The Expendables 3

You bet I’m overrating it, because at last they managed to fine tune it. The first part was about nostalgia, part two just blinked by, part three is a big show about revenge, education and the team spirit, what else? The primary strength is Gibson, hungry for a proper role, he relishes every minute on screen, but he has criminally few of them. Snipes is out of jail and making himself known. He’s still got it. The king of the snappy line is definitely Banderas and his mouthy Galgo, his broken English enough to drive the audience round the bend. And what about the old gang? Still singing the same tune, they work well together, even if it’s sometimes a bit knives out. Arnold and Jet question their orientation with a smile. Anything for a laugh. And the youngsters a pretty fine too. Hughes proves himself to be the best director of the trilogy yet, despite occasional confusing action scenes, he has everything in hand and so in visual terms Expendables 3 comes out on top. The screenplay is full of holes and gigantic, in places exaggerated (the house packed with C4 and tanks), in places too restrained finale (Sly vs. Mel), but at least it’s consistent. In any case, it’s one big show that is best scene on the silver screen. - Why did they call you Doctor Death? - I was a medic. (15/08/2014)

After two years, I was finally able to meet up with this gang once again. The members might have changed a lot, but I’m okay with that. Wesley Snipes and Antonio Banderas were an amazing addition to the old crew and so the fun began. What was a little worse were the young actors who were difficult to get used to – well, I didn’t manage to do that and I’ll be happier if they weren’t there the next time. But maybe they’ll convince me that they’re worth it the next time, because this time, they couldn’t convince me due to the movie’s only real flaw: there’s loads of actions scenes, but you’re never able to grasp them enough to say that they were any good. I wouldn’t call the camera shaky, I just felt that the editing sucked. A lot. And that influenced the entire movie, which is why I can’t rate it with five stars. Because everything else was a total classic, it was what I wanted and what I was looking forward to. The scenes with Sly, Statham, Snipes, Banderas, Lundgren and Ford were priceless, too, just like Mel Gibson who has also become the best Expendables villain yet. We’ll see what they do next. I’m just hoping that the camerawork gets better and that the DVD rip won’t leak a whole month before the cinema premiere. Then it really makes me sad that the so-called action movies fans on this website download the movie, critique it, but won’t support their favorite actors at the cinema. I went to the cinema at the day of the Czech premiere and the movie already had over 2000 reviews! Go to hell, this gang doesn’t deserve that and they’ll go south if things continue like that. But go ahead and call yourselves “fans”. Oh, and by the way – you won’t believe how happy I was to see the Expendables drinking Czech beer. It was an outright joy. It’s a shame that the brewery won’t even brag about it properly. (15/08/2014)

This is not a tribute to the eighties, this is mindless and dull. There is no winking, only a rehash of annoying trademarks we used to smirk at in the past, but in a newer package. The frowning main character, the incredibly confusing and poorly edited action, a heap of amateur digital effects, and except for two or three shots, uninteresting full-contact fights with no trace of dynamics. If it had at least least half of the raw feeling of Bourne, I would happy. Truly disappointing. Only Antonio Banderas and the non-action chemistry between the main characters entertained me. But they didn't have to make an action movie for that. A live stream while having dinner in LA would have been enough. (23/08/2014)

A couple of minutes after the end, and I already don’t know what it was about. Maybe it’s because it was about nothing... :) While the second one made my heart skip a beat at the fact that an action film today can still be so genuinely entertaining and that can transfer that vigour to the viewer, the third one is a soulless, uninspired carnage that only tries to win fans by how many famous names appear in as super-stylish badass icons. The best character is hands down Banderas’s, who spices up the dull parade of B-movie action and script recycling at least for a while with much-needed, previously completely derivative humour. 45% (11/10/2015)

Sly's scripted assurance that old geezers are still better than young inexperienced kids is actually enough to make me happy. I could have done without the gender emancipation element in the form of an invincible warrior in a skirt (the director should have explained to her that a perpetually scowling face would not make her a tough brawler), but on the other hand, Banderas was pleasantly delightful in his self-deprecating role delivered like a ferret on speed. The fact that the young ones lack any charisma at all is actually good, it makes the personality of the old action stars stand out all the more. And the final action-packed 20-minute set-piece finally brought it up to a very close 4*. I have to laugh at some of the criticisms here (as well as like-minded reviews on news sites) to the effect that the Expendables 3 "is all about shooting". What else did you expect from a pure action franchise scripted by a man named Sylvester Stallone? A Kantian reflection on the meaning of existence and the universe? (13/08/2014)