The Expendables: The Greatest Movie Ever Made

(For some reason, blogger.com will no longer let me post my BOD from pics on the web. If anyone knows how to circumvent this, please let me know)

There was no way in hell I was going to let a Sylvester Stallone-powered vehicle be released in theatres without me being there, positively giddy with excitement, on opening weekend. Gretzpo and I, along with two of our friends, went to a Friday night showing hoping to see blood splatter in testosterone-fuelled mayhem and we were not disappointed.

Luckily, one of the guys we were with is an actual tough guy; he’s currently serving in the military and is the baddest dude I know. This came in handy after the movie as every person I saw was a prospective target for a knife to the throat courtesy of Tewks and I kept picturing myself going one on five versus a group of goons. Thus, if my heightened state of manliness actually got me into a donnybrook then at least I’d have my own personal heavy to back me up.

The greatness of an action movie is set by the tone of the first kill. Dolph Lundgren got the honours as the trigger-happy, loose cannon of the group, Gunner. One shot from his rifle managed to saw a pirate leader in half; his lower body remained stationary while his upper body smashed against the wall of an oil tanker. It was awesome.

The scene that everyone was excited for going in completely lived up to the hype. It was like a summit of manliness with Stallone, Bruce Willis, and the Governator himself all sharing the screen at the same time. I was legitimately concerned that the scant, few women in the audience would become pregnant by immaculate conception due to the testosterone pouring off the screen during that scene.

Stallone managed to get a great crack in at Arnie’s presidential aspirations, but I have to say that no one commands the screen quite like Arnold Schwarzenegger. The guy truly is larger than life. He only had a handful of lines during his lone scene, but his presence is what I remember most about that five minutes.

Willis probably unleashed the best line of the movie when he remarked, after listening to Arnie and Sly backhand compliment each other, “Are you guys finished sucking each other’s dicks?” Pure magic.

Jason Statham was fantastic as well and showed he can hang with the action heavyweights. I’ve never actually seen one of the movies before (Sorry, but Crank doesn’t do it for me. Although, I may try the premise of the movie on an unsuspecting lady one time: “Hey, if you don’t have sex with me right now in broad daylight, my heart is going to stop . . . . Where are you going?”), but he has a great mix of humour, charisma and toughness.

In the movie, his skanky girlfriend cheated on him with some douchebag. Then Statham goes to see her a few weeks later and her face is beat up at the hands of her new guy. Statham, ex-girlfriend in tow, calmly goes to find the idiot playing basketball with loser friends and kicks the living shit out of all of them. Unfortunately, he then departs with his ex on his motorcycle. I think he should have let her walk home from the basketball court.

My only problems with the movie were with the supporting cast. Mickey Rourke and Terry Crews were vastly underutilized; Rourke is one of the greatest actors I have ever seen and Crews provided excellent moments of levity during the movie.

(Aside: I don’t know if it was a conscious decision to let Crews’ character have the biggest gun on the team, but I found it hilarious that the lone black guy on the Expendables had the biggest gun. I hope Stallone did it on purpose)

Randy Couture and Steve Austin should have never made it past the screen test. Couture’s performance was excruciating to watch and I could almost see his eyes darting to cue cards off screen while he said his lines. Austin didn’t say much, which helped his performance, but the one time he upbraided Stallone made me feel like I was watching Stone Cold torment poor Shane McMahon in 1999.

Nevertheless, the film was fantastic entertainment and I hope the rumours of a sequel are true.

Verdict: 4.5 Mercenaries overthrowing a South American Dictator out of 5