Again, no Steven Seagal. Otherwise, you know why we are here: old action movie stars give another go around the mulberry bush. Terry Crews skips most of this one, and Arnold never gave him back that gigantic shotgun, but Terry does find a good replacement personality-weapon: a rotary machine gun of the type usually found on the nose of an attack helicopter. Naturally he needs a new catch-phrase: “Time to mow the lawn.”
But with Mr. Crews out, we need another black guy, and Wesley Snipes does a great job as “Doc”. Catch-phrase? “Oh Sally!” We get Jet Li back, but only briefly, and Harrison Ford takes over the role where we’ve seen Bruce Willis for the first two movies. But why stop there? Let’s make some calls and add Mel Gibson, Antonio Banderas, Ronda Rousey and Kelsey Grammer.
Yes, Kelsey Grammer. Frasier. He doesn’t kill anyone.
Per The Formula, we have a bad guy with a private army and the Geezer Squad has to do something about that. Something involving planes trains and automobiles, all of which explode because, per The Formula, everything in this movie is made of kerosene. Even brick buildings are made of kerosene. But there is a twist to The Formula this time, Sly fires the old E-Boys and takes on a whole new crew of 20-somethings.
Obviously, the young pups end up in trouble and the franchise’s staple cast has to blast their way in and out. By this time, Arnold is no longer Governor of California, so his role is larger this time. Willis as the angry blackmaily CIA contact was probably pissing someone off, so Ford takes over as the CIA guy, a kinder and suaver one, but he keeps the central thesis alive: 80s movie action hero oldster goes back to battle.
And what a battle it is. This one’s combat crescendo is the best of the series so far, about 20 minutes of nonstop chopsocky, stabsocky, and gunsocky. Also, lots of people get hit with guns, more than usual this time. There’s tanks and a nice miniature airwar, although it’s uncertain how competent the opposing army is, since they open up with artillery *after* sending their infantry in. Not exactly West Pointers in Azmenistan, the fictional mashup of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan where our boss badguy Mel Gibson is holed up.
Same as the last movie, this is filmed mainly in Bulgaria, and there is one location which is stupendous. It’s a river of boulders cascading down a valley, like an avalanche in freezeframe, or a raging flood suddenly bereft of water. Bulgaria production also means that every person in the hundreds of crew and extras has a surname ending with “-ov”. And, as a side benefit, this is set in a fictional Central Asian former Soviet SSR, and Bulgaria has plenty of decaying buildings with Cyrillic letters all over them.
Rousey is not that great of an actress, but gets better as the movie progresses, so there’s hope for her in Hollywood, and her combat scenes are very good. Snipes turns in a great performance, although with such a packed cast he doesn’t get as much flicktime as he deserves. That can be said for nearly everyone in the movie. Foundational problem with this movie is that there are too many stars. Not a crack in the foundation, because we are looking at an action flick, so nobody’s character really suffers from underdevelopment. It’s just that there are some great performances which would have benefited from more exposure to the lens.
Gibson’s role is good and he inhabits it competently, and Antonio Banderas is an absolute riot here. Banderas might actually have the most lines, after Stallone, and that’s likely because the film editor recognized that Banderas was turning in an excellent performance from start to finish, playing the comic relief, but 100% in on the action. Antonio Banderas is the best actor in this movie. Cripes, i never thought i’d say that.
Doesn’t happen often, but sometimes a second sequel is the best of the bunch. After seeing three, i’d say the director was better in #2, the cast is better in #3, and the story was better in #1. And the score was far better in the second one. By this movie, we have largely left the classic rock behind, and that’s a real pity. Someone got their hands on this edition of Expendables and decided to try and make it into a movie for the coveted 16 – 24 demographic. Big mistake. Lose your roots and you lose your way.
The extended version of this movie was also watched, but it’s not very extended, only a few minutes total. A couple short scenes added, but most of the extra footage is just a few seconds here and there during combat. Statham gets the lion’s share of that, showing off his keen grenade-throwing skills and some extra stabbings.
But this one is the best of the three, no matter how diluted every actor’s role is. No matter how uninspired the score is, the action is full of good stunts and decent banter, pretty explosions and Schwarzenegger gets to rip off with that huge shotgun he stole from Terry Crews. Still miss Randy Quaid as the guru, but Gibson is the best villain yet. Panoramic in scope, in several different ways. But… nobody has Steven Seagal’s phone number?