11th September 2010, 7:25 AM
Hey Great Rumbler. I saw the Expendables. It sucked.
I was hoping for it to be campy and ironic. Instead, it's played straight, trying to be a good action movie with cheesy stars from action movies immemorial. The plot was thin and stupid, the characters were cliched. They could have hammed it up and made it so hilarious. They tried to be serious. They failed.
Not to say that it doesn't having some action chops, but overall, it was disappointing. Highlights go to things like a guy's torso getting shot into two. If they filled the movie with more pointless gore, it would have been better. As it was, seeing people get gunned down and explosions were most of the time boring. I felt my eyes glazing over many times.
I WANTED to enjoy it. I found myself trying to make myself laugh at some parts, like that ridiculous scene with Mickey Roarke and Sylvester Stallone. "When I left that woman to jump off that bridge, I lost a part of my SOUL too" or something along those lines. That was probably the funniest serious scene. I wish I was with other people who laugh at action movies, we probably would have been dying. As it was, the entire theatre was silent, and I think some audience participation (laughter) would have made it more enjoyable.
Some jokes I did enjoy: "Why's he so cranky?" "He just wants to be president" (talking about Schwarzenegger in his cameo). "Who did you see?" "Your hair dresser" (talking to bald-ass Steve Austin, who should have been better than he was).
A lot of the fighting scenes were either boring or the camera was shaking so much it was frustrating to watch. It wasn't the worst shaky-cam in the world, but they would have done better to get more stunt doubles and flesh that shit out more. Doesn't Jet Li usually do his own stunts? They should have cast someone better opposite to him, who could have kept up. The David and Goliath idea was okay. If the scene were better orchestrated and more engaging, it could have been pretty kick ass.
Bad blood special effects, c'mon, they could have easily done a lot of blood splattering with practical effects, only using a little CGI to clean it up if necessary. The blood spraying out looked fake enough to give me fond memories of the Turok games. It even looked like cell animation at one point! I figured they might clean that up for the DVD and then I thought, c'mon, they couldn't do that in like 5 minutes in post production?
All the women in this movie are worthless damsels in distress, but it IS a stupid action movie, so...
All in all a waste of 8 bucks for me, but at least the person I went with enjoyed it.
I was hoping for it to be campy and ironic. Instead, it's played straight, trying to be a good action movie with cheesy stars from action movies immemorial. The plot was thin and stupid, the characters were cliched. They could have hammed it up and made it so hilarious. They tried to be serious. They failed.
Not to say that it doesn't having some action chops, but overall, it was disappointing. Highlights go to things like a guy's torso getting shot into two. If they filled the movie with more pointless gore, it would have been better. As it was, seeing people get gunned down and explosions were most of the time boring. I felt my eyes glazing over many times.
I WANTED to enjoy it. I found myself trying to make myself laugh at some parts, like that ridiculous scene with Mickey Roarke and Sylvester Stallone. "When I left that woman to jump off that bridge, I lost a part of my SOUL too" or something along those lines. That was probably the funniest serious scene. I wish I was with other people who laugh at action movies, we probably would have been dying. As it was, the entire theatre was silent, and I think some audience participation (laughter) would have made it more enjoyable.
Some jokes I did enjoy: "Why's he so cranky?" "He just wants to be president" (talking about Schwarzenegger in his cameo). "Who did you see?" "Your hair dresser" (talking to bald-ass Steve Austin, who should have been better than he was).
A lot of the fighting scenes were either boring or the camera was shaking so much it was frustrating to watch. It wasn't the worst shaky-cam in the world, but they would have done better to get more stunt doubles and flesh that shit out more. Doesn't Jet Li usually do his own stunts? They should have cast someone better opposite to him, who could have kept up. The David and Goliath idea was okay. If the scene were better orchestrated and more engaging, it could have been pretty kick ass.
Bad blood special effects, c'mon, they could have easily done a lot of blood splattering with practical effects, only using a little CGI to clean it up if necessary. The blood spraying out looked fake enough to give me fond memories of the Turok games. It even looked like cell animation at one point! I figured they might clean that up for the DVD and then I thought, c'mon, they couldn't do that in like 5 minutes in post production?
All the women in this movie are worthless damsels in distress, but it IS a stupid action movie, so...
All in all a waste of 8 bucks for me, but at least the person I went with enjoyed it.