As The Expendables 4, the final entry of the franchise whose Usp was assembling yesteryear’s action movie icons together, releases worldwide this week, the burning question regarding its relevancy arises. To be honest, even die-hard fans of the series didn’t expect the release of yet another sequel after the completion of the trilogy, and considering how much production trouble this one has gone through, there was always a warning sign looming over its future. Adding to its misery was the gap between the previous movie and the latest one being nine years—a rather long period in an ever-evolving pop culture landscape that is bombarded with content every day. There was still an off chance for The Expendables 4 to prove the naysayers wrong, concluding the saga in a memorable manner, but unfortunately that didn’t come to pass.
The Expendables meanders around a totally drab and clichéd...
The Expendables meanders around a totally drab and clichéd...
- 9/22/2023
- by Siddhartha Das
- Film Fugitives
Stars: Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Megan Fox, Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Randy Couture, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran, Andy García | Written by Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart, Max Adams | Directed by Scott Waugh
The Expendables return for a fourth instalment in the former-action-heroes-blowing-things-up franchise. This time around, the law of diminishing returns is in full effect – the bigger names from the previous films are conspicuous by their absence, the script is terrible even by the standards of the first three movies and the film largely wastes its two most exciting new cast members.
The plot, such as it is, sees Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) and their team of mercenaries – including Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Toll Road (Randy Couture), Easy Day (new recruit Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) and Galan (Jacob Scipio), son of former Expendable Antonio Banderas – tasked with retrieving a cache of nukes...
The Expendables return for a fourth instalment in the former-action-heroes-blowing-things-up franchise. This time around, the law of diminishing returns is in full effect – the bigger names from the previous films are conspicuous by their absence, the script is terrible even by the standards of the first three movies and the film largely wastes its two most exciting new cast members.
The plot, such as it is, sees Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) and their team of mercenaries – including Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Toll Road (Randy Couture), Easy Day (new recruit Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) and Galan (Jacob Scipio), son of former Expendable Antonio Banderas – tasked with retrieving a cache of nukes...
- 9/22/2023
- by Matthew Turner
- Nerdly
Major spoilers for "Expend4bles" follow.
Ever since "The Expendables" was released in 2010, the identity and tone of the franchise has been heavily in question. That first film seemed to want to have things both ways, presenting the trials and tribulations of the (very fictional) titular team of mercenaries while metatextually commenting on (and piggybacking off of) the action stars playing them. Put another way, it's as if the crossover formula seen in Marvel's "The Avengers" franchise was reversed: the coming together of the film's stars are the big draw, while the characters are (at least initially) not well known.
While 2012's "The Expendables 2" leaned far more into the meta aspects of people like Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris showing up in the same film, 2014's "The Expendables 3" attempted to find a similar balance to the first film, establishing its characters in their own right while still...
Ever since "The Expendables" was released in 2010, the identity and tone of the franchise has been heavily in question. That first film seemed to want to have things both ways, presenting the trials and tribulations of the (very fictional) titular team of mercenaries while metatextually commenting on (and piggybacking off of) the action stars playing them. Put another way, it's as if the crossover formula seen in Marvel's "The Avengers" franchise was reversed: the coming together of the film's stars are the big draw, while the characters are (at least initially) not well known.
While 2012's "The Expendables 2" leaned far more into the meta aspects of people like Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris showing up in the same film, 2014's "The Expendables 3" attempted to find a similar balance to the first film, establishing its characters in their own right while still...
- 9/22/2023
- by Bill Bria
- Slash Film
The on-screen figures in the "Expendables" movies aren't so much characters as they are human-shaped bundles of toxically masculine clichés and blind, violent impulses wrapped in skull-emblazoned kevlar. They lurch about on-screen like Frankensteinian monsters, living piles of jock straps and congealed taurine drinks, belching out monosyllabic action flick catchphrases in between Don Julio-instigated brawls and violent, bullet-riddled missions in other countries. These characters have no thoughts, no humanity, no sense of morals or righteousness. They have no desires other than a distant lizard-brain perception that soldiers in other countries probably need to blow up. "G.I. Joe" is more sophisticated.
With Scott Waugh's "Expend4bles" we are now four films deep into this series, and the franchise's original saleable gimmick has been abandoned. One might recall that Sylvester Stallone's "The Expendables" and Simon West's "The Expendables 2" existed merely to unite a cadre of ultra-macho, well-worn badass...
With Scott Waugh's "Expend4bles" we are now four films deep into this series, and the franchise's original saleable gimmick has been abandoned. One might recall that Sylvester Stallone's "The Expendables" and Simon West's "The Expendables 2" existed merely to unite a cadre of ultra-macho, well-worn badass...
- 9/21/2023
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
From left: 50 Cent, Megan Fox, Dolph Lundgren, Jacob Scipio, and Andy Garcia in Expen4ablesPhoto: Lionsgate
Less of a deconstruction of ’80s action movie machismo and more a whole-hearted embrace of cinema’s bygone bombastic era, The Expendables franchise has varied drastically in quality throughout its 13-year existence. The...
Less of a deconstruction of ’80s action movie machismo and more a whole-hearted embrace of cinema’s bygone bombastic era, The Expendables franchise has varied drastically in quality throughout its 13-year existence. The...
- 9/21/2023
- by Courtney Howard
- avclub.com
For 4n utterly braindead and 4rtlessly cr4fted movie th4t feels like 4 fe4ture-length Fmv cut-scene from 4 Sega CD g4me, “Expend4bles” would be a lot more p4inful if not for the fact that it’s so 4t pe4ce with its gener4l shittiness. Don’t get me wrong, the creative and aesthetic indifference behind this long-gestating action sequel — which arrives nine years after “Expendables 3,” but still well before people had time to get nostalgic for this already reheated ’80s revival junk — is remarkable even by the standards of a series that has always prided itself on being cinema’s most glorified direct-to-video project, the “Avengers” of Cialis.
The script, credited to Max Adams, Kurt Wimmer, and the awesomely-named Tad Daggerhart, feels like it was written by a frat boy trying to plagiarize “Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty” (including a guy code-named “Ocelot” but...
The script, credited to Max Adams, Kurt Wimmer, and the awesomely-named Tad Daggerhart, feels like it was written by a frat boy trying to plagiarize “Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty” (including a guy code-named “Ocelot” but...
- 9/21/2023
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Working titles of ‘Making Europe Through Fairy Tales’, ‘Petit Films Pour Les Grandes’.
French animation legend Michel Ocelot has detailed his next two projects, including a pan-European series of fairy tales taking one story from each country on the continent.
With the working title of Making Europe Through Fairy Tales, the project will be a collection of shorts.
Ocelot will provide his famous black silhouette characters, including the princes and princesses that populate many of his works; the stories themselves will be written and directed by different animation filmmakers in each country. The stories will have no connection to each...
French animation legend Michel Ocelot has detailed his next two projects, including a pan-European series of fairy tales taking one story from each country on the continent.
With the working title of Making Europe Through Fairy Tales, the project will be a collection of shorts.
Ocelot will provide his famous black silhouette characters, including the princes and princesses that populate many of his works; the stories themselves will be written and directed by different animation filmmakers in each country. The stories will have no connection to each...
- 6/17/2022
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
“The Black Pharaoh, the Savage and the Princess,” BAFTA-winning French director Michel Ocelot (“Kirikou and the Sorceress”)’s anticipated new animated feature, has been sold by Paris-based Playtime to major territories.
The colorful film is playing at this week’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival where Ocelot is the recipient of the Honorary Cristal Award paying tribute to his laureled career.
Launched at the Cannes film market, “The Black Pharaoh, the Savage and the Princess” has already been acquired for Italy (Movies Inspired), Canada (Axia), Ex-yougoslavie (McF) and Portugal (Leopardo). The company is currently in talks with other buyers in the rest of Europe.
Ocelot’s film, which is produced by Christophe Rossignon’s well-established banner Nord-Ouest Films, tells three tales set in three different eras and worlds. In Ancient Egypt, a young king becomes the first black pharaoh to deserve the hand of his loved one. During the French Middle Ages,...
The colorful film is playing at this week’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival where Ocelot is the recipient of the Honorary Cristal Award paying tribute to his laureled career.
Launched at the Cannes film market, “The Black Pharaoh, the Savage and the Princess” has already been acquired for Italy (Movies Inspired), Canada (Axia), Ex-yougoslavie (McF) and Portugal (Leopardo). The company is currently in talks with other buyers in the rest of Europe.
Ocelot’s film, which is produced by Christophe Rossignon’s well-established banner Nord-Ouest Films, tells three tales set in three different eras and worlds. In Ancient Egypt, a young king becomes the first black pharaoh to deserve the hand of his loved one. During the French Middle Ages,...
- 6/16/2022
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
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