Review: ‘The Expendables 3’

Well they’ve made three of these things now, so I guess it is time to call it, it is official, there really is no hope for us to ever get the truly great Expendables movie we all want. No, instead here we are again, with “The Expendables 3” another incredible assemblage of a cast, most of whom are incredibly underused,  yet another boring plot, halfway decent action and some insider jokes and references to past movies. And if any of these movies were going to be great, “The Expendables 3” had the best chance. From the director of “Red Hill” and featuring the triumphant return of the great Wesley Snipes (reteaming with Sylvester Stallone for the first time since “Demolition Man“), this movie already has some really good things going for it. And they came up with a decent way to make the plot about Stallone’s Barney Ross character “retiring” his old team and replacing them with new ones who he feels truly are expendable, which is a smart move, and they also make it much more personal than the other movies by giving Ross and the group a direct connection to the bad guy so that Ross is going for revenge, which is always fun in a movie. Plus they made current Hollywood social pariah Mel Gibson the bad guy, which is doubly genius because they can channel that psycho rage he apparently has and use it to make a truly memorable movie villain. They got so much going right, how can it go wrong?

Well first off, they can barely use Wesley Snipes, but only after giving him an awesome intro in which he causes a ridiculous amount of destruction and mayhem all by himself, making the other Expendables think HE’S the crazy one. But after the opening scene, he’s barely seen from again until the final action scene, and even then he doesn’t get to much outside of close the loop on a running joke he has with Jason Statham’s Lee Christmas character. They also named him Doctor Death and made a big deal about the name and how he’s a medic, but I am pretty sure the only time he does anything close to doctor-y is when he sticks a needle in some guy’s ass. That’s it. A total waste of a good idea right there. He should have done some more doctor-type medical stuff, or else they should have called his character Mr. Death. Or how about Mr. Death, Esquire. But then they would totally botch having him come up with some writs, or else jokes based on writs.

Also being totally wasted in this movie? The great Terry Crews, who does a little bit of shooting and joking in the opening scene, then gets shot and spends the rest of the movie with his eyes closed in a hospital. I really can not explain to you right now the profound disappointment I felt in that theater when I realized how little Crews we were going to get in this movie.

By the way, Jet Li shows up long enough to (poorly) say a couple of lines of dialogue and shoot a machine gun at some bad guys from a great distance away. He doesn’t throw one punch or kick. He doesn’t even come face to face with any bad guys. He hangs around as Schwarzenegger’s buddy and that’s it. But I guess they needed the extra time for the MMA fighters they have this movie, and who also do VERY LITTLE hand to hand fighting. I suppose Stallone just wanted the world to see the amazing acting prowess of Victor Ortiz and Ronda Rousey (to be fair, neither of them are bad at all. Actually, I think Rousey is better than Gina Carano [Dear Ms. Carano, please don’t beat me up, it is just my opinion okaythanksbye]).

Oh and Kellan Lutz is in this thing. I guess that matters to fans of the “Twilight” series? I fail to see the crossover appeal. Dude can surely rock a meticulously groomed five o’clock shadow beard like he’s in an Axe body spray commercial, that’s for sure. So there’s that.

And Mel Gibson’s character? Stonebanks? Something Stonebanks? According to IMDB his name waaaaaaas…just Stonebanks. I know he had a first name in the movie. The reason I point this out is because his character is as forgettable as it gets. He acts slightly weird, as in he walks a little stiffly and gives everyone the crazy eyes, but otherwise he’s just a generic arms dealer with a smart yet inconsequential method of smuggling weapons.

Now I do remember the inimitable Robert Davi showing up for one scene with Gibson’s Stonebanks, so that was cool to see him in a big movie again, even if it was for such a small role, and in this particular movie.

But back to Stonebanks. He’s just so damn bland. Gibson does his best to imbue some manicness into the character, and maybe it is because we now all have this collective cultural image of a bearded, drunk Gibson prowling through his mansion yelling insane things at staff and women and whooping and hooting and hollering, most likely naked and smeared all over with something, maybe this is why he now seems like a great person to play bad guys in movies. Because otherwise there is nothing there. He has one good scene where he gets to taunt Stallone to his face for a good long while and then he has a decent fist fight with him at the end (this IS the guy that choked out an insane Gary Busey at the end of “Lethal Weapon” after all). But that’s it, he just stands around for the rest of the movie and communicates via web cams and facetime and looks at weapons and stuff.

So yeah there are a lot of missed opportunities in this movie, and things that seemed weird originally ended up being kind of bland in the end, like the inclusion of Kelsey Grammer as a dude who just helps put together the new young team of new Expendables and then disappears. A lot of people show up in this movie just to disappear.

Oh yeah. Harrison Ford. He flew a helicopter. That’s an inside joke. Because he flies helicopters. So he was okay I guess. Antonio Banderas was pretty delightful in this movie because he actually seemed like he was having fun, like Terry Crews in the first and second movies. But again. Crews was sidelined, so I guess Banderas just got to have all the good parts. Well, Snipes had some too in the beginning, but they never had good parts together in the same scene. Now THAT’s a fuck up. We should have had these two characters doing SOMETHING together. Ugh.

Anyway, it was all okay I guess if you like this kind of stuff but again the promise of the great all-time action flick is unfulfilled yet again.