The Expendables 1, 2, and 3 (103, 103 and 133 minutes)
"You know it's not easy being your friend."
Even though summer is my favorite season, I LOVE Halloween and all the spooky shit it brings. Especially scary movies which are just around the corner on The 90-Minute Movie (i.e. next week) so make sure you subscribe now to get all your short n’ spooky movie needs covered.
I did something really chaotic last week. I’m known to get carried away but this was a little obsessive even for me. I forced my husband to watch all three Expendables movies with me within a four day period. I’d like to claim that I blacked out or lost control of my mind… but in reality there is a very clear reason for my actions. The fourth installment of the poorly reviewed franchise was released this past weekend and upon seeing that 50 Cent was in it I had an immediate reaction that can only be described as consternation…And then curiosity. Had I secretly been missing out? Was this a franchise I could enjoy?
The answer is no. I had not been missing out. But I’m going to write about all three of them anyway. I should point out that while both The Expendables (2010, 103 minutes) and The Expendables 2 (2012, 103 minutes) fall within my runtime requirements, The Expendables 3 (2014, 133 minutes) does not, but I am willing to forsake that rule in the name of research.
The Expendables are a group of violent and talented mercenaries led by Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) who are hired to take the jobs no one else will. …Except for the jobs a rival group led by Trench Mauser (Arnold Schwarzenegger) will take. This isn’t further explained. I need to know who gets contracted for what, and why Trench and Barney need teams but The Lone Wolf (Chuck Norris) just works alone and survives. Will someone just make a mercenary documentary for me, please? I know I’m hyper focused on this but the way this world works is what is actually interesting to me but in E1 we get no origin story. Zero. For anyone. And it’s kind of a bummer and kind of a missed opportunity. But I get it, they want to get to the explosions ASAP.
All three movies follow the same basic plot with fun twists. It’s like making the same smoothie every morning but switching out the fruit to feel something closely resembling being alive. Or adding a different candy to a DQ Blizzard and feeling like a pastry chef. Stallone and his fellow writers saw a recipe and decided, “Let’s riff on a classic!”
All three movies open with a kidnapping. In E1, they save some nondescript hostages. In E2, they save Trench who is trying to save a hostage-businessman. In E3, they save Doctor Death (Wesley Snipes) who then re-joins The Expendables. All three movies have a main “job” that goes awry and requires them to dig deep and have feelings. In E1, Barney admires the strength of a woman he, at first, fails to save and decides to go back to the job he’s abandoned. In E2, their young recruit, Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) is brutally killed by Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and they decide to avenge his death. In E3, the target ends up being Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson), an Expendables co-founder turned war criminal who nearly kills Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) right out of the gate. In all of them, The Expendables fail to recognize that they too murder as indiscriminately as the villains they chase. But, like, they have heart, so we as the audience should just let that go.
The Expendables franchise was dreamed up by Stallone, who thought that 2010 was the time to start paying homage to white men with guns action heroes from the 80s and 90s. What differentiates everyone in our “core team”, meaning those who appear in all three movies, is a bit vague. All of them are good with guns. Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) is good with knives but so is Doc Death as we learn in E3. Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) is the “loose cannon” with nothing to lose even though by definition being an Expendable makes them all that way. Toll Road (Randy Couture) is… funny… and Couture must be sensitive about his cauliflower ears (he’s a former MMA fighter) because they make a point of explaining why they look the way they do in E1. I kept thinking it was going to come back as a plot point or something but it never does. His ears just become the butt of a couple of jokes. Yin Yang (Jet Li) is a martial artist but doesn’t really get to flex those skills until E2 (or was it E3?) And Hale Caesar loves his big, giant guns. Not just regular guns.
As the movies play on and continue, more Expendables are introduced and/or killed. In all of the movies we get two female additions - Maggie Chan (Yu Nan) and Luna Maya (Ronda Rousey). I don’t believe these are movies for which we need to particularly even out the scales, but I will say that I was deeply offended by the proposed title for an all-female spin-off called The Expendabelles which only makes me think of the Barden Bellas from Pitch Perfect. I think a spin-off sounds cool, sure, but do we need the cutesy name? Aren’t they supposed to be mercenaries? Maybe it was nixed because producers didn’t want to make a movie with older women, a notorious fact of Hollywood.
Though, I should point out that even Stallone and his cronies faced studio pressure for younger faces and bodies because of the success of The Fast and the Furious franchise. Expendables 3 desperately tried to follow the racing franchise’s success by injecting young blood into the mix, but this attempt was ill-received by the core Expendables audience. Which I imagine is older men. But whether they’re looking for younger castmates or big names, it’s not surprising that the casting for these movies becomes a part of its marketing scheme every time. The rumors of who may play a villain, who turned down millions of dollars, and who hates who swirl around these releases like a Lanternfly in Manhattan. It garners interest for a franchise that might otherwise struggle. And by struggle I mean, not making its budget back which, thanks to international sales, all three of these movies did.
So, it seems that somewhere a market for shoot-em-up style movies exists but maybe not for me. I found E3 to be the most enjoyable of the bunch because of its extended cast and more over top (read: unrealistic) action pieces. But it is the most poorly rated movie of the three, so it just goes to show that I don’t really know what these movies are all about. Is it just about the guns? The fun of seeing your old favorites blow something up? I don’t live in a Mojo Dojo Casa House! And that’s ok.
Before I wrap up I want to take the time to acknowledge Terry Crews who opted not to join the cast of Expend4bles for a very good reason. Crews shared in a 2018 testimony in support of the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights, that after he filed his lawsuit against Adam Venit and WME for Venit’s assault of Crews at a party, a producer of Expend4bles (Avi Lerner, who is currently under investigation for assault), asked Crews to drop his case or be dropped from the movie. Crews refused. Most disappointing is that Crews shared (also in 2018) that NONE of his castmates have reached out or supported him. I am not sure if that has changed by now, but it’s still disgusting nonetheless. Sexual assault can happen to anyone and the more we protect abusers, the longer they will get away with it. #believesurvivors
Ok, so, watching all three of these movies back-to-back is ill-advised as they start to blend into one another. My brain started to melt. I was doing wild things like thinking Wesley Snipes was in E2, but he wasn’t! (Isn’t that SO silly?) These movies are a great choice if you’re looking to test your home sound system, are interested in Affliction, or enjoy Americans further blowing up war torn countries. Otherwise, I might steer clear.