How ’bout Dispos4ble?
Has there ever been a more apt title for a film?
Expend4bles
Director: Scott Waugh • Writers: Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart, Max Adams
Starring: Jason Statham, Curtis Jackson, Megan Fox, Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Randy Couture, Andy Garcia, Sylvester Stallone
USA • 1hr 44mins
Opens Hong Kong September 21 • IIB
Grade: D
You know what stands out about Expend4bles – in normal English, that Expendables 4 – the most? The utter shite of what should be the simplest of VFX. Every time Jason Statham’s mercenary Lee Christmas or, newcomer Easy Day (Jesus Christ, seriously?), played by Curtis Jackson, AKA 50 Cent, stands up in a tank or rappels down a rope in front of an anonymous North African industrial landscape or an Asian ocean archipelago it looks absolutely rubbish. You can barely see the outlines around their heads!
I suppose, to be fair, that’s part of the film’s retro charm. It was in 2010’s The Expendables, which had a winking, knowing tone to it. Everyone involved knew damn well its kind of 1980s, knuckle-dragging action was past its best by date, and it revelled in the era’s slap-dash, bullet-laden lunacy. Most of all it had fun toying with the stars’ personae and legacies. For the third sequel, Expend4bles ditches the deconstruction of the earlier films and leans into its swamp rock, outlaw chic, ’80s T & A trappings hard, and now it just looks kind of sad. Not only has it gotten away from its core mandate – there are a lot of youngsters hanging around again – Sylvester Stallone’s Barney Ross, the Expendables leader, doesn’t even spend that much time with his hit team this time around, leaving the heavy lifting to Statham. When Stallone’s gotten bored with your ass, you know you’re in trouble.
No Stallone, no Li, no Crews, no dice
Expend4bles (I resent writing that) starts in Libya, where middle-management terrorist Rahmat (master of badassery Iko Uwais, and this is the best you offer him after The Raid and The Night Comes for Us?) is looking for some nuclear thingamabob in Muammar Gaddafi’s old digs (going way back now). Barney goes and gets Lee from home, where he’s having a fight with his ultra-hot, much younger girlfriend, Gina (Megan Fox, as plastic as ever, bless her heart), who’s some kind of a CIA hotshot. First, he needs to get his ugly biker ring back (no need for this scene), then it’s off to the garage to collect the gang: a newly sober Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren, starting to show some decrepitude); Toll Road (Randy Couture), the guy who makes things go boom; Galgo’s son Galan (heavily irritating Jacob Scipio, not nearly as cool as Antonio Banderas); and Lash (Levy Tran), who’s… a girl? The mission’s a failure, Barney dies in a fiery plane crash, and another CIA agent, Marsh (Andy Garcia), fires Christmas. Gina takes over the squad and off they go to find a cargo ship and the nuclear thingy to avenge Barney and stop WWIII.
This is just… wow. It’s cheap, confined to largely one cheap location, gives not a hoot for time and space, kits out Fox inappropriately in tight leather pants and a crop top (perfect for murder missions and horny 14-year-olds, don’t start me on the nipple scene), gives the old guys jack shit to do, and lets Fiddy once again prove his feel for comic timing is ghastly. At least master of badassery Tony Jaa (this is the best you offer him after Ong-Bak and Master Z?), as Barney’s old friend Decha and a good guy, is spared the indignity of getting his ass handed to him by Statham. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Statham. But no way is Statham besting Uwais in a fight unless he’s the producer.
Director Scott Waugh is the auteur genius that brought us the Hidden Strike, and if you saw that Jackie Chan/John Cena abomination you’ll have an idea of the kind of busted green screen filmmaking on display here. The “script” by Kurt Wimmer (the raucous Law Abiding Citizen, starring our man G.But), and right-leaning B-hacks Tad Daggerhart and Max Adams makes overtures at connecting the four films together but they clearly have zero fucks to give about what the series was up to before this. The photography is flat, the dialogue is perfunctory, the editing is pedestrian. Stallone has stated he’s retiring from the Expendables, Terry Crews and Jet Li bailed, so Statham will be the point man going forward, but the diminishing returns suggest this is the end of the line for everyone. But who knows? The other three defied the odds and made US$800 million. Take it from a connoisseur of fine ’80s cheese: Fire up the Apple/Netflix/Amazon – or don’t seeing as they’re being obstinate wankers about labour, go find a used DVD – and sit back and enjoy some OG Expendables in Cliffhanger. Or Predator. Or Hard Target. Or Universal Soldier. Or 8 Million Ways to Die. You don’t need this lazy crap. — DEK
*Expend4bles was reviewed during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labour of the writers and actors currently on strike, it wouldn't exist.