The Expendables 3 Movie Review

Sylvester Stallone has spent the last eight years not so much trying for career renaissance, but to relive the glory days of his (relative) youth. Honestly, he wasn’t even that young when he was a major 80s box office draw. he has made new sequels to the Rocky and Rambo franchises, a boxing movie with De Niro that plays on their respective most iconic roles, and the Expendables franchise which is both tongue-in-cheek about the way it tries to relive the glory days of 80s action movie heroism and sort of serious in its attempt to be a modern action franchise. I’ll just put it out there that I really enjoyed the first film. It had some great playfulness, some killer action sequences and hand-to-hand fight scenes (especially those involving Jason Statham), and a great period appropriate villain and theme with Eric Roberts operating in Latin America as a kingpin. Our neighbors to the south served as the great action locations and source of villainy during the decade of cocaine. The Expendables was a welcome respite from the settings of Arab countries and former Soviet republics.

Short Cut Review: The Expendables 2

A Short Cut Movie Review is normally less than 400 words, but in some cases may go slightly over. This is my attempt to keep writing about as many films as I see without getting bogged down with trying to find more to say. They are meant to be brief snapshots of my reaction to a movie without too much depth.

Although I felt it lacked a lot of the sheer joy and fun of watching these guys kick ass in the first movie, this sequel still dazzles with the audacity to be bloody as hell with its gratuitous mayhem and violence. West, a director not known for restraint in action film, took over the helm from Stallone this time out. Now that Arnold Schwarzenegger is out of the governor's chair, his role has been expanded. Bruce Willis also participates more and Chuck Norris turns up riffing on the popular "Chuck Norris Facts." Van Damme makes a less than satisfying bad guy. In spite of the sheer excess of the combat sequences, West keeps the one-on-one muscle confrontations mercifully short.

Snatch Movie Review

This review was written in January 2001 and is presented here for the first time.

If you're familiar with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels – the feature film debut of director Guy Ritchie then you'll understand why the plot of his new film Snatch is far too complicated to explain. Besides that, the plots of his two films are not really what's interesting about them. They function more as clotheslines for stringing together myriad characters whose paths cross in unlikely and often hilarious circumstances.

The Expendables Movie Review: Sylvester Stallone and other 80s Action Heroes Get a Dusting Off

Poor Sylvester Stallone. It must be dreadful to have been one of two kings of 1980s action films only to suffer a swift and steep decline through the 90s. Now well into his 60s, he is devoting himself to sad knock-offs of the films that made him a superstar once upon a time. First was Rocky Balboa, the sixth installment in that series, then Rambo, his fourth film playing that character. This year he came back for more as writer, director and star of The Expendables, an action film which revels in cheesy schlock, washed up stars and dead bodies.