Rating:

“How Stallone Spent His Summer Vacation”

Only 3.5 stars, with all these action-movie veterans in one film? Yeah, ‘fraid so.

Actually, as I sit here and ponder it, The Expendables wasn’t really all that bad. It just wasn’t really all that good either, not good enough to be a 4-star film, anyway. There’s a lot to like in this movie, actually, and for pure action fun, it’s pretty good. I enjoyed this movie more than I did “Inception”, to be honest.

OK, lets start with what’s wrong with the movie:

• One of the best scenes – with Arnold and Willis and Stallone all together – felt forced. Clearly Stallone (who directed and produced as well as acted) was having fun with this movie, so they probably had fun shooting it. But this scene felt completely out of place.
• A good mercenary flick really needs to dig a bit deeper into each member of the team’s speciality.

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