So last night I sat down and prepared myself for a ride through nostalgia and watched Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables…3. You’d think that people would grow tired of the concept – bunch of guys shoot another bunch of guys and things blow up – but it appears society’s appetite for destruction is one that can never be satisfied.
Despite my “holier than thou” mind frame, when I pressed play I knew exactly what I was about to get myself into. And sometimes that’s okay. Sometimes you want to simply sit on the couch, pig out on junk food and not have to think. No twists, no sub-text, no thought – just good old steroid fuelled men [frick]ing shit up (queue grunt).
On top of that I’m an 80’s child, so these 80’s and 90’s action stars hold a special place in my heart. I still remember the days when I wished I was John Connor and some Austrian robot would come and take me away on some adventure to save the world, or the epic handshake between Schwarzeneggerand Apollo Creed in Predator.
And this is where the first 2 Expendables made their success. They brought back the gang for “one last ride”…and then another…and then a third. It’s not so much the action that was compelling and definitely not the storyline. Rather it was simply seeing all my favourite childhood heroes in the same place having a good time together. It never mattered to me that the guys had become old, saggy and grey. Just seeing them utter their over the top lines whilst picking off some dictator’s entire army with a pistol took me back to a simpler time when people weren’t obsessed with “gritty realism”. A time before geeks wanted to kill each other because they couldn’t agree whether sex with Superman would kill Lois Lane (the answer is no – Clark Kent is a gentle lover).
By using this technique, The Expendables franchise had built up a core fan base who would stay loyal despite the film's obvious faults. And it is to that core fan base that the Expendables 3 says a big “[frick] you I want more money”. When the filmmakers decided to go for a PG-13 rating they cut off the majority of those who gave the concept a chance in the first place. The reason these movies are watched is for the action, the blood, the gore, and the mindless violence. But now they’ve decided to appeal to a younger audience – an audience that has more time to spend their parents' money. The Expendables 3 is aiming for longevity in the franchise and not a quality outing for its established fans.
The majority of the movie is spent with and introducing new and younger characters and setting them up as the future action stars of Hollywood. But that’s what this movie fails to acknowledge. The day of the muscle bound movie action star is over. We live in an expanded comic book universe and if you don’t have an awesome name with cool superpowers then you won’t survive. It’s a nerdy jungle out there.
The only good parts about this movie are the older action stars. Harrison Ford has a running joke with Jason Statham that is hilarious and well executed. Antonio Banderas as a desperate wannabe of the Expendables is a fresh addition to the typical one-line-threat type of members who make up the group. And Mel Gibson is the standout as the film’s antagonist. It’s the older members of the film who really show the younger members how to truly act in an action movie (if there is such a thing). The younger crew simply look uncomfortable. They truly appear to be amateurs who are on their first outing and need their hands held. Ultimately this is where the movie fails and this is where the film disrespects its fans. Give the people what they want I say. Old men, big guns and cheesy lines like “ I am The Hague”.
The Expendables 3 shows the franchise is going through an identity crisis. It forgets who it is, what it does well and the people who love it. It aims to please a younger and more sophisticated audience, which is something anybody who wasn’t part of the cool group in school knows, is impossible.
The Expendables 3 gets 3 out of 10 stars…only because Stallone is The Hague.
The writer was not a member of the cool group in school.