Take just about every former A-grade action star, add a few wrestlers and other general heavies, two delicious cameos and give them a very B-grade script and you've got The Expendables .
I have to say, aside from some generic gore, it's a pretty entertaining action film. And, if you take a look at some of the character names you can't help but think it's a bit of a send-up of action films as well.
Barney Ross (who is called that?), Toll Road, Ying Yang, Gunner Road, Lee Christmas, Hale Caesar....seriously!
Basically, Sylvester Stallone leads a group of ageing mercenaries into South America to overthrow a dictator. Cue the mindless action.
The cameos as mentioned from Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the same scene, were pretty amusing. Really, the only action 'hero' missing was Van Damme.
The only real criticism I have is the role of Jet Li, who was pretty much reduced to the annoying Asian sidekick type of role aside from a few fight scenes.
Overall this was pretty much as I expected and it was pretty enjoyable, in a throwback to the 80s action flicks. It's definitely not the stinker that some reviews have labelled it.
A 7 out of 10.
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