Friday, 22 September 2023

Expend4bles - The scoop and digest

After a nine year hiatus, franchise is the latest to ditch 'The' and incorporate number into title.

Jason Statham - Christmas
Sylvester Stallone - Barney
Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson - Easy Day
Megan Fox - Gina
Dolph Lundgren - Gunner
Randy Couture - Toll Road
Iko Uwais - Rahmat
Tony Jaa - Decha
Andy Garcia - Marsh

Summary

CIA operative Marsh sends the team (along with new blood Easy Day and Galgo's son Galan) to Libya, on a mission to prevent mercenary Rahmat from giving nuclear missiles to his mysterious client Ocelot (a possible reference to Metal Gear Solid), who plans to become mega rich by instigating World War III.

Err, okay.

You're not welcome

Despite reinstating gore, (what number 3 infamously omitted), Scott Waugh's boring shit stain is the weakest yet.

Screenplay sucks serious ass, new additions are virtually pointless (veterans need not apply) and while Megan Fox's initial chemistry with Christmas was fun, soon dissipates.

Incoherent action is crammed with terrible CG and not even the silliness of machine gunning motorbikes on a cruiser in the South Asia Sea rescues situation.

I'd suggest $100m budget was primarily spent on salaries.

Casting Iko Uwais as the main villain was an awesome idea, but character isn't given much to do.

Rather than Stath, Jaa facing Uwais in climatic scrap would've been a way better spectacle.

Yes there's a lot of fisticuffs, explosions etc, but shit is edited/cut in a way which makes it difficult to make out what's going on.

When Barney is 'killed' after about 30m, my immediate reaction was "Yeah, right."

Guess what?

He faked his own death to flush out Marsh (Ocelot) and at the end, comically blows him away inside a helicopter.

(Sigh).

Stallone has confirmed the Stath will take over as the new 'chief'.

Oh wait, he already has.

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