I saw this movie expecting a mindless action movie with lots ofshooting, explosions and the like; along the lines of 'True Lies', youknow the kind. It only delivered a marginal amount of that.

There were indeed a some really nice fightmoves, a bunch of explosionsand the like. However, a large part of the movie was spent onexplaining the somewhat bad and overly complicated story (Somethingalong the lines of 'those are bad guys, kill them' would have sufficed)and inferior dialogue. You don't go to a movie with Sylvester Stallone,Jason Statham and Jet Li just to see them talk half the time.

About half of the not nearly enough explosions were clearly fake. Theydon't have to equal movies like Avatar on cgi level, these however werespecial effects like those seen in, say, GoldenEye from 15 years ago.

If you've seen all the good action movies already this one is worth the2 hours. I would advise everyone else just to click on one of the mainactors in this movie and watch another one they played in, 50/50 chanceyou've got one better than this.

OK, there you have it, the whole gang. They don't need to be goodactors or actors at all. They're some of the best at what they do. Thisis a film for nostalgics of those 80's films where everything wouldblast, and the bad guys you've been taught to hate throughout the moviewould die in really cool ways, splashing and everything. Well, maybenot just the 80's but always ever since. No objection, they remind meof the movies of my childhood and teens, many of them starred by thesame actors.

...but next time somebody makes a film where they speak anything otherthan English, please hire somebody who actually speaks the language,don't let g00gle translate handle the job, it's pathetic anddisrespectful. The Vilenans are supposed to be native speakers ofSpanish, but these actors have, at best, vague knowledge of thelanguage. Some may be of Latin descent, but they certainly can't speakSpanish.

That ruins the film for me, I can't take it any serious.

The supporters of dick and Pam above should go back to watching Rosieand Jim or the telly tubbies as they obviously lack the appreciation ofa good movie with a star-studded cast. you are a grain of sand in avast desert so keep your insignificant opinions to your insignificantself. i waited twenty years to see a movie with Arnie and slyco-starring so to get Jet li, Jason statham and the rest of thismulti-billion dollar cast,(yes that is what their net worth would cometo) together in the same movie makes it a must see. violence,action andsuspense were included by the shed load , what did you expect? maybeyou critics like batman or swamp thing well they just ain't toughenough OK?

Every action movie fan's dream of seeing all their favourite actionhero's together in one movie comes to life (minus a few names, where'sTHE ROCK? WESLEY SNIPES? KURT RUSSEL? MR. T? HULK HOGAN? RODDY PIPER?CARL WEATHERS? JEAN CLAUDE VAN DAMME? STEVEN SEGALL? VIN DIESEL?MICHAEL DUDIKOFF? CHUCK NORRIS? MEL Gibson?) in this solid, excitingaction packed film, that is easily one of the best action movies evermade! STALLONE leads his team of mercenaries on a journey to a foreigncountry, to take down an evil dictator & his army, who are working witha former mercenary, turned bad guy, played by ERIC ROBERTS. As can beexpected, the body count blows right through the roof, as the stage isset for car chases, martial arts & fist fights, knife fights, gunbattles, explosions, you name it, it's here! THE EXPENDABLES was such afun action movie! With an incredible list of of talented actors thatsurprisingly, despite the largeness of the cast, is able to give equalamount of screen time to each. The fights are well choreographed & thefilm really has a 1980's action movie feel, wisely THE EXPENDABLES,lets the guns, knives, fists & feet, fast moving vehicles & explosionsdo the talking & doesn't bore one with constant chatter, it has sometouching moments too. The direction is also very noteworthy, it's sowell done & manages to capture all of the action at all the rightangles, honestly, anyone who can give this film a low grade obviouslywasn't an action fan to begin with. So if you want to see all theaction stars (again almost all of them) under one roof, workingtogether or against each other, tons of car chases, gun battles, knifefights, fist fights & explosions, then THE EXPENDABLES is a must see!If not, go rent HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN TEN DAYS instead! Bring on thesequel!

**** stars

With the cast it had it was no surprise that The Expendables was beinghyped long before it arrived in cinemas anywhere. "Could it be thegreatest action movie ever?" some magazines breathlessly askedthemselves, assuming perhaps that the cast could somehow just produce agood film by virtue of all just being in it. The answer of course is"no" and I doubt anyone expected it to be any other answer. However thereal question was can the film produce the boys-only, 1980's actionmovie fun that the 2010 summer season needed. The answer to thisquestion turned out to be "sort of" because The Expendables has plentyto enjoy about it but yet somehow falls short of what it could havebeen.

The plot is essentially a small group of mercenaries heading into atropical island in order to take out the dictator and his ex-CIApuppet-master: so far, so "one man against endless ethnic army" 80'sstyle plotting. And indeed so it is, complete with unnecessary violenceand overblown physical actions and seemingly indestructible heroes. Itplays out just the way you expect it to do and those looking for actionsequences will enjoy the many fights and scenes where everything blowsup (Terry Crews in particular demonstrating to the world why InfinityWard were out of their minds to make the AA-12 a "secondary" weapon inModern Warfare 2!). The downside of the action is that, while it isenjoyable, it doesn't deliver enough of two key things.

The first of these is genuine thrills. It comes close and there aregood moments but generally you find yourself sitting back watching themayhem for the sake of mayhem, whereas I would prefer to be sucked intoand really gripped by the action - I wasn't really here; instead mostof the action is of the video game style – where the enemy just keepsspawning in front of you and getting chopped down by powerful weaponry.The second thing that isn't as prevalent as I wanted was comedy. We getthe odd bit here and there, but really Jet Li's "because I'm small"speech is probably the high point. What was needed was more comedymixed in with the action. There were a few kiss-off lines but nothingmemorable or even "good". These are important because it makes theexcess easier to enjoy as just part of a fun package – the film nothaving enough suspense or thrills makes the lack of this "fun" all themore obvious and notable of a gap.

The cast do help though and not just in terms of having big names inthere. They do have an easy charisma between them and they all play offeach other well – whether it be Stallone and Statham or the briefcameos from Willis and Swarzenegger. Crews isn't used particularly wellbut otherwise I liked everyone else in it, even if there were probablytoo many of them to really do much with – I thought it was a good move,despite appearing to be an ensemble piece, to put most of the focus ontwo of them rather than spreading it evenly around. Of course lookingat it fairly, the film is not great – the plot is obvious and full of"groan" moments that we have to have simply because of the genre plusit is hard to shake the feeling that the film is more for the starsbenefit than it is about the viewers, like perhaps they enjoyed it morethan I did? Overall though The Expendables is a solid enough 80's styleaction movie that does everything you expect it to do but nothing more.Personally I preferred The Losers to this simply because it deliveredaction and comedy blended well to make for an enjoyably silly actioner,whereas this doesn't really do that and perhaps takes itself a littletoo seriously for its own good. A solid genre film and enjoyable asthat, but it doesn't do enough to justify the sheer volume of big namesin it.