Direction: Patrick Hughes; Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason
Statham, Antonio Banderas, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzennegger,
Wesley Snipes, Kellan Lutz, Ronda Rousey, etc. Story: Sylvester Stallone;
Screenplay: Creighton Rothenberger, Katrin Benedikt, Sylvester Stallone; Cinematography: Peter Menzies, Jr.; Editing:
Sean Albertson, Paul Harb.; Music: Brian
Tyler; Producers: Avi Lerner, Kevin
King-Templeton; Genre: Action Location: USA and Europe Running Time: 126 minutes
Technical assessment: 2.5 Moral assessment: 2.5 CINEMA rating: V14
Barney Ross (Stallone) and his
team of retirable former something of the military intercept a shipment of
bombs meant for a Somalian warlord but is shocked to see Expendable co-founder
turned traitor Conrad Stonebanks (Gibson), who is believed to be dead, to be
the man behind the dealing. Ross, in order to protect his old friends,
assembles a younger team to run after Stonebanks but the latter evades capture
and instead imprisons the younger members as a trap for Ross. Ross is forced to
reassemble his old team with a few additions of equally retirable ex-experts to
save the younger Expendables and eventually end Stonebanks’ crimes.
It is excruciating to watch all
these 80s-90s action heroes struggling to relive their glory moments via an
equally excruciating movie. With all the big names with no real acting prowess
packed into a plot which can be told in 20 minutes, one can just image the
ingenuity needed to sustain the movie for two hours. Between the gist of the
story are endless repetitive action sequences aimed to remind the audience that
the actor had a career once and unfortunately reinforced that he could only
manage two expressions at most. Only Mel Gibson, who must have had an offer he
could not refuse for allowing himself to be associated with the movie, and
Antonio Banderas, gave some level of depth and enjoyment in their respective
character portrayals. That the technical aspects are above average is
irrelevant because frankly it is expected for the obvious investment producers
poured in. With all the big stars in movie, producers are bound to hit enough
patrons who adored the once upon a time action heroes or are just curious to
see how badly they’ve aged. Other than this, we cannot think of any other
reason why one will withstand 120 minutes of idiocy.
Somewhere in the muddled
storyline and monotonous chasing and explosions, one character utters, in a
desperate attempt to pour in some heart and soul in the film, that for their
mission /objective to succeed, they have to work together –set aside their
differences and be a team. So that about sums the decency of Expendables 3.
Quite true and honorable but really—can two lines salvage the poor narrative,
ridiculous characters and senseless and tiresome testosterone overkill? It does
not help that at the end of the film, supposed morally upright Ross choses to
kill Stonebanks just because he had enough of the latter’s evil ways.
Thankfully, most of the fans would be aged 40 and above so there may be little
danger in sending the wrong messages.
