Chinese kung fu fans

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For a movie that is advertised as a “mangasm,” The Expendables is surprisingly light on homosexual subtext.  All around, this movie is 100% entertainment, absurd fun that has been hard to find this summer.  This is no Götterdämmerung for 80s-90s action and the men who made it possible, but more like a self parody along the lines of Not Another Action Movie.  At age 64, Stallone refuses to quit, co-writing and directing this undeniably grand production, pulling together an admirable cast of straight-to-DVD types, dubious athletes (save for Terry Crews), and refugees from the big screen.  I firmly believe the film is unique in its ambition and execution; you’ve never seen such an absurd mix of silliness and cathartic violence before.

Action scene II is Lundgren (who is a seething mass of hysteria and insanity) in a great car chase with Stallone and Li.  Stallone does things right:  his classic truck is bulletproof.  The chase is served up like the old days.  Lundgren is really, really tall and has a fight with Li, who is really, really small.  This comic book pairing and fight is like a Saturday morning cartoon.  The fight is great; Jet Li always pleases, and he has the lightest mood of any performance he’s ever given.  This all leads up to the main event, the assault on the island by the Expendables.  The following sequence may be the longest continual action scene in memory.  Multiple fights with multiple weapons in multiple locations strain the brain trying to keep up with all of the violence.  Occasionally, the movie will move into Rambo levels of violence, though it doesn’t look nearly as realistic.  And Stallone chops off a head for good measure.  Statham provides the best fight choreography (all those Transporter films payed off), followed by Jet Li, and the underused Terry Crews who ventilates a whole tunnel full of soldiers with his machine shotgun, and later throws a foldable straight razor into someone’s neck.

This goes on forever, and by the end you will be almost too overwhelmed to think about the criminally terrible CGI flames that engulf the CGI palace that falls down under the force of the most C4 charges ever placed in a movie.  The action goes to slow motion for no apparent reason at times.  You might wonder why the soldiers have a moat full of gasoline running through their camp, and you might wonder how the Expendables were able to kill an entire army without losing a single man, perhaps even without a single gunshot wound.  When his machine gun ammo runs out, Stallone is able to fire and reload his pistols so fast that he may as well be firing full auto; he is able to dispatch whole groups of men with no apparent effort.  The film takes the audience by the hand and leads them down a path of the absolutely absurd.  In the end you can’t fault the movie, because it is genuinely entertaining and consistent for its considerable running time.

On the other hand, you might ask why the Expendables would welcome Lundgren back into the group after he betrayed them and tried to assassinate two of their number.  It might be me, but if my friend EVER tried to shoot me, beat me to death, or impale me on a rusty pole, I just wouldn’t hang out with him/her anymore.  I guess it’s just different when you’re an Expendable.  I was shocked that the theater was crowded, and one of the shows was even sold out.  If Stallone makes enough bank, could we possibly see The Expendables 2?  Maybe next time Jean Claude and Seagal won’t be so painfully and obviously absent from the party.

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