The Expendables 3 - Movie Review

After the forgettable first movie and the atrocious second movie, my expectations for the third where justifiably low. And to my surprise they half won me over.

Now lets get one thing straight, Expendables 3 isn't a great movie, to ne honest it isn't particularly a good movie, but it does somehow work.

So, lets go over the bad bits, the main cast of Stallone, Statham, Couture, etc, are still as boring and uninteresting to watch as ever. The whole macho machismo thing is still here and is as annoying as ever, but it is vastly reduced compared to the previous films, but it doesn't spend every other scene forcing things like "brotherhood" and "Camaraderie" in your face. Which is nice.
There is also some awful dialogue and delivery scattered throughout. And Terry Crews isn't in it half as much as he should.

The new guns are also about a memorably as your own phone number, with the film spending way to long introducing them for them just to fall flat. They either don't do anything or are just boring cliched background characters.

The action although an improvement over the previous films, still doesn't add up to much. There are some nice ideas dotted around the place, but there never directed well enough to make them look as cool as they should. However it does seem to have a bit more energy and has some good moments.

Now, the good bits, the film actually has a bit of a personality with the "actual" actors, Gibson, Banderas, Grammer, actual have fun in there roles and overall they just seem to lighten everything up. Mel Gibson (and his over effeminate glidey walk) is a great villain with some really good scenes, its unfortunate that the final showdown is a bit anti-climatic, but you cant have everything.

While Banderas is excatly what the film series needed, he comes in with his zesty and bouncy character and it instantly shakes off the po faced semi serious glum the films have been up to that point.

The story also seems to be better, with a story that could have been great somewhere else, but is serviceable here.

Overall, the film finally somewhat delivers on the series promise, of having all these old action stars comeback for a Big ol' action film, but it doesnt feel as special as it could have done if they did it right the first time. But its a solid action movie with a bit more of a personality, and some better action scenes.

Rating: 4.5/10