seriousness without committing to either.

So half-hearted is everything about Expend4bles that even the write-off of a major character is so underwhelming, what should be a big emotional moment doesn’t register. The cast likely had a good time making it. It’s a shame most audiences will have a bad time watching it.

Expend4ables is now playing in theaters. Runtime: 103 minutes. Rated R.