Less of a deconstruction of ’80s action movie machismo and more a whole-hearted embrace of cinema’s bygone bombastic era, The Expendables franchise has varied drastically in quality throughout its 13-year existence. The first outing got the job done, but the filmmakers behind its follow-up, The Expendables 2, genuinely understood the assignment. The avenging assemblage even surprisingly triumphed at the box office over piracy, when a copy of their exceptionally weak entry The Expendables 3 leaked online a month before its theatrical release, and the film made money nonetheless.
Nine years later, the series has returned—and wandered completely off course with its fourth installment, Expend4bles. The team of grizzled, chiseled action heroes (minus Terry Crews and Jet Li) reunites for another covert operation, picking up a few new recruits along the way, but the filmmakers forget to add any sense of light-hearted fun, nostalgia or ingenuity. It’s a maddening mix of squandered opportunities and baffling creative choices. Lackluster on practically every level, this ought to be renamed The Disposables as it’s a giant waste of everyone’s time and talent.
Group leader Barney (Sylvester Stallone) has been biding his time in New Orleans, bouncing between bars and his bike shop. His second-in-command, Christmas (Jason Statham), is nearby, preferring to settle his bestie’s barroom brawls rather than his own domestic squabbles with hot-tempered girlfriend/ fellow Expendable Gina (Megan Fox). Over the years, through all their banter and bluster, these two men have put themselves in harm’s way to secretly save the world from disaster, forming a tight bond in the process. Now a new foe threatens to tear them apart.
Ruthless mercenary Rahmat (Iko Uwais) is on a killing spree as he attempts to assemble the parts for a nuclear bomb. He’s working under the orders of Ocelot, an unidentified assailant who murdered eight of Barney’s original squad members and sent a snitch fleeing into a witness protection program. CIA “suit” Marsh (Andy Garcia) needs the team’s help apprehending these criminals. While Barney reassembles available chums Gunner (Dolph Lundgren) and Toll Road (Randy Couture), Marsh adds Easy Day (Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson) and Galan (Jacob Scipio, doing a purposely grating Antonio Banderas impression), the son of former Expendable Galgo. But when the mission inevitably goes awry, it sends the Expendables spiraling, putting them—and all of humanity—at risk.
Director Scott Waugh and screenwriters Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart, and Max Adams (working from a story by Wimmer, Daggerhart, and Spenser Cohen) demonstrate little to no understanding of these characters, nor a desire to engage with the genre on the whole. All fail in grasping what made this franchise special: seeing our beloved heroes play with their legacies, defy logic, reason, and sometimes gravity in ridiculously over-the-top fashion, while delivering their patented brand of catchphrases and choreography. This chapter’s narrative is contrived and predictable without any genuine surprise, suspense or thrills. Instead of exploring the inherent meta-context of aging out of an industry that values youthful looks and vigor, and bringing in younger replacements to expand its reach (rehashing what the third installment also botched), it struggles to make the new characters compelling enough to justify their inclusion.
The typical highlights in these films—like a sense of humor and big action set pieces—hold a modicum of hilarity and spectacle, both of which rarely shake a generic, manufactured feel. From Barney and Christmas’ ego-driven repartee (i.e. these blowhards’ love language) to the team’s climactic escape efforts, it’s all a pale imitation of how humans interact, let alone how stunts are conceived and executed. Minus the dirt bike pursuit around cargo ship corridors and the hysterically awkward, macabre transition between the first and second acts set to Blue Oyster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” it’s forgettable fodder.
To be fair, the ensemble was dealt an albatross of a script. It’s littered with expository speech dumps that most of them rush through in a mushed-mouth monotone. No one seems to care enough to elevate the material until Tony Jaa, playing Barney’s former associate Decha, enters the picture. He gives his supporting character soulful resonance, adding depth and dimension to a thankless role. He also bequeaths Statham with a good sparring partner as the pair battle their way through baddies aboard the ship. Levy Tran, who plays the group’s newbie, Lash, is a magnetic presence who carves out an indelible movie moment of her own. Still, all others’ patinas are dimmed by shaky camerawork, poor framing, bad editing and basic fight choreography (e.g. Fox’s signature move, locking men’s heads between her thighs, is old news).
For a property that not only held unlimited potential for sequels galore, but also spin-offs (an all-female Expendables was briefly bandied about), it’s disheartening to see it face such creative bankruptcy. That’s not to say that, in the future, the right marriage of innovative directors and screenwriters can’t revive this flailing corpse and return it to its former glory. Unfortunately, recruiting those miracle workers seems more difficult than any mission any Expendable ever faced.
Expend4bles opens in theaters on September 22