'The Expendables 3' Review

The Expendables 3 Review:

Running Out of Fuel

BY IAN TAN

Sylvester Stallone and his expendable crew are back for a third outing in theatres, this time with the additions of Harrison Ford, Wesley Snipes, Antonio Banderas and Mel Gibson, among others. This time however, it’s not only other famous 80’s action heroes that join in the ensemble cast for this third film in the Expendables series; newer, younger action stars such as Kellan Lutz and mixed martial artist Ronda Rousey join the crew to add some young blood into the series.

Replacing Simon West in the director’s seat is Patrick Hughes, who does an adequate job at this sequel, even if it lacks some of the fun that made the second film work. What Hughes does improve on over the last film, however, are some of the character dynamics and motivations. As much as characters aren’t necessarily the main reason why we go see an Expendables movie, it’s something that definitely elevates the movie slightly, as good action is made better when character motivations drive the action, and not the other way around. It is that aspect, and the inclusion of Mel Gibson’s character Stonebanks that I personally thought were nice inclusions to the movie and added some depth to it. Some. This still is an Expendables movie.

The performances from the returning cast members continue to provide us with likable, sometimes funny characters and add to the fun of the movie. Sylvester Stallone still makes for a commendable team leader as Barney Ross, with Jason Statham equally as good as his right hand man Christmas. Everyone else seems to be having a great time shooting this movie, which just adds to the fun of the movie as a whole. The newer, younger Expendables are serviceable in the action sequences but are underutilized character-wise, having one-dimensional personalities and wooden dialogue. Ronda Rousey in particular, is terrible in this movie. Anything in regards to speaking any line of dialogue to emoting are just painful to watch in her performance, to the point that we just want to see her kick more ass and stop speaking completely. The same can (sort of) be said about Antonio Banderas’ character, Galgo, a character with the audience tolerance level of Jar-Jar Binks (eek!). Galgo never, and I mean never shuts up, and has officially become the Expendables’ most annoying character. Much of this is due to the improvisational work on Banderas’ part, which could have easily been edited out of the final film. Mel Gibson on the other hand, is pretty good playing the villain here, adding some gravitas and seriousness to the movie, which is a nice touch. Next to Jean-Claude Van Damme’s character in the previous installment, Gibson’s Stonebanks is probably the best antagonist the series has had so far. Good on you, Gibson.

As for the action – what these movies exist for – The Expendables 3 is unfortunately low on anything truly worthy of it being called an Expendables movie, considering all the macho-ness that surrounds it. There are a couple of cool action sequences, most of which involve practical, physical stunts. It’s nice to see how some of these actors really treat age as just a number. But this film just doesn't have enough of that to truly harken back to 80's action flicks that prided themselves with nearly zero use of CGI.

Speaking of CGI, pretty much every explosion seen on screen is the work of ones and zeros, and really, really pulls you out of the whole 80’s-gritty-action-movie feel this series is going for. The film’s climactic battle features not one, but two horribly animated CGI helicopters in the summer’s cheapest looking chase sequence, made even more cringe-worthy considering that the Terminator, Jet Li and Han Solo are the ones manning one of the helicopters, ultimately making you question their bad-assery. Another downside to the action is just how frenetically edited some of the hand-to-hand combat sequences are. At one point, Ronda Rousey's character goes against two bad guys while Wesley Snipes fights another somewhere else, with Antonio Banderas or Kellan Lutz or whoever it was fighting some other bad guy in the mean time. The thing is, all these fights are incomprehensible pieces of half a second’s length of footage strung together in a confusing sequence that makes you just want to give up on wondering who’s fighting who and where. That one scene with Kellan Lutz riding a motorcycle up a steep, steep ramp and grabbing on to the edge of a building before pulling out a gun and shooting a band of bad guy fodder was a jaw-dropper though.

On the whole, The Expendables 3 feels rather lackluster in execution. Although it does attempt to script better character interactions and motives, the choppy action and straight-to-DVD level special effects take away from the overall sense of gritty, practical effects driven realism that the previous instalments had more of. It isn’t as bad as the first film, but not exactly an improvement over the second either.

Final rating

The Expendables 3 gets 6 out of 10 stars – Just download it.