EXPEND4BLES - A Disappointing Sequel to the Fun Action Movie Series

As fans of the previous movies in the series, obviously we wanted to see this one in the cinema. It was already released since last week, so there were not too many studios showing the film, but luckily one of them was located very near our home. So after I came back from home last night, we both immediately went and saw the movie there. OK, let us get on with it.

Brief Story Line

Barney (Sylvester Stallone - Samaritan, Creed 2 etc) and Christmas (Jason Statham - Meg 2: The Trench, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre etc) were given assignment by their new CIA boss, Agent Marsh (Andy Garcia - Geostorm, Wrath of Man etc) to prevent the stealing of dangerous item by a team of mercenaries led by Rahmat (Iko Uwais - Mile 22, Wu Assassins TV series etc). This time they were accompanied by old members of demolition man Toll Road (Randy Couture - 3 Geezers! etc), sniper Gunner (Dolph Lundgren - Minions: The Rise of Gru, Aquaman etc) and new members of Easy Day (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson - Escape Plan: The Extractors etc) & Galan (Jacob Scipio - Bad Boys for Life etc).

After that mission, the team had a restructuring with other people joining them including Gina (Megan Fox - Till Death, Transformers etc), Lash (Levy Tran - Macgyver 2016 TV series etc) and last but not least Decha (Tony Jaa - Monster Hunter, XXX: Return of Xander Cage etc). 

So how would the story conclude? You can find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Well that was surprisingly disappointing. I said above that my wife and I are fans of the Expendables movies which was largely due to the cast that involved older generation of action stars and of course the action. However, this movie did not really have those qualities. The cast were made up of mostly new characters from younger generation while the action itself although some were decent enough, but hardly very entertaining. The poor special effects (CGI) certainly did not help.

Now such kind of movie obviously did not rely on its plot (which was fine by me), but this time it was not only weak but even the basics were not seen through properly. My wife was the one who spotted it immediately when the bad guys looked so casual and later confused after hearing loud noise when they just had some explosive fights moments before. We are usually not particular about those things but they were just too obvious to be ignored. There were also two twists they tried to put in here which we could have predicted earlier, so they were not surprising at all. 

In term of actions when involving hand to hand fights were actually quite OK. I read that they were done by Jackie Chan's stunt team who were very experienced in this. Iko Uwais made a good enough villain but I think he was a bit under utilized. His final fight was too brief and a bit of let down. Other new members did not seem to have any kind of specialty that stood out, making them less impressive and not memorable at all. They did not have nice chemistry and the humor not so funny either. I think this probably was attributable to the director Scott Waugh who funnily enough directed another action movie that was criticized for its poor CGI, Hidden Strike (although that one had some fun moments due to the appearances of their two lead cast).

Overall I was not satisfied with this movie as I did not get what I was looking for in here. And aside from some decent enough fights scenes for me (and the appearance of Jason Statham for my wife), the film fell short of our expectation. Seeing it in a studio with small screen and very standard sound system did not give the desired effect I had hoped for. So if you are like me who wanted to experience the same feeling when seeing The Expendables, most likely you would be disappointed as well. But if you are OK with the lack of qualities above and just want to have fun without thinking at all, who knows you might be able to enjoy it.

Mike's movie moments rating: 2 out of 5 stars