The Expendables 3 (2014) - Theatrical Review

Director: Patrick Hughes

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Wesley Snipes, Dolph Lundgren, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford

Country: United States

Rating: PG-13

Run Time: 126 minutes

Stallone and friends are back for the third time in the longest, dullest, and worst of The Expendables movies. Besides being a horribly put together film with a boring plot, The Expendables 3 suffers the most from it dreaded PG-13 rating. The Robocop remake that came out this year also suffered from a PG-13 rating even though the original Robocop was rated R. However, the Robocop remake at least had interesting ideas in the film and one or two good characters. Even though the action let me down, there was some story to fall back on. The Expendables 3 has none of this. There is no good action, acting, story, jokes, special effects, or anything for that matter. As a huge action fan, I was severely disappointed by this film and found it to be an insult to all of the fans of these actors and the films that they have made for so many years.

The boys are back for a PG-13 adventure.

The Expendables 3 follows the tradition of the first two films by opening up with an action scene unrelated to the plot of the film. This time, the Expendables have tracked down one of their oldest members, Doctor Death (Wesley Snipes), held prisoner in a moving train. After rescuing him in a horribly rendered CGI helicopter, the Expendables take Death on a new mission with them to stop a weapons dealer. However, the weapons dealer turns out to be the once deceased Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson), a former member of the Expendables turned bad. After one of the Expendables gets badly wounded on the mission, Barney (Stallone) tells the rest of the team that he doesn't want to see any more of them get hurt. Therefore, he drops the old Expendables team out of love and decides to hire a new team of lil' Expendables (Ronda Rousey, Kellan Lutz, Glen Powell, Victor Ortiz) in order to get some youthful experience on the team. Unfortunately for Barney, the lil' Expendables get captured by Stonebanks. That means that all of the old Expendables and some old and new friends (Arnold, Jet Li, Harrison Ford, Antonio Banderas) have to go after Stonebanks and rescue the lil' Expendables.

The first Expendables film had an actual plot and a decent amount of action. Stallone was clearly trying to make a character and plot driven action film but seemed to get distracted by the fact that his film could also be a who's who of the action genre. By the time Stallone reacher The Expendables 2, director Simon West threw all plot out of the window and went straight for the action. It added more action icons (Van Damme, Scott Adkins, and Chuck Norris) and amped up the action even more than the first film. The film was far more self aware than the previous entry as well. But than The Expendables 3 comes out and it makes me question if I ever liked the first two Expendables films at all...or even the action genre!

The Expendables 3 goes back to the concept of the first film by attempting a plot with less action than Expendables 2. Unfortunately, the plot found here is so predictable, tired, and weak, that nothing holds up. Barney Ross decides that because just one of his men get shots that the whole Expendables team has to be rebooted. Look at yourself Barney! You are older than any other member on your team! Who says you get to stay around but 47 year old Jason Statham can't?! This attempt at trying to make Stallone question his old team in order to create a new team is a total joke. Any moron can predict that Stallone's new team is going to be captured and that the old team is going to come back to help. I groaned in my seat when Stallone starts to take off in his plane to take on Stonebanks on his own and the old Expendables appear in front of his plane to help.

I miss the days when Gibson was Mad Max.

Stallone and friends have sold out to the 21st century by dumbing their film down to a PG-13. Stallone claimed that he owed it to the new generation to make a PG-13 film accessible to the younger audience. Therefore, Stallone and friends went back on everything they believed in and embraced for nearly 30 years and crapped all over it by removing all blood whatsoever. I have two huge qualms with the decision to make Expendables 3 PG-13.

1) Younger kids don't care about any of these actors. No younger kid is going to know who Robert Davi, Dolph Lundgren, or Wesley Snipes is unless they had cool parents that showed them their movies when they were 5 years old. Kids nowadays like people like Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, and Liam Neeson. Those are the action icons for the young crowd of PG-13 movie goers. People who grew up watching these actors since the 80's or 90's have followed them because they have almost always stuck to the R rated genre and delivered the same thing time and again. Younger kids don't care.

2) This is a group of actors who have devoted their careers to hard R action movies for nearly 30 years. The first two Expendables aren't good films but at least they knew what kind of action scenes people wanted to see. Heads explode, limbs are chopped off, bodies are shot up, and trucks explode into smithereens. But this film goes back on everything these actors have done so well for so long. The action is dumbed down, there is too little of it, and nobody is taking anything in the film seriously. The idea of a film series featuring aged action icons seemed like a good idea back in 2010. But now that we have reached 2014, I don't want to see another PG-13 Expendables film again.

Prepare yourself for some of the worst CG ever.

There are only four action scenes in this film and I cared for none of them. The biggest issue with the action in this film is that too much of the film is reliant upon digital effects. All of the blood, gun, car, and helicopter effects are clearly CG and all of it looks awful. I laughed out loud during a scene where Stallone and Kelsey Grammer drove a car past the worst looking green screen in the entire world. I groaned when Stallone blew up a CG helicopter behind him and walked away from all of its cartoony fakeness. And I cringed when Stallone hung from a helicopter over clouds of horrible CG smoke below him. I could care less for any of these action scenes. Stallone originally claimed that this film would "out Raid Gareth Evan's The Raid." What a joke. I have nothing to say to that.

The walk on cameos are laughably lazy. They didn't even try with this film. Harrison Ford proves to be the worst actor of them all surprisingly. He spouts out one liners with no effort and I couldn't help but laugh each time. He's so terrible! Jet Li also appears for maybe a total of two minutes. He operates a machine gun, says maybe four lines, and than hugs Arnold Schwarzenegger at the end of the film. And Robert Davi shows up for mere seconds! Seconds! These don't count as cameos to me at all. They are lazy walk ons that make me want to groan.

I did enjoy a few things about this film though. The first was the return of Tyler Bates' musical score. Bates composed a very memorable and spot on score for the first two Expendables films and it was nice to hear the themes and motifs return for a third time. As the film started, I immediately began humming the score before it started. I really enjoy the opening tune for each Expendables films and find them to be the only thing consistent with each flick.

Antonio Banderas (Desperado, The Mask of Zorro) and Wesley Snipes (Blade, Passenger 57) were the funnest actors to watch in the film. Snipes and Banderas haven't been in a big budget action film on the big screen in a long time (The Legend of Zorro and Blade: Trinity were their last big action films if I am correct). Therefore, it was a nice novelty to see these two action titans return to the big screen once again. Snipes and Banderas felt the most natural out of everyone in the film as well. Their dialog was still horrible but at least they brought energy and excitement to a film filled with dull actors.

Do it Arnold! Spare us the pain of an Expendables 4!

I'm done talking about this film. Everyone looks like they had a lot of fun making this film but no one seemed to care about the quality of the dang thing. The action is weak and of the PG-13 kind, the actors don't try, the plot is a joke, and the digital effects rank with Olympus Has Fallen's awful CGI. What is supposed to be a love letter to action cinema is no more than an insult to its fans. I am swearing off action movies for a while after seeing this film because I am hurt by how bad it is. Whatever you do, don't see this movie. Director Patrick Hughes should be ashamed THIS is what he churned out.

Rating: 3/10 - The impressive cast is all that is good about this piece of trash. You saw it for the icons but walked away with 10 less dollars and an empty feeling inside.

Update: I rewatched the film as of Dec.14 and the movie is actually worse than I remember. In one scene, Stallone washes ashore after drifting in a river. When one of the henchmen picks up Stallone out of the water, the space around Stallone's body is digitally altered to look wet. Stallone never laid in actual water! They digitally placed water splashes around his body where he laid! This is how lazy an actor Stallone has become. The guy won't even lay in actual water! Therefore, the rating stands.

Franchise:
The Expendables (2010, dir. Sylvester Stallone)
The Expendables 2 (2012, dir. Simon West)
The Expendables 3 (2014, dir. Patrick Hughes)

Mad Max (1979)

Director: George Miller

Cast: Mel Gibson, Steve Bisley, Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Tim Burns, Geoff Parry

Country: Australia

Rating: R

Run Time: 93 minutes

Post-apocalyptic cinema is one of the greatest sub-genres out there. There's something about watching action movies set after the end of the world that makes for an exciting experience. While there are too many post-apocalyptic action films to count (Escape From New York, The Planet of the Apes, I Am Legend, The Omega Man, The Postman, Waterworld, Terminator Salvation, Children of Men, Dawn of the Dead, and Doomsday, just to name a few...), I think that the first name that comes to people's minds when they think post-apocalyptic action is Mad Max.

The Mad Max series is a personal favorite of mine. I think all three films (soon to be more) in the series are truly excellent even though they are all completely different from one another. Writer and director George Miller helmed all three films and is to be commended for creating one of the greatest series and characters in all of action cinema. Just thinking about Mad Max gets my blood pumping and makes me want to get behind a car and floor it down an empty highway.

Glorious vehicular mayhem that only the cinema of the 70's could deliver.

Mad Max is a really unique action film. For starters, the film has an atypical plot. The film presents a post-apocalyptic world where society is still trying to hold onto the ideals of the old world. There isn't much of a typical plot until the final fifteen minutes of the film when Max sets out for revenge against The Toecutter and his biker gang. The first hour of the film jumps from character to character and feels almost experimental in a sense. Even though everything always dials back to Max Rockatansky, you really can't tell what is going to happen to next. The film is about as unpredictable as The Toecutter himself!

Mad Max separates itself from the pack of pre-existing post-apocalyptic action films like The Omega Man and The Planet of the Apes by having next to no budget. The film feels raw and gritty thanks to its deserted location shooting, realistic action, and minimalistic dialog. You can really tell that everyone poured their hearts, souls, and wallets into this film. I remember not really liking Mad Max the first time I saw it because I thought that it lacked the action of its masterful sequel, Mad Max 2 (a.k.a The Road Warrior). However, I was looking at the film the wrong way. There was no Mad Max 2 when it came out. There was the little action film that could and that was it. In retrospect, Mad Max is an essential action film and one of the most impressive low budget indie-actioners ever made. It's pure Ozploitation (exploitation of Australian culture) at its best.

The film opens by stating that its events take place "a few years from now..." Mad Max really hammers in the post-apocalyptic vibe right away by opening on a street with a sign that reads "Anarchie Road." It doesn't get more literal than that.

The post-apocalyptic world is rife with rape and murder. Therefore, the men of the MFP (Main Force Patrol) peruse the land in search of crime. The force's top officers are Jim Goose (Steve Bisley) and Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson). Jim is a loveable hot shot who scores with the ladies while Max is an unstoppable officer with a beautiful wife and child. The film opens as Max chases down a mad man named Nightrider. The Nightrider gets careless though and plows into another vehicle killing himself. However, the Nightrider belonged to a group of bikers led by the insane Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Toecutter and his gang blame the "bronze", Max and Goose that is, for the death of the Nightrider. Therefore, the gang slowly but surely stalk and terrorize Max and his friends until Max is pushed a little too far.

A young Mel Gibson shines in his debut action picture.

I believe that Mad Max is the most important post-apocalyptic action film ever made. Even though many post-apocalyptic films had been made before, Mad Max seemed to set the precedent for how most post-apocalyptic action films would be made for the rest of time. A "Mad Max" type of post-apocalyptic film includes crazy villains who like to rape and pillage innocent victims, highly stylized vehicles adorned with rust and spikes, lots of practical vehicular stunt work, bloody gun play, somber heroes, tragic plots, wide open desert spaces, broken down cities, and a unique style of fashion and clothing. The original Mad Max has influenced and inspired every blatant rip-off and post-apocalyptic film to come after it. The Book of Eli, Escape From New York, Waterworld, and so many more films owe their heart and soul to George Miller's Australian actioner.

It is unfortunate that Mad Max's sequel, Mad Max 2, casted a massive shadow over its low budget original. Many of my friends and fellow movie buffs write off the original Mad Max in favor of the bigger and better Mad Max 2. Many of them haven't even seen Mad Max or have only seen bits and pieces! While I completely agree that Mad Max 2 is a far better film and one of the greatest action masterpieces of all time, the original Mad Max is a special little film. You would be doing a massive disservice to yourself as an action fan if you skip or try to ignore this little film. It set the precedent for post-apocalyptic action cinema, established Mad Max as one of the most iconic action characters, and launched Mel Gibson's career.

Mel Gibson is a fantastic action star. He has starred in countless action classics (Mad Max 2, Lethal Weapon, Braveheart, The Patriot, etc) over the years and has yet to disappoint me. While one could argue that Mad Max 2 truly launched Mel Gibson to stardom, it was Mad Max that introduced him to the world. It was also Mel's very first action film and it kicks tons of ass! Mad Max was for Gibson what Above the Law was for Steven Seagal, Die Hard was for Bruce Willis, Conan the Barbarian was for Arnold Schwarzenegger, A Better Tomorrow was for Chow Yun Fat, and Pitch Black was for Vin Diesel. It took a relatively unknown actor or action newcomer and blew them up to action stardom overnight.

"I am the Nightrider!"

Mad Max is one of the few post-apocalyptic films that presents a morally upright society that operates fine. Characters live in their own homes, restaurants still have business, people go on vacation, junkyards still operate, and night clubs even boom. There is even a police force and a court system too. It's rare to see a post-apocalyptic society do so well. Supplies and food don't seem all that scarce either. We do see Toecutter and his gang steal some oil from a truck on a highway near the end of the film (which acts as a little bit of foreshadowing for the plot and theme of Mad Max 2). Otherwise, crime, a lack of cities, and the deserted landscapes are the only signs of a changed world. It could be argued that Mad Max is more of a pre-apocalyptic film than it is a post-apocalyptic film. But come on, we've been saying that for years. Why break the trend now?

I especially noticed the prevalence of heroism this go around of the film. Max's boss continually states that he wants to give people back their heroes. His boss believes that things can go back to how they used too if heroes would step in and do the right thing. Max just wants to retire and live a happy life with his family. However, he is pulled back into the role of the gun toting hero by the end of the film whether he likes it or not. It is in Max's blood to be a hero and I love this about him. This theme continues into both Mad Max 2 (Max arcing from a passive wanderer to a hero by driving a truck to help innocent people) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (Max saving Master's life even though he did not need too + Tina Turner's opening theme song, "We Don't Need Another Hero").

I have stated it enough, but Gibson is very kind and likeable as Max Rockatansky. Unlike the sequels, the circumstances of Max's life are far different in this film. Therefore, we meet a kind and caring Max. He does his job because he wants to protect others and support his lovely family. His wife and child are also absolutely adorable. You really feel like Max and his wife Jessie are truly in love. We don't get to meet the cold and passive Max until the next film. He had to be Kind Max before he could become Mad Max.

However, it isn't a Mad Max film without some insane and memorable villains. Toecutter and his gang are absolutely relentless madmen. There is no clue as to what Toecutter will do next, he is that unpredictable. I noticed that Toecutter hisses like a snake off screen sometimes just to silence and halt his gang. He's a mad man with a crazy hair do that I would not want to mess with. I also really enjoy his two main minions: Johnny the Boy and Bubba. Johnny is a new wannabe member of the gang and acts as unpredictable as Toecutter. Bubba on the other hand is the only calm and toned down member of the gang. He has a pale face and a cold and chilling demeanor. He and Max have a small face off at the end of the flick that makes for a truly bad ass moment of triumph on Max's part.

"Remember him when you look at the night sky."

Even though Mad Max had a small budget, its small action scenes and realistic stunts are incredibly impressive and hold up quite well. There are only two big action scenes in the film; the car chase that opens the film and Max's vehicular revenge that closes the film. The opening chase is arguably the best action scene of the flick. Some MFP chase down a mad man named The Nightrider as he plows his vehicle down a highway. However, two buffoon officers keep crashing their car as they pursue The Nightrider. I cannot stress enough how awesome these car crashes are! There are two glory shots in this chase that make the whole film worth viewing. The first is when the officers plow their car into a blue van that sends said van spinning off the highway in glorious slow motion. The second is when the same officers floor their car through a trailer and cause the trailer to literally explode into smithereens. It's so beautiful!

Miller's excellent eye for editing and choreography is most evident in the tense opening chase. There is a huge pile up / crash leading up to the amazing trailer explosion that benefits from truly excellent editing. Miller could not have set the scene up any better. As the officers plow down the road, a young baby wanders out into the street. The Nightrider swerves around the kid and causes the officers behind him to tip their car and slide off the street. The tension is literally unbearable during this scene! And it all literally explodes when the officers plow through a poor innocent trailer. The end of the film also has some great stunt work and even more vehicle chases. However, I'd rather leave those scenes to be enjoyed unspoiled. After all, they are the emotional climax of the film.

Max's iconic vehicle shot.

I can't get enough of Mad Max! There just aren't that many action series out there that are as consistently great as Miller's epic trilogy. I am so glad to have rediscovered this action classic. One of the great things about this film is that even highly esteemed critics love it. How often does a bad ass action film get met with critical acclaim by people who aren't action fans? Mad Max is an excellent post-apocalyptic film that hits all of the right notes: great acting, affective atmosphere, relevant themes, and breath taking action. Miller's debut action picture is truly the Breathless of action cinema, a film that broke all of the rules and did it all on a shoe string budget. I should warn newcomers though that Mad Max may be a tad extreme for them. The film's slow second act, odd pace, and unpredictable characters may chase off the uninitiated. If you give Max a chance though, you'll discover a unique low budget indie film that would set the groundwork for one of the greatest sequels of all time.

Rating: 8/10 - A must watch post-apocalyptic action film! Vehicular mayhem has never been the same.

Franchise:
Mad Max (dir. George Miller, 1979)
Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior (dir. George Miller, 1981)
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (dir. George Miller and George Ogilivie, 1985)
Mad Max: Fury Road (dir. George Miller, 2015)