Culture

Rating: C+

In the long tradition of The Expendables series repackaging the exact same action-hero products you have seen before in 80s’ movies, comes The Expendables 3, a film with no original dialogue. Some might say that the way they rework each action actor’s iconic catchphrases (such as “I’ll be back!”) into their new films ad nauseam is a bold and wholly new genre of self-referential parody genius. Not me, however. From the moment I saw the first Expendables film, I knew that every bad-but-great old action movie I ever loved from late night TV was going to be ruined by the same actors trying to do their thing all over again in a series of much more modern, and much less interesting or authentic, sequels in the coming years. And, sadly, Ex-3 did not fail to deliver on that score. As if seeing Jean-Claude Van Damme doing a pathetic parody of his flying-kicking younger self in The Expendables 2 wasn’t bad enough, now we have “Crazy Mel Gibson” doing that whole suicidal Lethal Weapon thing all over again. It sucks. None of the evil they create for his on-screen character is as disturbing as the YouTube videos out there of his drunken, misogynistic, anti-Semitic torrents of spousal abuse. Wesley Snipes too is back in a poor, poor reprisal of his role in Stallone’s Demolition Man. But blow me down was that Harrison Ford doing a Han Solo cameo!? Awesome … I guess.

Oh, I tried so hard to like it. But there comes a time in every young boy’s life when he watches a shoot-em-up film, and instead of being excited by the bloodlust, he breathes in deep, accepts his new place in the world, and says out loud: “Oh come on, there’s no way they could have survived that eight-story freefall and then killed those 60 guys who were waiting for them right there with tanks. This is bullshit.” Son, today you are a man.

The one and only good part of this film was Antonio Banderas’ cameo, reminiscent of PUSS … in boots!