As someone who grew up in the eighties, it was a foregone conclusion that I was going to see THE EXPENDABLES .
Was it a good movie? Not too bad. It definitely had its moments (Terry Crews blasting the hallway clean!). Sadly, it didn't provide the nostalgia that I was hoping for. It was good to see all these guys together but it would have been even better to see them play off some puns or situations based on their old films. Why not a Stallone-Lundgren fight scene? Why not have Mickey Rourke come out of retirement, join the mission then sacrifice himself to save the girl and thus give meaning to his speech early in the film?
I wondered if the problem was that I'd been spoiled with the sophistication of films like The Bourne Trilogy or the Daniel Craig James Bond movies. I discounted that theory since I believe the point of this movie was to get a bunch of stars from the eighties, mix them up with current stars and make an eighties style shoot-everyone/blow-everything-up romp. That goal was met because if I was watching THE EXPENDABLES in 1987 I would have thought this to be a very good film for the genre and I would have enjoyed it tremendously.
The problem is that it's 2010. It was a nice eighties twist to have Lundgren alive and back with the team in the end. And you really can't go wrong with Eric Roberts as the bad guy. That said, would it have been too much to ask Stallone to pick up that 50-Caliber machine gun one more time and waste that army to kingdom come?
No comments:
Post a Comment