Jet Li once again is sadly nothing more than a cameo. Jason Statham has less to do in this movie than the other movies, but he gives his usual fine performance as Christmas. That scene in the van is possibly the best acted scene in the franchise. He is easily the best villain to grace the franchise. It is the stand out scene of the movie (the only one with any intensity, and an example of how good an expendables movie can be) and a reminder of how good Gibson is. Gibson is under used (in the first half) But he owns the scene with Sly in a Van midway through. For his brief time on screen Ford brings style to the proceedings and simply radiates presence. And he is fine with doing things on his own. No longer are The Expendables a team, who are there for each other (the first movie is the most ensemble of the three) it's a Barney Ross led gang. A big problem for me with this one is, Sly's Barney Ross is suddenly invincible!! the old man who "just got my ass kicked" in the first movie is long gone. In fact he actually looks younger in this movie, than he did in the first. His hairline is distracting again (especially when he meets Ford for the first time) at times, as is his wardrobe. Sly has shown before he can be a fine dramatic actor when allowed to escape his action hero confines, however here Gibson steals the scenes he shared with him. If the character of Doc (Snipes) had been more carefully scripted, and given more screen time in the second half of the pic, he would have easily stolen the picture. Then Banderas walks away with the movie in the final third. For me Snipes owned the beginning of the movie, (but then seemed to have been forgotten about the rest of the movie) Grammar kept things moving a long nicely during the recruiting section. Plot In A Paragraph: Barney Ross (Sly) disbands The Expendables and signs up some new blood to take down arms dealer Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson) Expendables 3 is certainly action packed and while there is plenty hand to hand knockabout and a lot of people die, but they either quickly fall bloodlessly, or it's all off screen (a lot of quick cut aways) with a PG13 rating there is no viewing of the actual carnage. As everyone has scattered with their own projects, like Stallone’s Rocky IV director’s cut and Jason Statham’s duties on The Meg franchise, as well as the Fast and Furious spin-off Hobbs and Shaw, it almost feels like The Expendable 4 is dead for good.Continuing my plan to watch every Sly movie in order, I come to Expendables 3. The production itself was beset by all sorts of problems, as a PG-13 rating and an eventually leaked copy of the film were among the reasons some have cited for the third installment’s ultimate disappointment at the box office. With such great memories comes some bittersweet truth, as The Expendables 3, so far, has proven to be the de facto finale of the franchise. With that mythic conflict at an end, the sky was the limit for who they could get to join in, and the two ensuing sequels proved it. For the first time, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, two titans once engaged in a bit of an historic rivalry, worked together for the fans. ![]() Of course, the centerpiece of it all is the fact that this throwback to those simpler days reminds us that 2010’s The Expendables was a pretty historic moment in action cinema history.
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