Firstly a disclaimer; I love a good dumb film. I like switching my brain off for two hours and being entertained by explosions and one-liners. I am Michael Bay's target audience.
The Third instalment in the Expendables trilogy was released in the UK last week, and on the internet ages ago. Whoops. Despite being the school holidays and the movie having a 12A, I was at least 25% of the whole theatre audience.
The movie opens with Stallone and friends assaulting a prison train to rescue former team member Wesley Snipes because subtlety isn't the point of this movie. If you've seen the trailer, you'll know that the train then crashes into a prison and explodes. Dumb fun.
If this movie is anything to go by, Snipes has recently watched a ton of free-running videos as his character Doc leaps about like Super Mario on springs. There's a lot of this.
It's then straight into another action sequence and Terry Crews turns up to add some humour. Sadly this is the only real sequence Crews had as shooting commitments clashed with Brooklyn Nine Nine. This harbour fight sequence is fun, as it also introduces the movie's baddie, Mel Gibson.
To make a long story short (and it's the longest of the trilogy), Gibson's character, the improbably named Stonebanks injures one of the team and escapes, so Stallone goes off to take revenge. However, realising that his team of veteran soldiers is getting on a bit, he leaves them at home and recruits a new, young team, probably the main characters of the next movie. This is where Kelsey Grammer comes in as a man with a lot of phone numbers. Montage-tastic.
While Statham, Snipes, Lundgren and Couture stay at home and watch TV, Stallone and the Junior Expendables nip of to Bucharest to try and nab Gibson. Things go wrong, the kids are kidnapped and it's up to Stallone and the old guard to rescue them.
Cue explosions, more explosions, helicopter chases and a final set piece that pitches the new and old Expendables facing off against an army from a made up country. There's also the obligatory fight at the end between Stallone and Gibson.
Good points;
* Although the score is largely recycled from the last two movies, Brian Tyler's punchy strings still carry the action nicely and you'll leave the theatre humming the main motif.
* The rapport between the characters is fun, you'll probably hate the youngsters but the banter between the elder members of the group is well written.
* Harrison Ford's last minute inclusion works well.
* The location scout deserves a raise. A lot of the location work was beautiful.
Bad points;
* Jet Li! I'm a huge Jet Li fan but despite top-ish billing, he has less than five minutes of screen time and he does no martial arts at all.
* The cast was too big. Not enough time to develop the youngsters which just made them easy to dislike.
Should you watch this film? Yes, as dumb action films go, it's fun but it's not as good as its predecessors. It's also not as good as Transformers Age of Extinction which in turn is nowhere near as good as Guardians of the Galaxy. All of which are still in theatres. I watched it on a Tuesday because tickets are only £5 at Odeon. I'd be less happy if I'd paid full price.
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