The Expendables 3 ** (2014, Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mel Gibson, Kelsey Grammer, Dolph Lundgren, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harrison Ford, Wesley Snipes, Antonio Banderas) – Movie Review

Sylvester Stallone is back as Barney Ross in the lacklustre third part of the trilogy that spends a large chunk of its time setting up a New Generation franchise, not giving enough for the new lot to do and simultaneously wasting the good old gang. It’s a double whammy own goal, though the film is saved by its preposterously exciting action sequences and its drily witty banter.

Mel Gibson enjoys himself as uber-villain Conrad Stonebanks, and it’s quite fun, though we’ve seen the performance before (it’s the same one he did as Voz in Machete Kills). It turns out that years ago Stonebanks co-founded The Expendables with Barney but became a ruthless arms trader. Barney thought he’d killed him but now he’s back to terminate the gang.

After the usual opening action sequence, Barney decides to disband The Old Expendables and gets Kelsey Grammer’s help in recruiting some younger, faster tech-savvy guys. All this plays out like a pointless homage to The Magnificent Seven/ Seven Samurai.

And so all this puts Lee Christmas (Jason Statham, Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and the rest literally out of the picture for its middle section, along with Bruce Willis’s Mr Church, who is totally out of the picture after a failed contract ‘discussion’, to be replaced by Harrison Ford’s lacklustre CIA boss Max Drummer.

Wesley Snipes‘s Doc is a good addition to the team as Doc, till he too is dumped, and Antonio Banderas‘s endlessly talkative Galgo (a live-action, action version of his Puss in Boots in Shrek) ditto. Jet Li hardly appears at all.

[Spoiler alert] Of course the dumped old team pitches in to help out the new one (and Barney) at the climax, Stonebanks is despatched in a lacklustre final conflict with fisticuffs for heaven’s sake, clutched from the jaws of an inferno, Barney is saved for The Expendables 4, and all’s well that ends well.

There’s too much CGI, too many characters, not enough plot, not enough old gang, not enough credibility, not enough witty banter, but somehow it creaks along quickly and painlessly. And you can’t help liking it, just like you can’t help liking the old guys.

It’s made by Patrick Hughes, the director of Red Hill (2010).

Expendables 4 is in the pipeline, possibly without Stallone, and Schwarzenegger says he won’t star in it without him.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com/