The Expendables 3
Year: 2014
Rating: PG-13
Length: 126 minutes / 2.10 hours
When the first Expendables movie came out, the premise of a ton of washed-out action stars coming together in a single film amused me. It wasn’t that great, mostly because I thought to myself, “These are the only guys they could get?” Partly because of this, my standards had been lowered for the second film in the franchise and I found it was an absolute blast with a lot of big names that the first movie was missing. Then they made a third one and ran out of names.
What set the first two Expendables movies apart was the 80s action film machismo that made the concept of bringing these actors together so amusing. Now? It seems like they’re reaching the bottom of the bucket for these types of actors—mostly because I don’t consider them as the over-the-top action stars that the rest of the crew is. I mean, Kelsey Grammer? Really? Plus, now they’re bringing in fighters like Ronda Rousey, who really isn’t an actor, even in her somewhat natural element of fighting people. The franchise already jumped the shark when they had Chuck Norris in the second movie anyway.
All this being said, the plot wasn’t too terrible. Unbelievable? Yes. I don’t see any relation between Mel Gibson and any of the Expendable crew, so it was a bit of a stretch to even maintain my suspension of disbelief. Oddly enough, I was about as bored with the action in this entry in the Expendables franchise as I was with the first one. Everything just felt overly gray and the cuts between all the different bits of action left me confused as to what exactly was happening. Then again, this is bound to happen when you need to give so many actors screen time.
Continuing the farce after jumping the shark, I give The Expendables 3 2.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
