Expend4bles Review

The Expendables series returns after a nine-year break with the poorly titled Expend4bles. How do these veteran action stars fare in an action landscape that has changed drastically?

The Expendables are sent by the CIA to stop a mercenary, Rahmat (Iko Uwais) from stealing detonators for a nuclear warhead from a chemical warfare base in Libya. When the mission goes wrong, Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) gets kicked out of the team, and his girlfriend Gina (Megan Fox) takes over the team for a mission in Asia. Yet, Christmas is determined to make amends and goes to Asia to stop the mercenary and his mysterious employer.

The Expendables was conceived to be a loving throwback to action cinema of the ‘80s and ‘90s. They aimed to bring back the big action stars of those decades. They had Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Jet Li, Wesley Snipes, and many more. The original trilogy was a fun set of films, especially the second one which was action-packed, violent, filled with one-liners, and didn’t take itself too seriously. However, since The Expendables 3 the action genre has changed due to the success of the John Wick series, the Mission: Impossible films, and the productions 87North have upped the game for the action genre.

Those aforementioned productions have become known for having inventive action sequences that focus on stunt work and practical effects. Veterans like Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves have proven they can still be credible action stars and even Bob Odenkirk was turned into an action hero in Nobody. At the same time, The Expendables has regressed with its fourth film. The series has lost names like Schwarzenegger, Snipes, and Terry Crews, and Megan Fox and 50 Cent were poor replacements, although I did like the film using briefly 50 Cent’s most famous song, “P.I.M.P.”

This fourth film was less an ensemble and more of a Statham vehicle. The Englishman was the main character in the film, and he was alone for most of the film. He was given the bulk of the dramatic material because his cock up led to Rahmat escaping and he tried to make amends for it. It leads to the question was the film written as a Statham vehicle because many of the actors refused to return, or did they refuse to return, so it was turned into a Statham film?

There are so many action stars that could have joined the Expendables franchise. Michael Jai White, Chow Yun-fat, Jackie Chan, and Cynthia Rothrock are aging action stars who could join the series as members of the team or be a villain or the main henchman. If the series wanted to push the boat out they could get Michelle Yeoh, Nicolas Cage, Pierce Bronson, or Dijon Hounsou to be the villain and add a bit of gravitas.

The big additions to the series were Uwais and Tony Jaa. Both are action legends in Indonesia and Thailand respectively, yet never had many opportunities in the West. Uwais was wasted in films like Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Snake Eyes and Jaa’s only Hollywood film was Furious 7. Both are great material artists and a highlight of the film, especially Uwais who used sharpened tonfas. It was a shame they were wasted in such a rubbish film.

Expend4bles was made with a reported budget of $100 million but it looked like it cost a lot less. The previous two films opened and closed with fantastic action scenes, yet Expend4bles opened with Rahmat’s assault on the base then showing Christmas and Barney Ross (Stallone) going to a bar so they could retrieve Barney’s ring. Most of the film took place on a cargo ship, a restrictive place. The CGI effects were noticeably bad which was remarkable considering 2023 has seen the release of The Flash. The film looks like a straight-to-DVD sequel made to be a quick cash-in, not something meant for cinemas. It was a shame because the film was directed by Scott Waugh who started his directional career by making action films with practical effects.

Expend4bles suffered from being overly serious. The Expendables 2 was the best film in the series because it knew what it wanted to be, a fun old-fashioned action film that had its tongue firmly in its cheek. Expend4bles was a downgrade since it tried to be a heavy film about grief and betrayal, but the film was not capable of handling these subjects. Except for the occasional joke, normally from Statham, the film had little sense of fun. It was refreshing to see the bloodletting Statham was on the ship and stealthy taking down the mercenaries. The action highlight was a car chase scene which felt like it would have fitted in the Fast & Furious franchise.

The film had some of the worst writing and editing in a recent major film. The previous films had David Callaham and Richard Wenk credited as co-writers and they had gone off to bigger and better things. This film’s writers were Kurt Wimmer, whose filmography can be best described as mixed, and the two other men who have written nothing of note. What they came up with was a stock B-movie plot about heroes preventing World War III and finding out the identity of a traitor. Seasoned viewers could guess how the story goes by the end of the first act. This was a film where a small boat was able to catch up to a cargo ship that was en route to Vladivostok.

One of the worst aspects of the editing was during the opening act. The film starts with Rahmat’s raid and The Expendables flew from New Orleans to Libya and he was still conducting his raid. A lot of time must have passed because Christmas and Barney got into a bar fight, and they were briefed by the CIA before going to North Africa.

Even the greatest fan of The Expendables or Jason Statham would struggle with this film. It looked cheap, had a terrible script, and had underwhelming action, resulting in the film having little entertainment value.