A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Absolutely LOVE each of these movies! The cast of each one were put together perfectly! A lot of thought was clearly put into each role and who played that role. Action scenes were awesome! Love these movies!

Nowadays almost all filmmakers believe they can only make a good movie by adding loads of special effects and lots of huge explosions

I saw The Expendables 2 a few years ago and find it an amusing but average (5/10) action movie. I got the chance to see the first one yesterday so I thought 'why not?' and expected it to be better... but that was not the case. The movie starts with some terrorists on a boat having a bunch of hostages and demanding money. Just when they want to start hurting the hostages, The Expendables show up killing all the terrorists and (miraculously) saving all the hostages. After this opening we meet the Expendable team in person, with the characters Barney Ross(Stallone) and Lee Christmas(Statham) being the main heroes. Stallone receives a new assignment from a man known as Church: assassinate a ruthless dictator of a South American island. Barney and Lee go together to investigate the island and with the help of the attractive rebel leader Sandra they discover the true nature of the conflict. Barney has to make the difficult choice now to just do his job or to follow his heart and help Sandra.Okay I know this movie is a homage to 80's action movies but the 'story' feels a bit to much like a 1-on-1 copy of Commando and I couldn't care less about the fate of the island people. In this day and age they could do a better job portraying terrorist other then letting some dudes run around with guns and letting them speak in a foreign language. The scenes where they show the 'bad guys' doing 'bad things' where very boring. Also, the acting of the "rebel leader" Sandra was horrible and she didn't come over as an leader at all, just a damsel in distress. But yeah, they wanted to go for that 80's action movie feel where everything meaningful is accomplished by big strong men. There are lot's of big strong man in this movie, alongside Statham and Stallone. They are all standard stereo-type ex-something, exactly like the team from other action movies like Predator for example. The chemistry between the actors is decent and there are some good jokes thrown around. Statham and Stallone together works and the dialogue is not bad. I fail to see beyond the actors though, but I guess that doesn't matter with a movie like this.My biggest disappointment are the action scenes: to much shaky cam and to much quick cuts. There is a car chase in the movie but it is so horrible cut that you cannot follow what exactly is going on at any point. And yeah, I understand that they go for that 80's feel where a couple of guys can wipe out an entire army but they push the boundaries of 'believable action' a bit to far here. (bottomless magazines, the heroes don't get hit when 40 guys fire upon them, huge explosions without any hero getting hurt, etc...) So for me a disappointing 4 out of 10. It is watchable if your home alone and like to see some mindless action, but I think your better of firing up and old 80's action classic.

The Expendables is an 80's style action movie with an all star cast brought to life by action icon Sly Stallone. Sly was on a roll with excellent sequels to both Rocky and Rambo making a strong comeback to the cinema. Then he made this and rounded up a very good cast of tough guys with Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Dolf Lundgren,Randy Couture and Terry Crews. The much under rated Eric Roberts is an excellent villain and Steve Austin and Gary Daniels are excellent heavies. Plus cameos from Arnold and Bruce Willis. While this film is in some ways flawed with not too much time to spend on character development and not the best dialouge, I appreciate and enjoy The Expendables regardless. The film looks great and delivers huge on action. Great shootouts, explosions, fighting with fists, knives, feet. It also is very violent and bloody along the lines of the last Rambo film. While not quite as gory or violent as Rambo, the action scenes are bigger and more over the top. The tone of the film is lighter than Rambo and has much in common with the 80's action flicks that this is in the same tradition of. However, this is an ensemble piece and plays like a modern version of The Dirty Dozen. While not as good as The Dirty Dozen, it is a breath of fresh air for me as I am not a fan of most modern action movies that rely on cgi and cast with wimpy actors. The Expendables has a very credible cast of tough actors and brings down the thunder with the firepower and gritty violence much needed in modern cinema. This is not the type of film that critics will praise, but is just what the doctor ordered in an era where the film market does not make films specifically for men anymore, The Expendables are much needed and were a shot in the arm to otherwise lame Hollywood action. Almost a decade has gone by and this holds up pretty well and is much better than the sequels. I did like the second film, but it had too much comedy and was more of an 80's action parody rather than 80's styled action film. The third film was complete garbage and a complete mess and waste of time.