Directed by: Sylvester Stallone
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Giselle Itié, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke
Rating: R

Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham star in The Expendables. (Courtesy photo)

If there is any message to be gleaned from The Expendables, it is this: Fight scenes are fun! And so are explosions and blood and guts! Of course, anyone who has seen an action movie could tell us that. So why did Sylvester Stallone and his posse have to tell us again?

Barney Ross (Stallone) and his merry men are a group of jacked-up, well-armed mercenaries who get an assignment to take out a cruel dictator on the island of Vilena. When they arrive, they discover that the dictator is really just a puppet leader for an American agent-gone-traitor who cares only about money and definitely not about anyone’s feelings (basically, an R-rated Carmen Sandiego). The mercenaries (apparently called the Expendables, as the title and several close-ups of motorcycle gear indicate) deal with their obstacles in the only plausible way—with explosive shotguns and miniature nuclear warheads.

Oh, and don’t let me forget about the subplots, the majority of which don’t serve any purpose. There is the local girl, Sandra (Giselle Itié), whom Ross starts to like (because every hero has to have a love interest), although not enough for any reasonable scene of dialogue between them. And there are the girl troubles that Ross’ right-hand man, Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), is having. And there is the ex-Expendable, Gunner (Dolph Lundgren), who doesn’t want to lose his job as a mercenary.

Stallone co-wrote the film, and he did so terribly. The dialogue, which he seems to have written while chugging down a six-pack of Red Bull, is choppy and preposterous and serves only to tell us what the characters plan to do next in the laundry list of action-movie must-haves. Nevermind the need for, say, character development, save for one over-the-top monologue from Mickey Rourke about the soul-killing side effects of, uh, killing.

I wish I could say the actors did what they could with the dialogue, but they just looked tired for the most part. Stallone was especially disappointing. Since he wrote and directed the film, he also cast himself as the lead, but all we take away from his performance is that, in old age, his face looks droopier than it used to. Meanwhile, the jokes that the characters deliver are awkward and flat, and the most serious lines of the whole movie are some of the funniest, owing mostly to their absurdity. Even a cameo from the Governator himself is out of place.

At least the fight scenes are entertaining. But even some of those are lacking, either in cohesiveness or sanity. One fight scene takes place in cars moving at blistering speeds down city streets, or so I think—the camera shots are too cluttered, quick, and shaky to understand properly what’s going on or who’s in which car. In another scene, Sly uses up all his machine-gun ammo, but luckily happens to have six or seven pistols on hand with an unlimited supply of bullets to keep going. The fights are ridiculous and satisfying, but in the typical the-bad-guys-always-miss-and-the-good-guys-always-hit way.

What struck me as remarkable was how a movie that is so clearly a visual movie—hinging itself on explosions and fight sequences and large men mowing down rows upon rows of evil minions—was made with such little concern for what the audience sees. We get too close up to the actors’ faces on a regular basis in the nonaction scenes, and when there is action, Stallone apparently wants us to see every little piece from every angle, all at once.

The movie is cast the way it was meant to be cast—with several dozen rectangular bodybuilders and action heroes. Unfortunately, they’re all too old. (I calculated the average age for the team of Expendables: 49.) You can tell that they don’t move the way they used to. They’re all a little sluggish, a little out of practice, a little more dependent on big guns than their Big Guns. I’m just thankful that The Expendables wasn’t made in 3D. The ticket was overpriced enough as it was.

Danny Eisenberg is a 2010 graduate of the Bromfield School, where he was a member of the Drama Society and the Academic Bowl team. He is a student at the University of Pennsylvania.