If you want to witness creative laziness of the highest degree, then Expend4bles, aka Expendables 4, is the perfect example of that. This supposed to be action fiesta starring some of the top names associated with modern-day action flick ends up being a green screen garbage that works more like a sleeping pill. If someone calls the fourth installment of an action flick franchise a sleeping pill, that’s pretty pathetic.
The movie revolves around a particular Libya mission of the expendables. Barney recruits Christmas and a few more fellows to extract a nuclear weapon. During the mission, the team failed to access the warhead as Christmas tried to save Barnie, deviating from the task. That decision became costly as they couldn’t save Barney, resulting in the expulsion of Christmas from the expendables. What we see in the movie is the official and unofficial operation of the team to get the man who killed Barney.
I think the summary has kind of spoiled the “twist” for many. But don’t worry, the writing is so trashy that this won’t even feel like a spoiler. And trust me, if you have a bit of common sense, you can clearly sense something fishy when they decide to take down a character that easily. When going in for an Expendables film, you are not looking for too much logic. We all know the drill. There will be a seemingly impossible mission that only our group of boys can do. And we expect to see action set pieces that combine the actors’ charisma with style. You can’t even see an effort in this movie to pull off a stunt that one can talk about once the movie is over.
Jason Statham is doing the heavy lifting here as he is pretty much playing the misunderstood rogue kind of hero. He has that constant smirk on his face, which is pretty much the requirement, along with the image he carries as an action hero. Sylvester Stallone is pretty much playing an extended cameo-like character in the film. It’s been a while since I saw Megan Fox on-screen in a popular film/franchise. And yet again, the focus is only on her physicality. Tony Jaa reprises his role in the franchise. 50 Cent makes his entry into the franchise with this film. Dolph Lundgren is also there from the old team, along with a few more easily forgettable faces.
Scott Waugh, who made Need for Speed, is the director of Expend4bles, and it almost seems like they wrote the dialogues and stuff on the sets. The very first scene in the movie where Stallon waits outside Statham’s home has some “cool” banter between the two, and I was like, who wrote this stuff, and who thought this would look cool on screen. The whole movie is a series of such lame scenes, and I felt angry for the way these folks took the audience for granted. As I already said, there is no effort to design a proper fight. The editing and cinematography are so bizarre that there is no space continuity, and you don’t really know who is fighting who.
Expend4bles is a gigantic mess that thinks any garbage with many stars will get accepted at the box office. A shoddy screenplay repeats the age-old formula without any grace and tests your patience despite having a star cast known for delivering exciting action flicks. The death of Barney and the decision of Christmas to sacrifice his life should have been maintained in the film so that a fifth installment of this action scam wouldn’t happen.
A shoddy screenplay repeats the age-old formula without any grace and tests your patience despite having a star cast known for delivering exciting action flicks.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
