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-The Expendables- (Stallone, Jet Li, Statham AND Lundgren)

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I thought the movie was enjoyable enough. Not going to complain I was entertained.

But I noticed something, I may be thinking way to deep into this but, in the scene where
Gunner was chasing Ross and Yang in the trucks and Ross swerves his truck around the semi
I could swear I was looking at the semi in Terminator 2!
244bfcj.jpg

I don't have the shot from The Expendables but the first thing I said when I saw the truck was "that's the damn truck from T2!"
Was it maybe a small homage to T2 or me dissecting it a little too much?

Sorry if already mentioned but I just got home and I'm tired and don't want to search.
 
Movie pretty much sucked. Best part was the fighting in
the tunnels
near the end - and the badass AA-12. The rest of it fucking sucked. The story sucked and we even get treated to a little subplot about
statham's girlfriend getting roughed up...
- what in the FUCK was that doing in a "high adrenaline" action movie? Totally out of place.
 
BigNastyCurve said:
The story sucked and we even get treated to a little subplot about
statham's girlfriend getting roughed up...
- what in the FUCK was that doing in a "high adrenaline" action movie? Totally out of place.

More testosterone wish fulfillment.

Woman dumps him.

Woman is wrong.

Christmas gets the opening to beat the dudes ass, plus the bonus of beating all his friends asses.

You people are waaaaay over thinking, just go see Inception again.
 

nbraun80

Member
Just got back from the movie, and as i expected it was BADASS. The story really wasn't that damn bad, but of course haters are gonna hate and such...
 
Just saw it.

Excellent movie.

Completing the trifecta of Rocky Balboa and Rambo, it cements Stallone as a director worth watching.
Although directed by Renny Harlin, Stallone's story for Driven was good, too.
He has clearly matured as an artist.

Under the over-the-top antics there is surprising depth.

Hope there is an extended cut with more Crews. More splatter, too.

Would watch at least two sequels. Arnold returns for 3.
 

elwes

Member
Saw this tonight. Outside of a few scenes, it was pretty awful. I'm not really surprised, though. When the first trailer hit (the one that wasn't an amped up, hollywood-ized trailer) that had about 3-4 minutes of random clips strung haphazardly throughout, it looked incredibly mediocre. I was confused because I thought it was gunning to be an A-list, action star orgasm.

The dialogue is cringe-worthy to the point of being embarrassing. Every attempt that was made to turn this ragtag group of mercenaries into a group of good friends fell completely flat. There was absolutely no chemistry between any of them. Watching Stallone interact with Statham was like watching an oiled up pug trying to hump an exercise ball. Jet Li's line delivery made me feel sorry for the guy.

In my opinion, there has only been one actor that has managed to transcend his pro wrestling roots, and that's Dwayne Johnson. Steve Austin wasn't terrible in his role in the sense that he accomplished what he was supposed to accomplish, but watching him act just makes me think of pro wrestling which in turn makes me take whatever I'm watching less seriously.

And I haven't even gotten to the action.

I will admit that there were a few parts in this movie that were cool, but they were few and far between and completely spoiled by the inability to track the action. I would have had no problem with each action star getting their time to shine, but so many of the sequences were shaky cam'ed to hell with such swift, rapid cuts to different fight scenes that any enjoyment I could have gotten out of the action instantly evaporated. It felt like every single time a cool thing happened, there wasn't enough time to revel in the gore and awesomeness before five consecutive cuts to five separate people punching/killing/shooting five separate guards was shoved in your face.

And what was up with
Lundgren's character being accepted back into the group? Dude tried to fucking MURDER Jet Li's character, AFTER he sells out his friends for money. Makes no sense.


I'm one of those people who tends to like most of what he sees, despite the actual quality of the movie. This movie was just boring. Maybe I would have liked it if Stallone had approached it in a different way so the final product felt more accessible.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Horrible, horrible film... with shitty direction (what's with the CLOSE UPS every other scene?) and terrible writing (someone tried to rip off Tarantino and failed).

Even the money shot action scenes were pretty boring to watch. Too bad. :(
 
watching this movie for the story = :lol , I just wanted to see some guys get fucked up and explosions with Action heroes.

It was good for what it was...
If I wanted a good story I would go see inception again.
 
elwes said:
And what was up with
Lundgren's character being accepted back into the group? Dude tried to fucking MURDER Jet Li's character, AFTER he sells out his friends for money. Makes no sense.

you are THINKING TOO MUCH! :D It´s not a big deal! All is cool in war and bro.
 

Jex

Member
Noisepurge said:
you are THINKING TOO MUCH! :D It´s not a big deal! All is cool in war and bro.
That's right! If you have any complaints you should just hit your head against a wall until you start to appreciate the film.
 

Salsa

Member
SuperAndroid17 said:
watching this movie for the story = :lol


I hate this shit. When you watch a movie you expect to watch a movie. Of course there´s a main draw, but that doesnt mean a good story would hurt. Why do you think a movie like Kill Bill is loved both by "ACTION!GORE!" guys and guys who care about story/script.

Its the whole "you need to shut down your brain before seeing the movie!" debacle again, why the fuck would i have to shut down my brain ? fuck no, its a movie not a rollercoaster.


Havent seen the film yet btw.
 
SalsaShark said:
I hate this shit. When you watch a movie you expect to watch a movie. Of course there´s a main draw, but that doesnt mean a good story would hurt. Why do you think a movie like Kill Bill is loved both by "ACTION!GORE!" guys and guys who care about story/script.

Its the whole "you need to shut down your brain before seeing the movie!" debacle again, why the fuck would i have to shut down my brain ? fuck no, its a movie not a rollercoaster.
gotta know what you're going to see. in this case, you're going to see a movie where the plan was to shoot a bunch of people and blow a lot of shit up.

then they decided to weave enough plot in to make it coherent, but not take away too much time from shooting people and blowing shit up. because the movie is about guns and explosions.

and so you wind up with Rambo-style movies. if you value plot more, don't bitch about it not being in this movie, as it never pretends to have a lot of it. just don't go see it.

it's really just that fucking simple. this movie was designed for an audience that just wanted to enjoy 80s and 90s action heroes blowing as much shit up as humanly possible inside a <2 hour window of time. the intended audience left satisfied. those who need emotion and filler and depth left wanting. it could have done more, it could have done less. but as it stands, this is what we have...so enjoy it or don't...but let's not act like it pretends to be Mulholland Drive or Inception and failed to deliver that...it said it was a balls-out action movie...and let's not pretend every movie has to be Kill Bill in order to qualify as a good action movie. maybe that's YOUR requirement...but understand the world is bigger than you...and apply that realization liberally across the world as you know it.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
^
Sadly, Stallone did a much better job with Rambo. Better script, better directing, better action. Even if you go in with low standards, there's no excuse for this movie being worse than the last Rambo movie.
 

Future

Member
elwes said:
I will admit that there were a few parts in this movie that were cool, but they were few and far between and completely spoiled by the inability to track the action. I would have had no problem with each action star getting their time to shine, but so many of the sequences were shaky cam'ed to hell with such swift, rapid cuts to different fight scenes that any enjoyment I could have gotten out of the action instantly evaporated. It felt like every single time a cool thing happened, there wasn't enough time to revel in the gore and awesomeness before five consecutive cuts to five separate people punching/killing/shooting five separate guards was shoved in your face.

Thats what bugged me. Statham was doin awesome shit throughout (probably the best of the crew IMO), but you could barely track it with the cuts. The action had punch, and they hit awesome poses and had cool kills...but damn it was all hard to see.

The sad thing is that with this talent, they DIDNT need to do this! These actors can actually fight a bit so there is no need to mask the skills with cuts like theyd have to do in an Angelina Jolie movie or somethin. These guys actually look good doin their shit, so why they decided to hide it is beyond me. Even when there were only 2 people fighting, theyd cut a billion times to show a different angle almost every swing. Not good

Still enjoyed the movie for what it was though. Just it could have and SHOULD have been better with this cast
 
firehawk12 said:
^
Sadly, Stallone did a much better job with Rambo. Better script, better directing, better action. Even if you go in with low standards, there's no excuse for this movie being worse than the last Rambo movie.

Wow. The script in the last Rambo was better? I enjoyed the hell out of Rambo 4, but that makes me wanna reconsider seeing this.
 

GONz

Member
The Expendables are coming to... China!
efMTU.jpg

(I can hardly think of a movie starring Jet LI that can't get approval in PRC :lol; don't know about cuts and censoring...)
 
Saw it last night. It's not bad, there's things that are enjoyable about it, but it's absolutely bad film making. The pacing was bad, the writing was bad, the fight scenes for the most part were poorly filmed, so many of the lines were bad (and not bad in a satisfyingly cheesy type of way).

For me, Terry Crews was the best part.
When he shows up and saves them all when they're pinned down, blowing his auto-shotty on full automatic...That was good. Other than that, so much wrong with the movie. Stuff going on that is unexplained and doesn't make sense. We have 20 minutes to blow this place! Uh, why only 20 minutes? The one Expendable that beats Steve Austin in a fight makes no sense. Stallone and Austin have sort of a rivalry going and the expendable that no one knows fights and kills him? OK...Bad choice there.
I could go on and on listing the dumb decisions and poor film making all throughout the movie, but like I said I didn't feel like it was a waste of money. It's not bad for what it is, though it could have been better.
 

Acosta

Member
ToyMachine228 said:
The one Expendable that beats Steve Austin in a fight makes no sense. Stallone and Austin have sort of a rivalry going and the expendable that no one knows fights and kills him? OK...Bad choice there.

It makes perfect sense:

wrestler Vs greco-roman fighter, made for a great fight
 

Acosta

Member
I just read than Expendables has surpassed Eat Pray Love :)lol ), and Scott Pilgrim (double :lol).

Life is beautiful, now hurry up with the uncut version, I want to see the not kiddie version (still a bit annoyed they had to soft it up for cinema, but if it allows a sequel, I'm up for it.)
 
The Take Out Bandit said:
You people are waaaaay over thinking, just go see Inception again.

I have to fly my kids to Paris, first.

My favorite part in the theater was when
after Gunner was let go, we don't see him for a bit, and then when Eric Roberts calls in the new help and it turns out to be Gunner, the audience fucking gasped in shock.
Are you kidding me? :lol

And because I am an attention whore, any scene between Barney and Gunner I had to quietly say "If I can change, and you can change, EVERYBODY CAN CHANGE!" We were all cracking up.

Stone Cold was underused, I thought,
and his death was kind of cheesy.
 
Thinking back on the film. I still loved it and ate up every second of it, but the film would not have the same impact if it wasn't for the casting. A lot of the action scenes and fights would have been neat with any random guy in it, but the added novelty of things like Steve Austin vs. Stallone or Jet Li vs. Gary Daniels just elevated it to stoopid manish awesomeness.
 

Acosta

Member
PhoncipleBone said:
Thinking back on the film. I still loved it and ate up every second of it, but the film would not have the same impact if it wasn't for the casting. A lot of the action scenes and fights would have been neat with any random guy in it, but the added novelty of things like Steve Austin vs. Stallone or Jet Li vs. Gary Daniels just elevated it to stoopid manish awesomeness.

That was the point for me, I didn't care at all for the script, the coherence or the sense of the film, I just wanted mannish awesomeness in the silliest way possible with some of my favourite action-heroes, and I got that. Mission accomplished. I felt like I was 10 years old again and loved every minute of it.

Without those characters, the winks, the homages to 80/90 action movies and so, it would't be the same, of course not. Still, I was very satisfied with the action, I had not problem with the multiples cuts (I like it) and the blurriness was at ok levels. The shooting was brutal, I really enjoyed it.

I would have paid the price only to watch the exchange between Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Willis :lol
 
Count Dookkake said:
Just saw it.

Excellent movie.

Completing the trifecta of Rocky Balboa and Rambo, it cements Stallone as a director worth watching.
Although directed by Renny Harlin, Stallone's story for Driven was good, too.
He has clearly matured as an artist.

Under the over-the-top antics there is surprising depth.

Hope there is an extended cut with more Crews. More splatter, too.

Would watch at least two sequels. Arnold returns for 3.

I just can't fucking buy this without an explanation. What "surprising depth"? What did Stallone do as a director in The Expendables that makes it better than your average action flick?
 
elwes said:
And what was up with
Lundgren's character being accepted back into the group? Dude tried to fucking MURDER Jet Li's character, AFTER he sells out his friends for money. Makes no sense.

You know, I actually enjoyed that aspect of the movie.

This movie and Rambo have eschewed the 80's formula of badass team inserts into war zone and is picked off one by one until only the star remains. I appreciate this because in a movie like Predator I loved all the characters, but they all had to die. :(

It's good to see everybody make it out alive.

As for Gunnar they establish him early on as a drug user and a risk; but this is where the maturity of story comes in IMO, and Barney forgives Gunnar instead of outright killing him.

How many friends do you know that are douchebags, but are still your friends?

I dunno. I may be over thinking it, but I really dig it.
 
PhoncipleBone said:
I think you are overthinking it actually. I think they kept him around just to see him kick lots of ass in the potential sequel.

Either way I agree. That's my story and I'm sticking by it!

Potential sequel needs more Gunnar! :D
 
Expendable. said:
I just can't fucking buy this without an explanation. What "surprising depth"? What did Stallone do as a director in The Expendables that makes it better than your average action flick?

Themes I did not expect to see in this movie:

1) Personal cost of violence.

2) Art as therapy and as tool of rebellion.

3) Forgiveness.

4) Ethical difference between kinds of violence.
Waterboarding scene bothered my audience.

As for the directing/storytelling: I really enjoyed the meandering structure. For an action film inspired by the excess of the 80s, it seems very personal to me. Not far removed from an "art" film.

The Take Out Bandit makes some good points in his post above.
 

harSon

Banned
I forgot to bring the waterboarding scene up. Isn't the person's head supposed to be inclined backwards for it work as intended? They just had her perfectly horizontal..
 
harSon said:
I forgot to bring the waterboarding scene up. Isn't the person's head supposed to be inclined backwards for it work as intended? They just had her perfectly horizontal..
Thought her head was hanging off of the table some, basically just enough.


El Sloth said:
That monster is real!? I demand every action movie from now on have at least one scene involving this gun.
And every FPS has to have it from now on.
 

harSon

Banned
PhoncipleBone said:
Thought her head was hanging off of the table some, basically just enough.

I'm not 100% positive but I'm pretty sure both the victim's feet being raised and their head being lowered are crucial components to waterboarding. Every time I've seen it demonstrated, both in real life and on film, had had the victim's body inclined downward as a whole.
 
harSon said:
I'm not 100% positive but I'm pretty sure both the victim's feet being raised and their head being lowered are crucial components to waterboarding. Every time I've seen it demonstrated, both in real life and on film, had had the victim's body inclined downward as a whole.

In a film where it takes less than 10 seconds to get part of a tattoo, I don't think they really worried about it.
 

Beezy

Member
elwes said:
Watching Stallone interact with Statham was like watching an oiled up pug trying to hump an exercise ball.
Wow. You managed to write something a lot worse than any of the cheesy lines in this movie.
 

Dabanton

Member
Kabuki Waq said:
that was a given but by how much? R rated action movies dont last long.

From another site i frequent.

1 The Expendables $35M - $35M
2 Eat Pray Love $23.7M - $23.7M
3 The Other Guys $18M - $70.5M
4 Inception $11.4M - $248.6M
5 Scott Pilgrim vs. The World $10.5M - $10.5M
6 Despicable Me $6.7M - $221.9M
7 Step Up 3D $6.6M - $29.5M
8 Salt $6.3M - $103.5M
9 Dinner for Schmucks $6.3M - $58.5M
10 Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore $4M - $35.1M

The box office thread should be fun today. :lol
 

Blablurn

Member
GONz said:
The Expendables are coming to... China!
efMTU.jpg

(I can hardly think of a movie starring Jet LI that can't get approval in PRC :lol; don't know about cuts and censoring...)

awesome. i'm moving to china on the 26th :lol can't wait.
 
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