Expendables 4 Review: A Staggeringly Stupid Sequel
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" (and, yes, that is the on-screen title and not merely stylized leetspeak) 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 cinema stars well-remembered by any heterosexual man in his 50s. Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, and many others of that stripe fought side-by-side. Jason Statham was there as the "young blood." The premise and the plot of "The Expendables" didn't so much matter as the stunt casting. The films were pretty unilaterally terrible, but the gimmick lured in hundreds of millions from eager, nostalgia-infected audiences.
With "Expen4bles," only a few of the core cast remain, and star power is no longer the draw, leaving audiences to wonder why we're here at all. The characters are inhuman, the premise is absurd, and the plot is idiotic. This is a Saturday Morning cartoon with booze, f-bombs, and a mild libido. It's staggeringly stupid.
What do we even have here?
Stallone, who produces and oversees this series, returns as Barney Ross, the leader of the Expendables. The Expendables, to remind the reader, are a loosely gathered squad of elite, well-armed mercenaries who commit explosive war crimes when the American military has become too skittish. Barney's new team consists of a few familiar faces, including Lee Christmas (Statham) who has just begun dating fellow Expendable Gina (Megan Fox), the type of character who wears heavy eye shadow and slinky cocktail dresses at ten in the morning. Also returning are Toll Road (Randy Couture), the affable explosive expert, and Gunner Jensen (Lundgren), the team's sniper and a recovering alcoholic. Note that "Expend4bles" presents Gunner's sobriety as a risible facet of his personality.
New characters include Easy Day (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson), the slinky whip-wielding Lash (Lavy Tran), the hot-headed Galan (Jacob Scipio), and one of Barney's old compatriots Decha (Thai martial arts superstar Tony Jaa). They each are unflappable, violent, and determined, in that generic action-hero way. Statham is handy with knives, Gina is given leadership duties, and the others are all brutal and gruffly charming in turns. Andy García plays the CIA contact who doles out their assignment.
Their assignment this time is to track down a vicious rogue named Rahmat (Iko Uwais) who has recently stolen several nuclear warheads from Gaddafi's old supply in Libya. He will pass the warheads on to a mysterious off-screen villain called the Ocelot.
Like an old joke you've heard too many times, to quote comedian Bill Bailey, the entire scenario unfolds with a tedious inevitability.
Inhumanoids
Without giving too much away, Barney is made unavailable for the team's latest mission, and Stallone will not be available to participate in the bulk of the film's action. Statham, then, is more or less the film's lead character, and while Statham is a legitimate on-screen badass, his movies — in a general sense — tend to be aggressively ridiculous and dunderheaded. "Expend4bles" is no exception. Because the characters are vague archetypes, and because the action is so militantly generic, audience members will wonder what it is they should be latching onto. The cast's attempts at affable humor fall flat, as they exist in a world where bar brawls are the same thing as honor and blood revenge is typical for a Tuesday.
Additionally, casual misogyny is certainly a large part of the Expendables' lives. When Gina is introduced, not only is she dressed in club wear at breakfast time, but she is wailing at Lee that he is a bad boyfriend. She hurls objects like Loretta Lockhorn, a hysterical harridan. Lee and Barney shrug at her outlandish "emotions." The filmmakers present Gina as a stereotypical shrew in a scene where Fox wears her form-fitting date night regalia. "Expend4bles" ogles women while also kind of hating their pesky feelings.
Later in the film, however, Lee finds himself in the company of a grating, shrill Instagram influencer character, a chubby guy with a beard. The influencer says horrendously offensive things about women and insists on being surrounded by a retinue of bikini babes. Statham calls him out of being disrespectful and, naturally, pummels the man to within an inch of his life. In this universe, misogyny is not permitted unless you also commit military-grade murder. One might see this ethical code as being a little bit dodgy.
Oh, but it's still stupid
The above descriptions may not fully capture just how blusteringly, confidently fatuous "Expend4bles" actually is. This is a film made by people who watched "Rambo: First Blood Part II," or "Predator" and accepted their machismo as wholly unironic. It calls to mind a Marines recruitment ad that promises potential inductees fantastical wartime adventures full of sci-fi tech and outlandish comic book monsters. "Expend4bles" may not have dragons or laser blasts, but it's just as realistic and believable as something that might.
The Expendables themselves are lousy heroes. They never get a chance to reflect on their mission, to talk in a natural way, or to display any vestiges of humanity from behind their sniper scopes and grenade belts. Their heroism is not demonstrated in their bravery or their acts of courage but in their bloody-minded clinging to a bygone era of testosterone-soaked soldiery, frozen in amber since the Reagan administration. Sylvester Stallone and many of his aging fans may long for a time when this type of brain-numbing military thriller was common and American mercs were the ultimate form of masculine might, but in 2023, it just feels pathetic and dated.
That said, "Expend4bles" may be the best of the series. This is not a compliment to Waugh's film, but a mere note on how badly this series of films has fared over the last 13 years. These are useless, badly written gimmick films whose gimmicks never bore fruit. As the title implies, the flick is expendable. Or perhaps expend4ble.
/Film Rating: 3 out of 10