bob, amigo... once again, you and I must disagree. I watched this on the plane last night, and thought it was
garbage.
For one thing, the fact that it got a PG-13 rating is a giant middle finger to anyone with a brain from the corrupt stooges at the MPAA, as this was one of the most violent movies I'd ever seen.
EX2 was filled with goons getting blown apart, with CGI blood and limbs flying everywhere, and it was fun in a cartoony way. Here, we have countless mooks yelping and dying right outside the frame, and the effect was downright disturbing and ghoulish, as I kept imagining how horrible and gruesome those kills must have been for the camera, as a character, to carefully and conspicuously look away each time. As a result, my enjoyment was severely diminished (not to mention the bad framing and too-fast editing moves necessary to pull all this off). Also, at one point, a helicopter crashes and explodes
out of frame. W.T.F. :|
I loved the second movie because it had a stylish, chilly look, the action was well-assembled, the banter was fun and the oldsters were enjoying themselves. Here, the banter tries for fun-bad but just belly-flops almost every time, and only the newbies are allowed to have fun for a while, while the old guard mope about being dumped.
EX1 had a likeable, fiery potential love interest and an involving Latino island setting, and
EX2 had its aforementioned pluses, and the series' only
actual Expendable death.
EX3 has only some bland younguns and Banderas, who's kind of okay, I guess, doing his jester thing. And I thought Gibson
was excellent in his one acting scene, but the movie doesn't let him kill a single Expendable, though he does get to kill some of his own thugs and buy a painting (the
rogue!). To repeat: a movie called
The Expendables can't kill off a
single damn member of its team.
W.
T.
F. :doh:
... Now, let's look at that Stallone quote again, shall we?
"This is a big conflict for me because in an R-rated film it is difficult to believe that none of the heroes die. I personally just believe that the characters become identifiable and their demise could put a dark cloud over an audience exiting the theatre after seeing the film."
Okay, Sylv, first, your characters aren't heroes if they don't do anything heroic (avenging/rescuing their
own doesn't really count). Second, no, the
characters aren't identifiable; the
actors are, and we know the actors aren't actually dying, stunt mishaps aside. While you're mowing down faceless antagonists left and right, you could totally make a pretty funny running joke of losing one or two Expendables per sequence, and then having the rest grieve them for a moment or two later at the bar before going back to the beer and darts (also, absolutely get the
oldsters singing karaoke next time). Unlike you, we're not personal friends with these actors, so we won't mind losing their "characters", especially if you give them fist-pumping, awesome demises.
Final thought: watch the excellent R-rated Gibson-financed flick
Get the Gringo on Netflix streaming before watching
EX3 if you haven't seen either. For a rental, with its amazing cast and some fun moments, EX3 is tolerable viewing, but make no mistake, it's absolutely the worst of the series so far.
D+
(
Get the Gringo:
A-)
