The tone of the latest installment of “Expend4bles” can be summed up by a single close-up shot: a severed hand of a corpse, flipping the bird. Directed by Scott Waugh, this action franchise revival intends to exude macho, smirky, and defiant vibes. At its finest moments, the film successfully achieves all three. This star-studded group of mercenaries, composed of tough guys from the 80s to early 2000s, is akin to Slash’s Snakepit, a supergroup that takes us back to a time when men were muscleheads, and we, the audience, cheerfully applauded their antics.
I must admit, I found myself still enjoying some of the swaggering absurdity in this film. Who could resist the implausible physics of Curtis Jackson (aka 50 Cent) body-slamming a villain like a tantrum-throwing toddler with his doll? Or Dolph Lundgren mocking his aging eyesight by attaching a prescription lens to his sniper rifle? Or Sylvester Stallone grumbling about a thumb-wrestling injury, which he decides to nurse with a tiny custom leather sling? Or Jason Statham, the comic genius of a bruiser who has now been promoted to the lead role, doing pretty much anything?
In an earlier era, Statham’s agility and skills would have earned him a career like Jimmy Cagney’s. However, he is stuck in our era, with a script that offers a few witty lines (such as calling an enemy “a sneaky little sausage”), but ultimately lets him down. The screenwriters Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart, and Max Adams seem disinterested in the plot, repeatedly mentioning “detonator” and “World War 3” until these threats fade into the background noise.
These antics would be more enjoyable if the actors didn’t appear so unfazed. Nothing seems to break their composure: not explosions or blood splatters, not beheadings or nuclear bombs, not even the sight of a warship careening in the Sea of Japan (perhaps because all these elements were poorly rendered in post-production). Even a back-flipping, insult-filled seduction scene between Statham and his new teammate, played by Megan Fox, lacks any smudge on their lip gloss. It’s just another artificial moment.
The film’s energy relies on throwaway gags, like when Jacob Scipio, portraying a motor-mouthed young Expendable, sips a cocktail with a pink umbrella at a funeral. There’s an absurdly enjoyable detour involving a lecherous internet influencer (Samuel Black) and a shootout interrupted by a stereo playing 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.,” which is outright ridiculous. Is this rapper Jackson the same person as the assassin Jackson? Does he moonlight as an agent of chaos?
Andy Garcia, Randy Couture, Levy Tran, and the legendary martial artist Tony Jaa complete our cast of protagonists, while Iko Uwais leads a generic group of henchmen, giving his all to a villain with no discernible traits except for a scar. When things start to get boring, Lundgren is always there in the background, portraying his character’s nearsightedness with the charming goofiness of Marilyn Monroe. However, the film’s final act is so dreadful, so disdainful of our willingness to indulge in these shenanigans, that we exit the theater still fixated on that middle finger. It felt like it was aimed directly at us.
“Expend4bles” is rated R for foul language and excessively digitized violence. It has a runtime of 1 hour and 43 minutes and is currently showing in theaters.
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