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Critic Reviews
"Expendables is the closest thing to movie Viagra yet invented. It's reprehensible. It's stoopid violent. It's a lot of unholy fun."
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"The way that Stallone directs, though, every machete thrust and relentless round of bullet spray is staged with a certain undeniable...conviction. "
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"Delivers pretty much exactly what its audience wants and expects: big, dumb, campy fun so deliriously, comically macho, it's remarkable that no one in the cast died of testosterone poisoning. "
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"An effective mix of lean and over-the-top, The Expendables is often preposterous, but it achieves the immediacy of a graphic novel without the overdone mythology. "
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"The three icons ham it up, do some verbal towel-snapping and have fun, which also describes most of this self-conscious adventure movie. "
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"A who's who of classic action stars light up the screen for pure combustible entertainment in Sly Stallone's The Expendables, a sort of "Dirty Dozen" meets "Inglourious Basterds"--and then some. "
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"If you want to see old-fashioned nonstop mayhem with stars so venerable that "The Leathernecks" (and I don't mean Marines) might be an alternative title, reviews are going to be superfluous. If you don't want to go, no review can change your mind."
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"This is action as timeless as the reptilian brain-and if The Expendables is no classic, for about 20 minutes, it blowed up real good."
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"More The Wild Geese than The Wild Bunch, The Expendables is not a wasted opportunity, but more one not fully exploited."
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"If anyone gets a career boost from The Expendables it will be Dolph Lundgren, playing a drug-addicted loose Howitzer booted from the team and flipping to the bad side."
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"The trailers already have given away the "surprise" cameos in The Expendables, so try not to blink when Stallone goes into a church (shades of John Woo) to meet his mystery boss, played by a bald-pated, trademark smirking Bruce Willis. "
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"What you will find is both familiar in its contours and unique in its casting: the definitive alterkocker action picture. Call it "The Old Dogs of War," or "Incontinent Basterds." "
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"Next to the hopelessly inexpressive Stallone and the English-impaired Li, Statham emerges as the movie's principal wit. But the script furnishes him with only a few deadpan quips. Besides, it's no great accomplishment to be the funniest guy in a Sylvester Stallone flick. "
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"Still, what makes Sly's new film fascinating is that, 35 years after he created and starred in the ultimate little-boy fantasy, "Rocky," Stallone remains such a guileless, big-dreaming innocent."
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"The Expendables feels, well -- disposable, a movie whose nostalgia isn't enough to make this 50. caliber trip down Memory Lane worth the fake napalm."
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"And give credit to Stallone: He just leaves the camera on Rourke, in the tightest of close-ups, cutting only once, to himself, for a one-second reaction shot, but keeping the focus on his actor. A great actor. "
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"I love a good, brainless action flick as much as the next alpha male, but this time I had a whole lot of trouble laughing along."
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"In the final analysis, The Expendables is little more than an ordinary, uninspired action feature. "
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"At one point Rourke delivers a monologue about his time in Bosnia, and the conviction the actor brings to the occasion throws the movie completely out of whack. What's actual acting doing in a movie like this?"
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"Stallone directs a bloodbath that borrows liberally from such male-bonding classics as Robert Aldrich's "The Dirty Dozen" and Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch," but offers not a whiff of the tragic fatalism and astute critique of machismo that inform those superior dramas. "
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"The opening action sequence, unrelated to the main story, is nicely done, but after that it's all downhill."
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"A nearly incoherent all-stars-on-deck actioner that plays like "Grown Ups" on nitro or a brutish, blue-collar "Ocean's Eleven." "
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"Might more aptly be described as Bad Kurosawa, Bad Peckinpah or Bad Leone. Which might be a way of saying that it's better-than-average Stallone. I can't quite say that it's not bad: it is bad! But not entirely in a bad way."
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"The thought behind this body-splattering nostalgia trip is unformed and stagnant. "
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"You see this cast, you expect to see a lot of violent action. And in that regard, The Expendables delivers, and then some. In this case, then, the old saying applies: Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. "
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"It's big, it's loud, it's dumb, and all things considered, it's not completely un-fun. "
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"So why oh why is The Expendables such a limp-dick bust? Because Stallone forgets to include non-spazzy direction, a coherent plot, dialogue that actors can speak without cringing, stunts that don't fizzle, blood that isn't digital and an animating spirit that might convince us to give a damn."
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"Incoherent, inept, testosterone-drenched mess, which is very much the brain-dead male equivalent of "Sex and the City 2." "
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"Jason Statham gives the best performance. Dolph Lundgren gets the best character arc. Terry Crews gets the best gun. Jet Li gets the best kill (you'll know it when you see it).Arnold Schwarzenegger gets the best cameo. And Sylvester Stallone? He gets the blame. "
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"There's never any real danger in the movie, which makes The Expendables feel like one of those chummy Rat Pack flicks that were just excuses for a bunch of pals to get together and goof off."
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"The Expendables is savage yet inert, and breathtakingly sleazy in its lack of imagination."
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