The Expendables, the Musical!

Sorry for the delay in posting a new movie review. I have watched several movies lately but they have mostly been mediocre (at best) and not really worthy of your precious reading time. A few examples of movies you can probably avoid (or at least wait until they are on free television) are Dinner for Schmucks, The Other Guys & Date Night. I will reserve the right to write a few words about a couple of movies I did actually find interesting including Cyrus, The Book of Eli and most surprisingly Clash of the Titans. Clash was actually a very entertaining movie and I personally thought the Maria Carey-like (Mimi to me) glow given to Liam Neeson as Zeus was pretty terrific. Neeson made Zeus look like a back-up singer for Neil Diamond and that is how I like to think of my Greek mythology!

For now, Clash will have to wait until another day. We have some expendables to discuss. I have to admit I was somewhat surprised when I realized that The Expendables was an action adventure film. I just assumed that it was an accounting how-to picture that would answer Schedule A questions and discuss the legality of off-shore tax shelters.

As it turns out, the expendables are a group of mercenary middle aged tough guys who ride motorcycles, tattoo each other, and overthrow tyrannical dictators. The film is written, directed and stars Sylvester Stallone as the eldest statesman mercenary who leads his band of merry men into difficult combat situations all over the globe. His merry men are all of your favorite action stars of the past two decades including Jet Li, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

This film also had several fringe characters (Willis and Arnold were just cameos) including Terry Crews and the always terrible Randy Couture. If you don’t know the name Randy Couture he is a cage fighter who has terrible cauliflower ear and previously starred in the straight-to-video Scorpion King 2. Not only is he a terrible actor, Randy also mixes in way too many body slams in his hand-to-hand combat scenes. I don’t want to singly fault Randy for the abundance of body slams (I realize there are stunt coordinators and a seasoned Director also at fault) but as a professional fighter he should know better. I will freely admit that I have been in only a few fights (mostly during Justin Bieber concerts) but I have never seen the body slam as either a functional or debilitating offensive maneuver. Picking a dude up for a body slam is both physically awkward and also requires the assistance of your opponent.

As you are reading this step out of your cubical (or office for those of you so lucky) and the next guy to walk by put one arm between his legs, the opposite hand on his shoulder and try to pick him up. I can almost guarantee that you are not going to be successful. I say “almost guarantee” because I don’t know where all of you work (if you work at an anorexic hospital or midget talent agency you might have slightly different results), but even if you are able to hoist your co-worker up for a body slam, go ahead and throw him down to the ground to check his reaction. The most common reaction has to be a combination of surprise and bewilderment. You might hear the following: “you just body slammed me! Why?”

I guess the lesson here is, follow up your jump punch attempt with a body slam. If I can keep this blog going I might be able to choreograph a full fight sequence using only the most absurd and least damaging maneuvers ever attempted. In my mind the sequence can only be captured in super slow motion, in a pounding rain, with Charlotte Church singing in the background.

Beyond the unusual number of body slams utilized in the fight sequences of this film there is also a dizzying array of explosions, float plane flights, Mickey Rourke tears, and hand held guns that blow the bad guys in half.

The float plane was actually a cool piece of movie nostalgia. I especially liked the scene where the pilot of the plane (Stallone) just flips a switch below the term “auto-pilot” which looked like it was pasted on the control panel with a label maker. Too bad he couldn’t have picked up a rotary phone to call to the back of the plane to ask Jet Li to “give me more power.” I guess if the request for more power went unanswered Stallone could have always tapped out S.O.S. on the vibroplex.

There was one rather peculiar scene involving the float plane where the plane dumped some excess fuel from a wing onto a dock and then Jason Statham ignited the fuel from the plane causing the dock to explode. It was definitely a cool scene and a great explosion but why did the gas stop burning once it blew up the dock? The wing of the float plane was clearly still emitting fuel when the explosion occurred so wouldn’t the flame follow the fuel and ultimately blow up the wing of the plane? I would hate to think that something I saw in Die Hard 2 (Die Harder) was not true. Didn’t McClane blow up General Esperanza’s plane by igniting the fuel leak from the plane’s wing?

Speaking of explosions, there was also an interesting scene at General Garza’s compound where a moat surrounding the main house was ignited and created a huge explosion and a strong enough burn to eventually engulf & kill “Stunning” Steve Austin. When I saw this I was really impressed. I mean it was another huge explosion and then a continued strong burn that the characters had to jump over and it really lit up the screen. But then I started thinking, why would you have a gasoline moat around your house? This just seems like a terrible idea! Forget the pungent odor that you would have in surround-smell every morning (all day for that matter), what about just the danger! If you are a drug pushing dictator you have to live a certain way. You need fire effects around your pool, you have to smoke unreasonably large cigars, you need to randomly fire large guns, and you have to celebrate every mid-level holiday with a fireworks show. Putting a gasoline moat around your house really cramps the style of the twenty-first century dictator.

Another thing that can really cramp the style of a dictator is the lack of a compound security system. Why were Stallone and his men able to freely move about the compound to rescue Sandra and set all of their bombs without anyone noticing? I mean, this island was supposed to be just a few miles into the Gulf of Mexico. If there isn’t a Costco on the island I am sure they can overnight a few security cameras from the New Orleans store! For crap sakes there are three security cameras at my office and no one here has ever carried a bill larger than a ten in their wallet. If you are a dictator and control the drug trade you need to pony up the $599 and buy a security system.

So, to wrap this one up I would like to give a shout out to my lovely wife who came up with the line of the day when watching The Expendables. Dolph Lundgren’s character in this film goes from good guy to bad guy and back to good guy. In the period between bad guy and good guy he gets shot by Stallone and in a suspense building scene pulls Stallone close to whisper something into his ear (the audience is not privy to the whispered comment). My wife didn’t miss a beat when she noted that Dolph probably whispered “I must break you.”

Warren