more images: 1, 2, 3, 4

If the movie Wild Hogs had several thousand explosions and Tim Allen had an automatic rifle that could blow up a plane and William H. Macy wasn't such a sniveling pussy, it might be a little like The Expendables, Sylvester Stallone’s several-decades-too-late super-teaming of noted action stars. What this testicle-squeezing paean to American testosterone lacks in sense and subtlety — it's on the same gory level as Stallone's last directorial/starring vehicle, 2008’s holy-shit-this-is-violent Rambo — it makes up for in sheer gut-ripping, head-'sploding glee. This is the cinematic version of the KFC Double Down. Stallone is Barney Ross, the leader of an elite crew of mercenaries — blade expert Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), martial artist Ying Yang (Jet Li; also, foreal with the name?); tough MFer Toll Road (MMA legend Randy Couture); perma-shouting one-liner dispenser Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) and WILD CARD Gunner (Dolph Lundgren, still large). The team takes on a mission — from Bruce Willis! — to wrest control of an island nation from a military dictator (David Zayas) whose strings are being pulled by rogue CIA operative Munroe (Eric Roberts). Sooooo many people die. Various reflections on life and death, particularly from Mickey Rourke as drunken tattoo artist Tool, are way unnecessary, but they're not very long and are usually abutted by Christmas throwing a knife into a guy's neck. Plenty have ridiculed the amount of plastic surgery on the screen, but if you're seriously going to The Expendables to analyze and critique men's facial structures instead of just cheering every time a nameless baddie gets his legs liquefied into marinara sauce, you suck. —Drew Lazor

Comments

Rating:	R
Cast:	Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Dolph Lundgren, Giselle Itie, Eric Roberts, David Zayas, Steve Austin
Running Time:	103
Producer:	Kevin King, Avi Lerner, Kevin King Templeton, John Thompson
Genre:	Action/Adventure
Advisory:	for strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language