This Movie Was Cool.

I'm not sure what to tell you guys about The Expendables.

As a movie, it failed to pass any test of engaging plot, developed characters, believable dialogue or even the ability to weave a discernible narrative. In fact, Incrediboy walked out of the theater saying, "What was that movie about?" So, strictly as a film, the verdict is a thumbs down.


However, despite the shortcomings as cinema, The Expendables more than qualifies as a kickass action fest. I think the average spacing between explosions and people getting shot was (on average) about 2 minutes. Totally awesome.


My other main beef with this movie is that Stone Cold Steve Austin was one of the guys. This was a total bummer. Do these writers/directors/filmmakers really expect us to be able to not root for the Texas Rattlesnake anytime he takes the silver screen? To give you a grasp how disconcerting it was to not be on S.Cold's side, here is a picture of him with only half his goatee. I shuddered.


The Expendables came through on another level as well. As a social function, this movie was top notch. Going to the midnight showing gave us an excuse to drink the heavily caffienated, heavily alcoholic Four Loko. This stuff tastes like Hawaiian Punch mixed with cough syrup and EverClear. It tastes pretty disgusting and makes you feel like you're going to fall down, both of which aren't enough reason to keep me from drinking it.


Also, it gave us a super-duper excuse to drink tiny airplane booze bottles and drop them on the floor of the theater and hear them go click-click-clack all the way down the aisle. This was a problem when I dropped one during the only quiet part of the movie.


Ok, that's it. Pretty lousy movie, pretty awesome evening.

Expendable.

Ok, team, let's talk about this movie and why it will more likely than not be totally awesome. Of course, this film will benefit from ubiquitous gunfights and stuff blowing up, and someone's head might even get blown off. But that's not why Incrediboy and I are lining up at midnight to see this little number. If we wanted to see guns and explosions and someone getting their gourd squished, I think I have Predator 2 on the DVR.


No, no, no, the anticipatory high for this flick stems from its surfeit of hardasses appearing the credits. It's like a buffet of badasses. Check out the poster, there are a lot of terrifying dudes in this movie. And the poster doesn't mention smaller roles from Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Holy smokes.

Last fall, I put together what I thought was a pantheon of righteous machismo. This movie makes that group look like a junior varsity volleyball roster. In my defense, my picks were based more off a "party-hard" skill set of boozing and looking cool rather than a "hardcore" rubric of shooting two guns at once and ripping people's faces off. But, that's a digression we don't have time for.

The real question is: how did this happen? These are not SOME of the the biggest action stars, this is ALL of the action stars in the business. I'm not sure how much each of these guys is getting paid and I'm not in the mood for a quick Google search, so we'll never know. The point I'm getting here is these guys had to have taken a pay cut. That, or T. Boone Pickens has bailed on Pokes football and taken to making badass movies.


I am baffled by this movie. How did something this colossal come to fruition? I imagine it came to be in way very similar to the way this lame-ass picture below happened.

But The Expendables guys weren't sitting down to lunch with each other like a bunch of pussies looking for ways to cut corners to the elusive championship ring. No way. This movie's inspiration was likely born while Mickey Rourke and Stone Cold Steve Austin sat in a dimly lit room eating raw sides of beef and still live wriggling catfish, brainstorming ways to max out their badassness. The answer was clear: make the most badass movie of all time. So they called up their friends and over meals of slabs of ribs and deep fried everything, the details were hammered out. Then, everyone drank a quart of whiskey and smashed all the windows. Party.

I have no idea what ths movie's plot is and I'm not sure what to expect from it. I'm a little bit worried it'll be like the All-Star games where everyone is really good but then there aren't any role players and it's no where near the spectacle it should be. But it probably won't turn out like that. I'm not worried about that kind of drop. Why? A. it's scripted. B. machine guns are cool no matter what. Also, even if Terry Crews aka Office Linebackers 'Terrible' Terry Tate has only 5 minutes of screen time, it's totally worth it.

The review is forthcoming.