The Expendables 3
Rated: M
Three out of five
Now showing
AN ACTION film packed with ageing stars like Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mel Gibson and Wesley Snipes certainly won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.
But for those fans of the rough-and-tough films, The Expendables 3 will be right up your alley.
Stallone returns to reprise his role of Barney Ross, an Expendables co-founder with his usual team of stars Statham, Snipes, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture and Terry Crews in tow.
But when crew member Caesar (Crews) gets shot in a job-gone-wrong, Ross begins to see his ageing team as a liability and sets out to find a younger pack he can lead to take down former friend, now wanted arms dealer Stonebanks (Gibson).
The catch is this sequel Ross thought Stonebanks was dead after the duo had a falling out.
Together with talent scout Bonaparte (Kelsey Grammar) Ross searches far and wide to put together a crew that can meet his standards, and take on the sheer firepower of Gibson’s Stonebanks.
The role is a return of sorts for Gibson who plays the bad guy to a tee.
But for a realist like myself, I struggle to understand how multiple armies would bow down to one man (Gibson) and join in his crusade against Ross’ team of rogue militants.
Ross recruits gun fighter Luna (the UFC’S first female fighter Ronda Rousey in her breakout role), Smilee (Kellan Lutz), Mars (Victor Ortiz) and Thorn (Glen Powell) as his younger, faster and more tech-savvy squad.
But when Ross’ attempt to take down Stonebanks again goes awry, it’s the old crew led by Christmas (Statham) who return to save the day.
Antonio Banderas plays a guest role in the film as a Ross crew hopeful whose incessant talking adds a bit of humour to the film.
And trust me, the humour is a welcome change from the seemingly never-ending action.
A 10,000 on 10 all-out gunfight certainly gives the film the firepower Expendables fans came to see.
But for me, I needed to see more of a storyline.
Yes the Ross v Stonebanks former friends now enemies has its credibility but the lack of storyline behind each of Ross’ new recruits makes them harder to like than the old crew viewers have learned to love in the previous Expendables films.
True fans of the Expendables series will enjoy this film.
