The Expendables (Franchise)

Oh, I didn't realize that was an Expendables producer.

I'd heard about Terry Crews but didn't know it was related to Stallone's agent.

Because none of the movies they do are just "dumb action movies."

Agree to disagree on The Equalizer, but you can't say Idris Elba won't do dumb action movies for a paycheck.

I love the guy, I love him in dumb movies. But he does them. There's tons of older stuff, but recently the aforementioned Hobbs And Shaw, Beast, and hell, he's in Extraction 2.

Wouldn't be surprised if the whole Terry Crews thing turned some people off who might have otherwise signed on. If that sort of thing has already happened once...

Edited by Chortleous on Sep 29th 2023 at 5:41:04 AM

Anyone will do dumb action movies for a paycheck. Or even because they like them. Sir Anthony Hopkins was in a Michael Bay movie after all.

If nothing else, I have to believe they could've gotten Nicolas Cage - doing scores of brutal/ridiculous low-to-mid-budget action thrillers has become their niche.

Cage was supposed to be in 3, but couldn't do it. His role went to Kelsey Grammer, and once you know it was written for him, it's something you can't unsee. Now, Cage is past his money issues and is just doing movies he finds interesting.

The movie fell 69% at the domestic box office this weekend, so woof. A fifth film is insanely unlikely in the near future.

what's that you say,their franchise is failing so they should do a reboot?

Wow, a 12% on Rotten Tomatoes. That doesn't look good...

As much as I detest validating Rotten Tomatoes yeah, Expendables 4 deserves it.

I hope they can squeeze out Expendabelles or some other spin-off.

I do wonder if they will make a spin off series for this franchise and what it will be about?

Expenda-belles!

They had an idea for an all-female spinoff a while back. It sounded interesting.

It would be interesting if they tried that eventually.

Sooooo without watching it, tell me what's so bad about the fourth movie?

Well

• Stallone is in it for all of 20 mins
• The pacing is all over the place, we cut from a scene establishing the new bad guy to Barney doing stuff then back to the villains then back to the Expendables learning what's happening and apparently despite being a country away the team manages to fly over in the middle of the bad guys doing bad stuff
• Megan Fox is pretty much there to look hot. She comes in as a new character who, as soon as Stallone is out, becomes the new leader of the team. Not Couture, not Statham, not Snipes' character or anybody we know. New girl.
  • She has a whole Take That! scene basically chewing Statham and Stallone's characters out for disregarding her for allegedly sexist reasons - then proceeds to sell Statham's character out and get her team imprisoned.
    • The solution to this is for Courture's character to piss on an escape route. The guy takes out his junk and Levy Tran's character sneaks a peek. They hook up by the end of the film because of this, not because of any meaningful dialogue, but this.
• The villain, played by Tony Jaa, barely does anything after his initial scene and is pretty underutilized.
• The Big Bad is fairly obvious and has a pretty underwhelming reveal regardless.
• Levy Tran is added to the team... because she looks muscular and hot.
• What is Dolph Lundgren even doing in these films anymore? His character arc here is that he's blind as a bat and for some reason opts to be the team's sniper - which leads to the big disaster in the first act that leads to Stallone being absent for the rest of the film.
• The "good cheese" we had in Expendables 2 - Jean Claude Van Damme roundhouse kicking a knife into a guy's chest - is just gone.
• None of the characters that were introduced in 2 or 3 return in any capacity - granted that's a flaw of the franchise in general.
• 50 Cent joins the team... to replace Terry Crews and because he looks muscular and hot.
• The movie decides to be Statham-centric, so if you were watching Expendables for the collision of old faces and not for Jason Statham, get ready for 90 minutes of teeth grinding.
• Replacing Galgo with Galgo's son just did not work for me. Galgo was very funny. Galgo Jr was just there to be a replacement.
• Barney apparently had some never-before-mentioned conflict with a guy named "Ocelot" that haunted him. He comes up with this crazy Batman Gambit that leads to Ocelot finally being taken out by the end of the film.
  • There's a massive Ass Pull in the last 30 minutes that completely ruins the honorable conclusion they would have had for Statham's character.

The action is serviceable but I can't say they were any scenes that really wow'ed me. A more skilled observer might pick up on how much of their stuntwork/choreography was on point. Me, I like what I like. The only scene that was sort of neat was the final stand-off on the boat. In an action film it's really bad if the fight scenes aren't carrying the film all the way through.

Edited by FOFD on Oct 1st 2023 at 2:42:23 PM

An overly simplistic story; a predictable villain; cheap visual effects which I didn't pick up on right away—along with the fact that most of what they did was on green screens and above all, a twist that's already so unbelievable which becomes totally batshit when they actually give an explanation as to how it happened.

Oh, that sounds much worse than I thought. So basically both the third and fourth movies are bad. Got it, thank you.

Would've been cool to see that all female one and who they would've chosen.

That the twist isn't the Ass Pull to me, but rather the beyond absurd reason behind it is pretty telling—though frankly I'm not sure the alternative would've been much better.

Would've loved for a cast that was more of an audience draw as well.

Would've also loved a surprise cameo be the villain rather than the complete and utter Captain Obvious Reveal we got instead too.

I never thought Lee Christmas was gonna die by the way—and especially since Jason Statham was supposed to takeover as the new lead too.

I've read a draft of Expendabelles. It was awful, by the fifth semen joke I was done.

Well that's not a good sign.

I give Ghostbusters: Answer the Call credit for trying to put a contemporary spin on the original story—even though that's not really what Ghostbusters fans wanted to see. That line makes Expendabelles sound like fan-service gone horribly wrong though.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Oct 3rd 2023 at 8:13:41 AM

It's been years, and I have no desire to reread it at the moment, but from what I remember, the plot was Barney Ross recruiting a female team to infiltrate a sultan's palace as sex workers. Yikes.

...why were these movies such a 'boy's club' to begin with, that we even needed an all-female spinoff? Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hamilton, Michelle Yeoh, Grace Jones et al were all right there. Sigourney's been doing it longer than most of the guys.

Nevermind how overwhelmingly white they are, despite how popular and influential Hong Kong action flicks have historically been. Jet Li is not enough of a representative sample.

Edited by Chortleous on Oct 2nd 2023 at 8:06:19 AM

Well a few reasons:

1) It's actually fun to have a "guy" movie once in a while and perfectly okay to have that when its an Affectionate Parody. I won't fault them for being a boy's club. I've sat through The Notebook and the Barbie movie, I've paid my dues.

2) These movies know what they are and they aren't trying, advertising, or even from a time that cared about inclusivity. It's focused on the old white dudes who portrayed cigar-chomping macho man action heroes in a pretty cliche infiltration plot with a third act shootout. I guarantee you the audience demographic it's aimed at doesn't notice or care.

3) It's Western action films, not kung fu movies or Asian action flicks. Granted, not having Tony Jaa or Donnie Yen is a missed opportunity. I think by 3 or 4, grabbing Lewis Tan, Simu Liu, or Ming-Na Wen would've been a smart decision.

4) As has been pointed out, some of the actors they might have tapped could've just declined at the time.

Edited by FOFD on Oct 2nd 2023 at 9:55:23 AM

The original appeal was having Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis together in one scene, then others like Lundgren, Jet Li and Steve Austin on the side to be about aging action stars having one more ride. The irony is without that novelty they don't have much else going for them, as they ARE aging action stars and can't keep up with modern action stars.