Dear Sly,
You are a terrific writer. You have made and written some of the best screenplays of my youth and of my adult life. You wrote Rocky, did the screenplays for First Blood, Rambo, Cliffhanger, The Expendables and Homefront. All fantastic films.
When you made The Expendables, you thought to bring some of the best action guys around, and put them in one film. You called on your friends and because of this you were able to get Dolph, Mickey, Eric and of course Bruce and Arnold. But more than that, you had an ideal. You let each actor do his thing. Jet and Dolph had terrific battle and then you had Jet and Jason fight it out in an epic battle against Gary Daniels. Then you had Randy fight it out with Austin, after you had one awesome go with him. Then, in perhaps one of the most unselfish moves in the film, you got Terry to toss the bomb when you couldn't. The whole point to this is you let everyone shine. The first film was bad ass because of this.
The second film got away from this. You still let Statham do his thing but your battle with Van Damme was poorly executed. And in my opinion, the last battle should not have been with you and him, it should have been with Dolph and Van Damme, for obvious reasons ( I know you know this but to spell it out for you...they were in Universal Soldier together and both are world class martial artists).
Then comes the third. You get a dream cast. All your friends are in it and you even manage to get Harrison Ford, Wesley Snipes and Mel Gibson. It's never been done before and it certainly got me interested in the film. But once again, you messed it up. You forgot what made the first so special. It wasn't because all these guys could fire guns, it was because they could kick some serious ass. Dolph and Jet are world class martial artists, Statham and Gibson have played ones in films. You have MMA guys and of course Snipes who is also a real life ass kicker. Then you get Banderas to come in, talk the whole film about how good a killer he is, and then what do you do with all these guys? NOTHING. They just come along for the ride, shoot a few guns and then you fight Gibson for about 15 seconds. WTF! The story line with the young kids was interesting but again, you did nothing with it. Why not let Roussey show her stuff? Why not let Lutz fight someone? And how about killing a few people? You did none of this, you just had a bunch of actors fire guns.
You have so many story lines here. You even set it up by saying that you were all getting too old for this stuff. But you just let it go. You should have done what you did in the first. Here is how the end of the third film should have went.
The bomb is defused. You find Stonebanks. You guys start to fight. But just like Grammar told you, you can't win this thing. Stonebanks is too good. As you are holding your own, but clearly losing, out of the smoke, in a slow motion shot, comes Jet Li, who as we all know was in Lethal Weapon 4 with Mel. The two of you stop fighting. Mel looks at Jet, makes some kind of comment about how short he is. Jet stops, takes his jacket and weapons off. He squares off to fight Gibson and the two of them put on on a martial arts display while you stand aside. Jet eventually destroys him, because, you know, he's a true life bad ass. With Gibson dead, Jet picks you up and helps you to the chopper. As he does, he tells you that now you should pay him more money. The two of you laugh and then you live happily ever after.
The Expendables was never all about you. It was about a team. But with the sequels, you took the focus away from the team and made it all about you. Shame on you, Sly. You let me down, big time.
And you let your fans down.
6/10
You are a terrific writer. You have made and written some of the best screenplays of my youth and of my adult life. You wrote Rocky, did the screenplays for First Blood, Rambo, Cliffhanger, The Expendables and Homefront. All fantastic films.
When you made The Expendables, you thought to bring some of the best action guys around, and put them in one film. You called on your friends and because of this you were able to get Dolph, Mickey, Eric and of course Bruce and Arnold. But more than that, you had an ideal. You let each actor do his thing. Jet and Dolph had terrific battle and then you had Jet and Jason fight it out in an epic battle against Gary Daniels. Then you had Randy fight it out with Austin, after you had one awesome go with him. Then, in perhaps one of the most unselfish moves in the film, you got Terry to toss the bomb when you couldn't. The whole point to this is you let everyone shine. The first film was bad ass because of this.
The second film got away from this. You still let Statham do his thing but your battle with Van Damme was poorly executed. And in my opinion, the last battle should not have been with you and him, it should have been with Dolph and Van Damme, for obvious reasons ( I know you know this but to spell it out for you...they were in Universal Soldier together and both are world class martial artists).
Then comes the third. You get a dream cast. All your friends are in it and you even manage to get Harrison Ford, Wesley Snipes and Mel Gibson. It's never been done before and it certainly got me interested in the film. But once again, you messed it up. You forgot what made the first so special. It wasn't because all these guys could fire guns, it was because they could kick some serious ass. Dolph and Jet are world class martial artists, Statham and Gibson have played ones in films. You have MMA guys and of course Snipes who is also a real life ass kicker. Then you get Banderas to come in, talk the whole film about how good a killer he is, and then what do you do with all these guys? NOTHING. They just come along for the ride, shoot a few guns and then you fight Gibson for about 15 seconds. WTF! The story line with the young kids was interesting but again, you did nothing with it. Why not let Roussey show her stuff? Why not let Lutz fight someone? And how about killing a few people? You did none of this, you just had a bunch of actors fire guns.
You have so many story lines here. You even set it up by saying that you were all getting too old for this stuff. But you just let it go. You should have done what you did in the first. Here is how the end of the third film should have went.
The bomb is defused. You find Stonebanks. You guys start to fight. But just like Grammar told you, you can't win this thing. Stonebanks is too good. As you are holding your own, but clearly losing, out of the smoke, in a slow motion shot, comes Jet Li, who as we all know was in Lethal Weapon 4 with Mel. The two of you stop fighting. Mel looks at Jet, makes some kind of comment about how short he is. Jet stops, takes his jacket and weapons off. He squares off to fight Gibson and the two of them put on on a martial arts display while you stand aside. Jet eventually destroys him, because, you know, he's a true life bad ass. With Gibson dead, Jet picks you up and helps you to the chopper. As he does, he tells you that now you should pay him more money. The two of you laugh and then you live happily ever after.
The Expendables was never all about you. It was about a team. But with the sequels, you took the focus away from the team and made it all about you. Shame on you, Sly. You let me down, big time.
And you let your fans down.
6/10