The Expendables movies were always a list of names before being anything else. Stallone. Statham. Li. Snipe. Schwarzenegger. Willis. The accumulation of these names is why everyone goes to see these films. 2010s The Expendables, and all of its sequels, were aggressively marketed as assemblages of former action cinema great titans, a film where fans of the VHS era could finally see their heroes share a screen together. The type of film they appeared in together didn’t particularly matter, as long as it promised action.
But it definitely helped The Expendables was specifically an unapologetic throwback to ’80s action films, with director Sylvester Stallone delivering a testosterone-fueled ride full of guns and older muscle. In 2010, it felt like this would be the last gamble for a bunch of guys who knew how to sneer and shoot a machine gun, and who mostly saw women as a distraction from their hobby of wearing berets.
The fourth film in the franchise, this week’s Spend4bles, don’t tamper with this nostalgia. Three films and 13 years later, there aren’t many more wishes to offer for the Expendables films. Its biggest casting coups, like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Wesley Snipes, aren’t present this time around, and their poor implementation in previous installments means they wouldn’t have sucked anyway. The Expendables movies had a thing, and that thing was played out. Director Scott Waugh must resort to something else with Spend4bles: I’m finally trying to turn one of these projects into a good action film.
Photo: Yana Blajeva/Lionsgate
If satisfying action was Waugh’s only real goal, then kudos to him for clearing that bar with ease. Spend4bles is easily the best pure action film in the franchise, thanks to the efforts of stunt coordinator Alan Ng and Jackie Chan’s stunt team, who worked with Waugh on his previous film, Hidden strike. There is a clear vision for Spend4bles‘ approach to cinematic violence, which brings a bit of Hong Kong flair to a franchise primarily known for its big haymakers and biggest guns.
With the new approach to action, new stars come to bring it to life. Series mainstays Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture are joined by Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais (the Raid films), martial arts dynamos who can always please a crowd when the fists start flying. Unfortunately, all other aspects of Spend4bles drags these light points down.
Clocking in at a strange 100 minute pace, Spend4bles ends just when it feels like it’s beginning, as the eponymous team of mercenaries led by Barney Ross (Stallone) and Lee Christmas (Statham) are hired to recover a nuclear weapon from a deadly terrorist (Uwais ). With a cast too large to properly showcase in such a short time, the film feels incomplete even as it runs through the franchise checklist, offering one memorable set piece (a bike chase through a freighter) and piles of lines (a confusing number of them about pee).
Photo: Yana Blajeva/Lionsgate
New additions like Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson as Easy Day seem unnecessary, adding little and drawing attention to the cramped cast. Other newcomers, like Levy Tran as Lash, at least get a signature weapon and fighting style (a deadly chain whip), but no character beats to accompany it. The fact that its fight scenes are good, unlike Easy Day’s, only makes the missed potential all the more noticeable. And then there are characters like Galan (Jacob Scipio), who do get a character beat (he talks too much), but no real action scenes to make your own.
Spend4bles stretches the franchise to its limits, and those limits frankly don’t go very far. There’s a level of self-awareness in the Expendables films that can make their paper-thin plot and characterization excusable – ultimately, they’re just a reason to see certain action legends interact with each other. others. But in more than a decade of homage, the series has developed no stylistic flourishes of its own. The Mission: Impossible films have their iconic stunts, the Fast and Furious films have their improbable car applications, but Expendables has no comparable calling card. There’s nothing for fans to look forward to beyond Jason Statham’s resilient charm and Sylvester Stallone’s swagger. And frankly, there are plenty of other places where people who want these things get them.
Spend4bles hits theaters on September 22.