Bullet Points: Expend4bles
Maybe it was unreasonable expectations in my mind, but I remembered a feeling of disappointment after watching 2010’s The Expendables… 2012’s The Expendables 2 was everything I wanted the original to be and more. Jean-Claude Van Damme as the villain was perfection and Chuck Norris maximized his literal minutes with one of the greatest cameos in action movie history… Then there’s 2014’s The Expendables 3. I know I saw the movie, but nearly all my memories of it have been purged… maybe there was so much going on I could not retain the information.
Which brings me to 2023’s Expend4bles, a movie I don’t think I will soon forget…
Before I get started, I do want to warn you that my review does include some SPOILERS!
- Destination Libya: The Expendables franchise is known for its action stars of the past. Well Expend4bles references a real life villain of the past, Muammar Gadaffi, as the first mission of the movie has Barney (Sylvester Stallone, Cobra), Christmas (Jason Statham, Meg 2: The Trench) and the team make their way to Libya and more specifically a former Gadaffi compound. The Expendables are there to stop the evil Rahmat (Iko Uwais, Headshot) from stealing nuclear detonators to deliver to a nefarious villain from Barney’s past… The team is a mix of old and new. Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture reprise their roles of Gunner and Toll Road respectively. And they are joined by Easy Day (50 Cent, Escape Plan) and Galan (Jacob Scipio, Bad Boys for Life)… The Libya mission gets the action off to a strong start but things don’t turn out well when Christmas disobeys Barney’s orders in an attempt to save Barney’s life and in a shocker we find out just how expendable Barney is…
- Expendables 0 – Bad Guys 2: After the failure that cost The Expendables their leader, the guy that tasked the team with the Libya mission, Marsh (Andy Garcia, The Untouchables) has replaced Barney with Gina (Megan Fox, Transformers), who is romantically linked to Christmas. But the couple won’t be going on the mission to avenge Barney’s death and retrieve the detonators together because Marsh has removed Christmas from The Expendables lineup! And to ensure that are no other screw ups, Marsh is going to go on the mission with them to supervise. The mission takes them to Southeast Asia, where they will board a huge ship that is headed towards Russia, that includes the detonators, a nuclear device, Rahmat and possibly Rahmat’s boss aka Barney’s old and mysterious enemy. When they make their way on to the ship… it seems mysteriously deserted and that’s because it’s a a trap and once again The Expendables (which added another new member known as Lash played by Levy Tran) get the short end of the stick, so much for Marsh’s supervision.
- Christmas Comes Early: Fortunately for our Expendables crew, Christmas was not going to miss out on the chance to avenge the death of his brother, Barney. So he gifted Gina his knife (with a tracking device on it) and with some help from another of Barney’s old friends, Decha (Tony Jaa, Skin Trade), Christmas makes his way on to the ship… becoming the fly in the ointment for the bad guys and chaos ensues including a motorcycle chase ON THE SHIP that covers multiple decks and things just get more chaotic from there!
If I had to explain Expend4bles in three words, they would be BIG DUMB FUN.
Jason Statham does most of the heavy lifting through out the movie, making it feel like less of an ensemble than in the past… If you weren’t a fan of the Megan Fox casting you’ll probably want to avoid the movie, because she is second only to Statham in screen time… The other new additions don’t really stand out, but they don’t get in the way either so I did not have a problem with them… I wouldn’t have been against more Dolph Lundgren in the movie, but I still cherish any opportunity I get to see Dolph on the big screen.
On the villain side, Iko Uwais appeared to be having fun playing the bad guy and I was having fun watching him do so. Although I do have to say the big bad in Expend4bles was the weakest in franchise history.
The action and violence are exactly what you’d expect them to be especially if you’ve seen the previous entries. There was also plenty of ball busting amongst the team and the whole movie seemed to breeze right by.
Don’t let these Bonus Bullet Points breeze by you…
- If You Ever: …wanted to see Randy Couture urinate as a means of escape, then Expend4bles is the movie for you.
- Bar Fight Rule: Before the Libya action, Barney and Christmas hit the bar and the bar fight rule is adhered to as Christmas puts on some brass knuckles and goes to town on a couple of familiar faces including Lee Charles (Avengement and One Shot) and in the role of Jumbo Shrimp, the amazing Mike Möller of Ultimate Justice fame, who ended up playing a bigger part in the movie than I expected.
- Nu Image: Not sure if I was seeing things, but I think I may have spotted Todd Jensen as one of the villainous soldiers towards the end of the movie… if so what a nod to Millennium Films’ Nu Image roots… if not, it may be a sign I’ve watched too much Nu Image in 2023.
