The Expend4bles (2023)
Directed by: Scott Waugh
Written by: Kurt Wimmer, Max Adams, Tag Daggerhart
USA
IN CINEMAS NOW
RUNNING TIME: 104 mins
REVIEWED BY: Dr Lenera
In Libya, arms dealer Rahmat leads an attack on a chemical plant to collect detonators for his boss, the mysterious Ocelot whom Barney Ross failed to apprehend 25 years ago. Hired by C.I.A. insider Marsh, The Expendables, consisting of Barney Ross, Lee Christmas, Gunner Jensen, Toll Road and new members Easy Day and Gash, go into action, but when Christmas deviates from the plan, things go wrong, resulting in a disaster that gets him kicked off the team. Marsh won’t give up however, and two ladies – Lee’s girlfriend Gina and Lash – join the team to catch up with Rahmat in the South China Sea, battling a villain who wants to start World War 3….
This fourth and probably last instalment in the Expendables franchise seems to have finally snuck up on us after it being nearly a decade since The Expendables 3 and several years of little news coming out until the beginning of a lot of indecision over what to do after that film’s poor box office, plus even some sleazy tabloid stuff. Sylvester Stallone leaving the series only to return, Terry Crews claiming he’d been sexually assaulted by Stallone’s agent Adam Venit and been pressurised by producer Avi Lerner to drop the case if he wanted to stay in the series, Arnold Schwarzenegger saying he’d return in if he liked the script then not liking the script, Jean-Claude Van Damme announcing that he’d like to come back as the brother of his bad guy in Expendables 3, etc, etc, etc. Perhaps the most worrying threat, considering what a pig’s ear he made of Expendables 3, was that Patrick Hughes would return to the series as director. And then there was the case of there being a spinoff film entitled The Expendables: A Christmas Story, whose title would suggested that it would focus on Jason Statham’s character, before the revelation that this was, actually, The Expendables 4. However, one of the many, many problems with this now horribly titled [though not everywhere] fourth episode is that it still feels like A Christmas Story for a fair bit of its running time, with everybody else playing not so much second but third fiddle to Statham, who’s starting to look rather bored at doing the same thing in film after film even though he’s seemingly making no attempt at doing something different.
No, The Expend4bles isn’t very good at all, and it’s hard to see why so little effort seems to have been made in creating a good product, especially considering how poor Expendables 3 turned out to be. Granted, this franchise has always more resembled the cheaper kind of ’80s and ’90s action movie than the big budget sort despite the all-star casts, but perhaps the most astonishing thing about this film is how incredibly cheap it looks despite a $100 million budget, with it seeming as if the cast never stepped outside of a studio, either horribly over-lit as they perform against blatantly obvious digital backdrops, hardware and explosions, or drenched in shadow while creeping or running around dull sets. There’s nothing inherently wrong with going from the globe-trotting of its predecessors to setting most of this one on a ship, but little is made of the setting and the film soon seems cramped and claustrophobic in the wrong way, while director Scott Waugh, while not going quite as overboard with the shakycam and the flash cuts as Hughes did in the previous entry, still fails to provide much coherence to much of the mayhem, with it often being unclear as to where characters are in relation to each other, while too many shots simply feature people randomly shooting in some direction, presumably hoping that they’ll hit somebody, or as much CG muzzle flare as the filmmakers could seemingly afford [so that’s where a lot of the money went!] in an attempt to disguise the fact that, despite all the sound and fury, either not much is actually going on or what is going on makes little sense geographically or physically. Unfortunately the script doesn’t help whatsoever, even ruining a big shock which takes place about a quarter of the way through [comparable to one in a certain movie from 1996 but I may have already said too much!] with a stupid revelation at the end.
The opening doesn’t really get things off to a good start, despite Iko Uwais getting a lot of prominence as the murderous Rahmat. I’ll happily admit, it was the presence of Uwais and fellow Asian martial arts wizard Tony Jaa which most interested me about this film [if only Jackie Chan had not let his ego get in the way and appeared in one of these!], so it was nice to see Uwais get a chance to act [and doing it rather well] all nasty, threatening somebody whose wife he’s already killed in front of their little boy before presumably shooting both father and son, while dispatching a few soldiers with some cool moves, though as expected too many closeups, quick cuts and a whirling camera work against enjoyment and appreciation of what we’re seeing. Then we suddenly cut to Barney knocking for Lee and catching him in the middle of an argument with his girlfriend Gina – well, a seemingly one-sided argument seeing as it largely consists of her just yelling at him, though it allows screenwriters Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart and Max Adam to get in a quick dig at men – this is 2023, where such a thing seems obligatory. Then again, it’s easy to chuckle at the near-parodic [whether it was intended as such or not] depiction of the life of our heroes when not going on missions, hanging out drinking beer at a rock club populated by biker types and scantily clad young women. The two guys engage in their usual banter which might be a bit painful if it weren’t for the chemistry between Sly and the Stath, but then we cut back to the mayhem in Syria, which doesn’t flow at all. Then again, several other scenes in this film might benefit from being placed differently than they actually are.
Barney has come to get Lee for another mission, and this time with a slightly different crew, not to mention a different boss, played by Andy Garcia who initially isn’t the only cast member who looks like he or she’s there just for the paycheck though he seems to be enjoying himself more as the film goes on, as if it was shot in sequence though that probably wasn’t the case. Lots of mayhem later, much of it dominated by CGI so poor it feels like we’re watching a computer game, and things have gone horribly wrong. Lee is chucked out of the team and has to find something else to so, leading to an almost excruciating “comedy” segment where he’s a bodyguard for a nauseating media “influencer” whose crude words about women cause Lee to beat him up. It’s a bit weird; what this guy says isn’t particularly nice but is hardly worth having the shit kicked out of him. Mind you, we are in 2023. Lee breaks into Gina’s apartment to steal some disc with some information on it and the two engage in one of those jokey fights that are also very sexual; well, they often are but this one won’t get anyone’s temperature rising due to the total lack of chemistry between Statham and Megan Fox, who still hasn’t learnt to act properly either. The next morning she’s gone, joining the Expendables in tracking down Rahmat and his mysterious boss Ocelot, also bringing in another female operative named Lash into the fry; well it’s 2023 and we can’t have an all-male mission can we? I need to stop saying that it’s 2023. The team travels to Asia, but is secretly trailed by Christmas, who’d slipped Gina a tracking device earlier. Barney’s death opened a sealed file which states that there is an eyewitness that could identify Ocelot, who plans to ignite World War 3 by letting the nuclear warheads explode in the Russian Far East, transporting them on a ship disguised as an American aircraft carrier.
Too much time is given to Lee engaging in action while the others are imprisoned; the moment where they’re ridiculously easily captured is almost insulting. Mind you, Jacob Scipio’s Galan, the son of former Expendable Galgo, is so irritating the way he goes on about stuff that you may wish he stayed out of action altogether, while Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson’s performing makes Fox seem like Meryl Streep, he’s atrocious. Mind you, most of the cast members aren’t helped by a script which gives them very lame interaction with each and things that aren’t followed through, such as Dolph Lundgren’s Gunner trying his best to stay sober then necking a bottle of vodka so he’s better at shooting people. Okay then. Then again, this is only one of several suggestions that the film has been edited down to the bone, or more likely pages from the script were randomly torn out, with issues raised and then left. For example, you’d have thought that Gina having had another boyfriend would be important in terms of her relationship to Lee, but no, which makes one wonder why a shott of a photograph which implied as much was left in, At least Jaa is allowed to be rather cool as former Expendable Decha, who has turned towards pacifism but who we know will eventually let loose. We get to see him bust some moves, dispatching some henchmen before facing off with Levy Tran’s Lash against one of the captains, while Statham gets to fight Uwais in a short but pretty well staged endeavour, at least well staged enough to make us believe that Statham would survive for more than a few seconds in such a fight. Unfortunately, it’s not very well filmed, all the martial arts scenes being choppy and shaky which means that we can’t properly appreciate them, even if there have been far worse example. It’s bizarre that, despite these films supposedly being throwbacks, three out of four of them film their action in a way that never would have been done in the old days, though this is only one of several reasons why Expendables 2 is the best out of the four films.
Could The Expemd4bles have ever been much good? There will be those who disagree with me on this, and it’s perhaps true that these are movies where the end result can never be as good as the idea, but I think that, with some care, it could have been. Instead it feels like they intentionally et out to make a bad movie, which rarely works that well unless the handlings is done with precision or the thing is just extremely funny. Sadly I think that we can lay the blame for much of it at the feet of Statham, who largely took over from Stallone in guiding the project. A few good moments and performances in no way compensate for the overriding sense of pointlessness and even dreariness. What a shame!
Rating: 
Be the first to comment