The Expendables review- by Sean Chandler Talks About

Full-text transcript of The Expendables review:

[00:00:00] So last month, I was in the mood for the ultimate 80s action star crossover that happened 20 years after the 80s ended. So I watched all three Expendables movies. So today we’re going to rank the entire trilogy from the worst to the best. If you’re new here, my name is Sean Chandler, and I started this channel essentially because I was driving everyone around me crazy talking about movies way too much. If you can relate, you’re probably in the right place and considered clicking that subscribe button. With that in mind, go and join me down below in the comments section. How do you rate The Expendables movies and what do you think about the franchise in general? Does it live up to the idea of this massive crossover or is it kind of a disappointment in light of all the talent involved? I’d love to hear your take on him. Also after this video, check out this playlist up above with my ranking of some of the absolute best 70s, 80s and 90s action franchises. With that said, let’s get started. Coming in in last place is The Expendables three. This one might be in last place, but it’s still quite enjoyable for me. And most of that comes back to the cast itself. It’s just amazing to think that a movie exists with all of these A-list, 80s and 90s action stars crammed into one movie, riffing back and forth, having their little moments to shine and in the spotlight. It’s crazy that they actually got all these people into the mix.

[00:01:25] Some of the standouts for me was Wesley Snipes. He hadn’t been in any movies for several years because he’d been in jail. So this was a nice return to form to see him in action, throw little quips there. The real standout here, though, is Mel Gibson, who just even though he’s in kind of a schlocky throwback 80s action movie, just puts a powerful performance on screen where he just knocks it out of the park, in particular in the sequence where he gets captured. And he’s kind of given this monologue to Sylvester Stallone. And it is just a powerful, powerful stuff. Also, I didn’t mind the new expendables in the middle act of this film of The Expendables. What if you want to call them? And for me, I felt like I got plenty of the old people in the first and third acts of the film. They get to blow stuff up. They get to crack jokes. They’re in 90 minutes of the movie, just the middle act. We kind of go off on this rabbit trail with our new people and there’s some fun people in the mix there. But the real problem here for me is the PG 13 rating. Part of the appeal of this franchise is that they were unashamedly R rated films with very graphic violence that its target audience wanted. And when you make a movie that you’re like, let’s try and make it for a broader audience and go PG 13, you’re missing who your actual target audience is. The target audience for a movie starring a bunch of 60 year old men are all grown men.

[00:02:42] It’s not a bunch of 13 year olds that want to rush out to go see this movie. Also, you run into problems when you overstuff the cast like they did in this film. When there’s this much A-list talent or at least past A-list talent, you’re writing the script around their availability. And you can feel that a little bit inside of this film. Fun fact on this one. I actually started an advance screening and one of The New Expendables, Colin Powell was actually in attendance because he lives around where I live. It grew up around here. I found out actually afterwards he went to the same high school that I went to. Now I’m older than him. So I didn’t know him or anything like that. But we did go to the same high school. Fun fact. Sorry for the rabbit trail. Back to the movies. Our runner up is The Expendables two in this movie. Felt like a bit of the fulfillment of the promise of the first film. And so they brought in some new kind of old action stars into the mix, cycled out some of Our Expendables, brought in Van Damme is the villain and you really get to experience the fun of what this franchise could be. Part of that is Van Damme is the villain. He gets to kind of chew up some scenery. He still gets to do a split kid’s kicks and be the villain inside of the film. So that was a nice little addition to the mix.

[00:03:51] And this one’s also a little bit more tongue in cheek in the way they did it, a little bit more self-aware, humorous, not so self serious, so adds a little bit of a lighthearted touch to the mix. But a lot of what makes this film special is that it fulfills the promise of the cameo in the first film where you had Schwarzenegger, Willis, Stallone all in a room together, kind of bantering back and forth. This movie, the third act, is them blowing stuff up and blowing guys away together. It’s just a great little sequence. Also, there’s a nice cameo from Chuck Norris who gets to play off of his Internet fame persona. I heard another rumor that you were bitten by a king cobra. Yeah, was. But after five days of agonizing pain, the cobra died. But like I mentioned on the third film, I think this movie probably the most of all of them, you can feel them writing the script around people’s availability. In particular, Chuck Norris, who shows up for like one scene to crack his jokes, disappears for thirty minutes, shows up for another scene, and it’s him by himself up in a balcony. There’s a sequence at the end of the film where it’s very clear that he was shot on a different day from the people who are in a van that he’s talking to. And you just feel that they were riding around everyone’s schedules and then pulled me out of the movie. A good but also just the general context of where it was shot.

[00:05:15] It was like Bulgaria and it’s just over. Has to the entire film. It’s kind of dimly lit and I didn’t like the look of it, I didn’t feel like I wanted to be in this place like I did in the first film in the franchise. And so that kind of held it back a little bit for me. And by chance, I also saw this movie at an advanced screening at an event at the Alamo Drafthouse called Van Damage, where they did a full Van Damme marathon where we watched Blood Sport, Lyonheart Universal Soldier. And then they debuted Expendables two and they had a personalized intro from Van Damme in front of the movie. And after the movie, they handed out to us dog tags that said van damage on them. So that was a great little experience. We’re on another rabbit trail back to the movies. But coming in in first place for me was the original The Expendables. Overall, I just felt like this felt like a more cohesive film than the next two films. And those two films felt a little bit too much like they were playing into the gimmick of let’s get all these actors into a movie. Whereas here it felt a bit more organic to me in what was on screen right out of the gate on this film, you get a very bloody violent action sequence and that sets the tone for the rest of the film where it just goes all out on the 80s and 90s.

[00:06:31] Action glory blowing guys away. The basic premise of the movie does a very efficient job of setting up the world, setting up The Expendables in why we have this rotating set of old action stars showing up all on a team together and why we have these episodic stories that can create a franchise. For me, it legitimately felt like an 80s and 90s action movie. It doesn’t have any pretenses of actually being better than the genre. It’s not trying to be one of the great action movies of all time. It’s making one of these big action movies from that time period just with this gigantic, phenomenal cast. And along the lines with these big action movies comes the cheesy dialogue, gratuitous action sequences and ridiculous one dimensional characters. That’s the genre. And by no means am I saying this is a great movie. It’s got some choppy editing in the action. There’s some very obvious CGI blood and CGI explosions. It could have been better than it is, but for what it is, it delivers on bringing this amazing cast together to give us more 80s action movies, which is something that I love. And for me, as I said before, this is the most cohesive of the trilogy for me. So it comes in at number one. Remember to check out that play list right over there with my ranking of some of the best 80s and 90s action franchises, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard Terminator, all that fun stuff. Thank you so much for watching it. Keep talking movies too much.