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The Rotten Tomatoes score for Expendables 4 is in, recording the franchise’s worst ever, and the abysmal percentage isn’t the whole story. The fourth edition of The Expendables, about a bunch of elite mercenaries who do all the impossible things mere mortals cannot, is disappointing to say the least.
However, “The Expendables” has a simple enough concept—gather a bunch of ’80s-era action cinema icons, including Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Dolph Lundgren, and Mickey Rourke, and bring them together for an old-school-style shoot-em-up.
The first movie wasn’t a classic, but because of its aggressively throwback style—which feels just like something the late, great Cannon Films might have produced if they were still in operation—it ended up being a surprising hit. In 2012 and 2014, two sequels were released, however neither one lived up to the incredibly modest promise of its predecessor.
That said, it has been nearly a decade since the poorly-received third film was released, and despite no discernible outcry for its return, the franchise has been revived with “Expend4bles.”
This is, obviously, the fourth “Expendables” film, but our considered scientific opinion is that you needn’t see the first three to catch up. True, there’s no explanatory intro, but if you’ve seen earlier “Expendables” films, you’ll know there’s not much to know. These guys are the indestructible mercenaries who swoop in – literally, on Barney’s turboprop plane – to do dirty work in miserable places. The body count is head-spinningly high (this film, directed by Scott Waugh, returns to an R rating after a switch to PG-13 for the last installment). The dialogue is head-spinningly mundane. The flow of testosterone is, well, head-spinning.
Leading the pack, as ever, is Stallone’s Barney Ross and his expert knife-wielding best bud, Lee Christmas — Jason Statham, Gunner (Lundgren) and Toll (Couture) are joined here by new recruits Easy Day (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) and Galan (Jacob Scipio), who is supposed to be the son of the Banderas character, for a brand-new top-secret mission supervised by the shadowy CIA agent Marsh (Andy Garcia). Arms dealer Rahmat (Iko Uwais) and his army of goons have broken into one of Gaddafi’s old chemical plants in Libya and stolen a bunch of nuclear detonators for Ocelot, a mystery figure who decimated another squad of Barney’s years earlier. Alas (Spoiler Alert, barely), the mission goes sideways for Barney. When Christmas deviates from the plan in an effort to save him, he winds up getting booted from the group entirely.
However, there is still a loose Ocelot out there, and when it appears that they are hoping to instigate WW III between the U.S. and Russia, the Expendables once again go off to save the day, this time with Marsh along for the ride and with the leadership of the group taken by Gina (Megan Fox), who also happens to be the on/off girlfriend of Christmas to boot. Of course, Christmas won’t take no for an answer, and, accompanied by another old friend of Barney’s, Decha (Tony Jaa), also sets off in pursuit. Eventually, they all wind up on a massive shipping vessel containing the set-to-explode bomb and battle waves of anonymous bad guys as they try to save the world in the ta-daa nick of time.
My issue with “Expend4bles” is not that it is a stupid action movie; rather, it was made with such blatant disregard from everyone involved that you can almost taste their disdain in every scene.
The original Expendables was entertaining in its absurd celebration of all the 1980s action heroes, including Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a large number of others. By the time we reached the fourth installment, the law of diminishing returns had fully taken effect, and nostalgia could no longer support this pulpy mess.
