The Expendables Franchise has been one that has given Sylvester Stallone an excuse to work with his old friends like Harrison Ford Arnold Schwarzenegger Dolph Lundgren Jason Statham Jet Li ,Wesley Snipes and many others again after many years. Along the way, they have made some more crazy action films. Which is another notch their belts. Most thought this franchise finished after the third installment. Boy were they wrong.

Barnie (Sylvester Stallone) and Christmas (Jason Statham) are close friends. They’ve gone on a lot of missions together but none are more important than getting Barnie’s ring back from a short biker who he lost thumb wrestling against. That’s the kind of humor you get in this movie. There is quite a bit or corny humor and old guy jokes. The serious stuff comes later but it’s not all that serious. 

Rahman (Ikow Uwais) is the leader of a covert military group. He is trying to steal some detonators for a bomb he’s building which can start WWIII. With the help of his team, Barnie must try to stop him and prevent WWIII. Along the way, a tragedy happens which throws the team into turmoil. Christmas is thrown off the team and must go on his own while the rest of the team, led by Megan Fox’character, continues forward with some help from Marsh (Andy Garcia).

I’ve seen all The Expendables movies and they aren’t that good but this one takes the cake. It has Megan Fox in a leadership role and she looks like she’s on a runway doing a fashion show, not an action film. Also, there are some great Korean and Japanese action stars that have smaller roles in the movie and they should have been expanded and been more of a focus instead of Fox and some of the geriatrics that are brought back for this the 4th installment of this franchise. I don’t want to see Randy Couture and Dolph Lungren making jokes about hearing and sight loss. 

The action in these films is usually pretty good but the CGI is not very good in this one. There are scenes on a boat and in other locations that can be seen while the background looks fake, which is green screen. That’s very bad directing. You shouldn’t be able to see the green screen in the background of a scene. Also, a lot of the stunt work is clunky and there are only a couple of decent action sequences to speak of. One involving motorcycles chasing each other was pretty bad.

 Jason Statham does a lot of the heavy lifting in this film from the action set pieces to the dialogue. The director and writers rely on his character quite a bit but he does have a little help from Tony Jea who plays a boatman who helps him out and they have a good rapport with one another. The rest of the cast is terrible and the dialogue is clunky. There are some funny scenes but it’s more like you’re laughing at how bad the film is rather than laughing at genuine funny moments. This film is really bad.

Stallone and company have made one too many Expendables movies. I know these films are n’t supposed to be high art but the excuse of I want to work with my friends is overused these days and this movie was a waste of time for everyone involved. Megan Fox was out of place and not good at all in her role. The Asian action stars were fine but they could have been doing something better with their skills. Couture, Lundgren,  Garcia, and others have seen better days and Statham can only do so much. Even he couldn’t salvage this shipwreck of a film. This movie is terrible from the beginning to the end. 

1 star

Dan Skip Allen