THE EXPENDABLES (2010) (**1/2)

What can I say about Sylvester Stallone's THE EXPENDABLES other than it gives you what you expect? Aging action stars. Explosions. Soldiers of fortune. Explosions. Lots of fisticuffs. Explosions. Snarky dialogue. Oh, did I mention explosions. For some that will be plenty, but for most it won't be enough.

Stallone plays Barney Ross, the leader of a group of soldiers of fortune. The film opens with the men on a mission in Africa where tensions boil between teammates Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren, ROCKY 4) and Yin Yang (Jet Li, ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA) over hanging one of the Somali pirates. Later Ross meets with the secretive Mr. Church (Bruce Willis, DIE HARD), who offers his team a job to overthrow the dictator on the island of Vilena named General Garza (David Zayas, TV's DEXTER). Once there he discovers that he's been commissioned by the general's own daughter Sandra (Gisele Itie). Turns out, her father is just a puppet for ruthless ex-CIA agent James Munrow (Eric Roberts, THE DARK KNIGHT).

Ross' team has all the prerequisites. Lee Christmas (Jason Statham, THE TRANSPORTER) is his righthand man, whose girlfriend Lacy (Charisma Carpenter, TV's BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYERS) just left him for another man, because of all the time he is away without warning. Toll Road (UFC fighter Randy Couture) is the demolitions expert and Hale Caesar (Terry Crews, IDIOCRACY) is the weapons expert. Tool (Mickey Rourke, THE WRESTLER) does their tattoos and coordinates the missions. As one might expect, the film delivers on all the fight combinations that fans would want. In addition to the above muscle there is also Munrow's henchmen Paine (Steve Austin, THE CONDEMNED) and The Brit (Gary Daniels, TEKKEN).

The Expendables mission of course doesn't turn out to be what it appeared to be from the start. After a reconnaissance mission goes terribly wrong, the mission becomes personal for Ross. He believes in the cause of the rebels and their model hot leader Sandra. So a good portion of the tailend of the film is a storming the castle tale. In the process lots of things blow up. The action choreography reminded me of the ultra violent style of many '80s films like RAMBO and COMMANDO with a touch of modern over-the-top visual effects flare. To its credit the former works better than the latter.

The performances are tongue-in-cheek. Stallone and Statham delight in winking at the audience. They're having fun and it does carry over somewhat to the viewer. Roberts gnaws the scenery like a good villain should I guess. However, Rourke wasn't informed of any of this and gives a real performance. His speech on his time in Bosnia deserves a better movie.

So there you have it. You know what kind of movies you like. For me this is a big dumb adrenaline flick that knows it's based around a gimmick and has some fun with it. I mean just look at the character names for goodness sake. I was mildly entertained while watching it, but repeat viewings are not needed. I mean I've seen this movie before I saw this movie. And Stallone starred in that too.