The Expendables - Trying To Bring Back the Action Hero

It was 2010. The '80s were long over. Arnold Schwarzenneger was Governor of California. It appeared that the Age of the Action Hero might have come to an end. Then, fresh off of sequels to both Rocky and Rambo, Sylvester Stallone assembled a supergroup of Old and New School Action Heroes for a throwback shoot 'em up, The Expendables.

Even though it has all the ingredients to be a fan favorite, and even spawned its own franchise, this first Expendables movie hasn't aged well with fans. Maybe cause many of its stars literally haven't aged well. Were people expecting too much from this all-star cast? Or did this movie treat its storyline and themes as, well, expendable?

Episode Transcript

(00:32):
Well, good, good thing,we're not expendable, right, Uh,
don't don't want to get replaced withyou know, whichever other irrelevant podcasters are
out there right now, you know, just grasping at any bit of fame
that they have. Oh boy,uh, are we even ready for this?

(00:55):
I'm gonna ask you that, arewe ready to talk about the expendables?
You want me to read my letterboxreview? I kinda do. Yeah.
I had to rent this movie twicebecause it took me over forty eight
hours to get through it. Ohmy god, you was it double for

(01:17):
expendable? I could have just boughtit. Yeah, not that I need
this in my library, but Icould have just bought it. Oh boy,
Well, folks, welcome back toNot That Bad. We are in
season two of the show. Iam one of your co hosts. My
name is Connor aka Lee Halloween,and I am joined by my illustrious co

(01:38):
host, writer, director, allaround superstar, mister Gabe. Tye Gabe.
I'm not gonna ask you how you'redoing, because I think I know
after hearing you rented this movie twotimes to get through it. But I
do want to ask you, soI also texted you updates. Yes you
did, which was I believe oneof the messages I say back to you

(02:00):
at one point was and you know, we had a time we were supposed
to record, and then you werelike, yeah, just getting through the
movie, give me a little bit. And then I said, let me
know if you give up, andyou told me that was not entirely out
of the question. But you madeit through, and uh, hope I
made it through. I cheated inthe name of transparency with our audience.

(02:23):
I technically kept the movie playing whileI surfed the internet at one point,
while I well perused the other offeringsthat the World Wide Web had to give
me that was not the expendable.So I can't say I gave this movie,

(02:43):
particularly the final thirty minutes, myundivided attention. I say, you
watched it like a normal person watchesa movie nowadays anyway, So no problems
there. I would say I watchedthis movie the way anyone under the age
of forty five watch is this movie? Well, you know, that's that's
gonna be interesting to talk about becausethis is effectively, you know, and

(03:07):
there's some outliers in the cast,but this is really kind of like retirement
Home the action movie, and Icalled it Midlife Crisis, the movie,
Late life Crisis, the movie.Man, I'm pretty sure Sylvester Stallone was
in his sixties when he made this, So really, how old is he
now? In his seventies? Ibelieve he was born in forty six.

(03:29):
Okay, yeah, that's that's JoeBiden years. He's late seventies, he's
approaching his late seventies, his eighties. See. I actually still regarded this
as a as a as a nota young Sylvester Stallone. But my last
point of reference is the Creed movies. So yeah, in my mind,

(03:50):
he uh, you know, thiswas not the oldest I've ever seen Slie.
This is the oldest that I've everseen him still attempt the tip goal
like testosterone action hunk type of thingthat he used to do in the Creed
movies. He was smart enough todial all that back. But this is

(04:14):
him, this is him, youknow, kind of costplaying as his younger
self. Well it really wasn't.And that's that's an interesting point there because
this movie, So this came outin twenty ten, obviously a little bit
past Sly's prime as like a moviestar, real big ticket box office movie
star, not to say that hewasn't still a bit of a draw.
I mean, let's not forget thatthis was only a couple of years after

(04:39):
Rocky a Balboa, which is oneof my favorite films in that franchise.
I thought it was a great movieoverall, but it was a movie about
how old he was. That itwas funny thing. No, no,
no, and you're air absolutely right, and this really did you know.
I'll say this, so I'd seenthis movie quite a bit, and I
want to get into our backstorre withthis movie or with this franchise, because

(05:01):
I believe it or not, it'sstill going They released one last year in
twenty twenty three, so it's stillgoing strong, thirteen years after the first
movie came out. But looking atthis, like, you know, you
look at the cast, right,you got you got Sylvester Stallone, you
got Jason Statham, who you knowis not old by this by this point

(05:24):
in time, but he's not ayoung guy in twenty ten. He's born
in sixty seven, so you know, about twenty years younger than his career.
I think definitely as an action starstill felt fresh, like I'm not
it did, Yes, I'm notan expert on Jason Statham, but I
remember that he had a lot ofthese kind of red box action movies coming

(05:46):
out around this time, and occasionallycollaborating with Guy Ritchie. I want to
make this point early on for somecontext. Most of the guys in this
cast and this onble of action heroesdid not start out as action heroes.
It's something that they came to.Oddly enough, Sylvester Stallone did not start

(06:09):
as an action hero. It wasa pivot in his career. A lot
of people, I guess, considerRocky to be something of an action hero.
I don't buy that. That firstmovie doesn't have any boxing really until
the climax, and Jason Statham washe was the Guy Ritchie guy. He
was from Snatch and lock Stock andtwo Smoking Barrels. So he kind of

(06:35):
finds his way into this space wherehe continues to dominate today. I just
saw The bee Keeper opening a weekendand that was a lot of fun.
And then I think Jet Lee's theonly guy who I think started out as
you know, he was the newBruce Lee, he was the new whatever,

(06:57):
he was the new martial arts star. That's how he started. Yeah,
I think that's kind of how likeAmerican action stars are made generally.
I mean, Van Dam I thinkwould be an outlier in that because he
was kind of like a Martian Americanfor getting into it. But well,
I mean, like he he becamepopular in the American movie scene, whereas
like Jetley kind of worked his wayinto it. And even looking through the

(07:23):
rest of the cast, like Dolf, you know, Dolf's a guy who
I mean, I think most peopleremember him most prominently in his early career
from the Rocky movies, but hehimself it did not take him long to
pivot to action stardom as well.I mean he most of his most famous
roles outside of Ivan Drago are asaction. We've talked about Dolph already on

(07:46):
this channel because of the Punisher moviethat he did in e and that's I
believe still exclusive to our Patreon atthe moment. So if you want to
see Stay Up nineteen eighty nine's yeah, pay us bitch. But this cast
doesn't stop at old washed up actionstars. We have old washed up MMA

(08:07):
fighter in uh In Randy Cotour.We have old washed up professional wrestler in
Steve Austin. By the way,all respect Steve Auston, he actually had
a match a couple of years agothat was very good. Uh. But
uh and a former NFL player TerryCrews in the cast. If you call
Terry Crews washed up in any way, I don't not at all Terry Crews

(08:30):
Terry Crews honestly, And I haveto say this. He so, I
don't want to get too far intoit. I'm just gonna kind of preview
this statement. We're gonna get backto it later. But out of everybody
on the cast, to be completelyhonest with you, both him and Statham
are the two in the cast thatmade the most sense to me to put
in this, but they also feltthe most out of place. Terry Crews
in particular felt sort of out ofplace, especially as this franchise continues.

(08:52):
He doesn't feel like he should behere by the way I should. I
should also stayed for the sake oftransparent. And see, this was a
first time watch, and I've notseen any of the sequels, so you're
gonna have to maybe fill me inon some contexts. I know later on
in the sequels they bring in moreand more of these action hero icon came

(09:13):
the gimmick like Chuck Norris and Ithink John Claude Van Dam and people like
that. Correct. So pivoting backto this first movie, The Expendables,
you know it's it's this. Ifeel like the way it was built.
It was a nostalgic appeal to youknow, a generation of men who grew

(09:37):
up with slies movies with like thatwhole genre of the testosterone jacked man holding
an AK forty seven type of movie. Right, so this comes out.
I'm only twelve years old. Idid not grow up with any of these
movies. I was a big fanof Arnold, but Arnold only has a

(10:01):
cameo in this movie. Correct,So this movie had no appeal to me
when it came out. I gotsome mild curiosity about the sequels because they
were brinking in people I was prettyfamiliar with people I liked, like Wesley
Snipes. I know he's in oneof them. Mel Gibson comes into the
picture. Less said about Mel thebetter that we're moving on. But yeah,

(10:26):
it took this push to make meactually sit down and watch The Expendables
from beginning to end. You know, that's gonna be a cool contrast because
I was so as a kid.For context, I became a big Sylvester
Stallone fan because of how much Iwas into boxing. When I was a

(10:46):
kid, I was a huge boxingfan. I watched anything boxing related.
So the Rocky movies were right upmy alley, specifically Rocky two and three.
Those were the two easily accessible moviesfor some reason in the early two
thousands when I was getting into thiswhole thing, So those were the two

(11:07):
that I watched the most, andso I was a big Stallone fan.
Twenty ten comes around and we're gettingtrailers for this movie that's got everybody for
me. I mean, I felldown the rabbit hole once I got to
know a certain age and I wasallowed to watch more movies. I was
watching all of these guys. Man, I was a huge fan of pretty
much everybody in this cast. Soas soon as I saw the first trailer,

(11:28):
I knew I needed to see thisnow. I actually watched this movie
early Netflix, which meant my dadordered it and had it shipped to the
house via rental the discs. Okay, yes, there is a whole generation
of people who do not know theNetflix even rented out discs, So that's

(11:50):
how it started. It did notstart as a streaming service, correct,
and then they actually only just discontinuedthe disc rental service part of the Yeah,
I was surprised to hear that thatwas still going because I had everywhere
had no knowledge that it was stillcontinuing. I was sure that would have
ended back when I was in middleschool. So, well, that's a

(12:11):
nice full blast from the past youbring that up. Oh yeah, And
that's how I watched this movie forthe first time, and then I enjoyed
it so much we ended up gettinga DVD copy and I watched it again
and again and again. And thenthe second one came out, and I
watched that one again and again andagain, and that trend continue just for
those first two movies. Really,I've seen Expendables three. I believe I

(12:35):
own it. I can't say forsure, but I have not revisited that
one as much, and I've yetto see Expendables four, despite being pretty
excited for it when it was comingout. I remember they were they were
doing a lot on social media tryto get that movie off the ground as
far as the marketing campaign went,and I think it was relatively successful in

(12:56):
doing so. As far as capturingattention of people. I don't know how
that movie did. I think itwas nominated for like all the Razzies,
and you know, we've we've gota love hate relationship with the Razzies on
mostly hate relationship on the show.Anyways, I bring it up here because
the Razzies were not being contrarian's.I think they summed up how yes,
everybody about The Expendables, for Isaw Action fans. I saw Expendables fans

(13:20):
who who were very disappointed with thatmovie. And to be honest, I
don't think there's a lot of lovefor The Expendables as a franchise, as
much as it has you know,the who's who of the action hero cinematic
universe. I don't actually hear alot of people who are are fans of

(13:43):
these movies. I think they theygo either reluctantly or or you know,
very passively, you know, tosee to see Sly in action, to
see Wesley Snipes come back to thetheaters after his years of tax evasion,

(14:05):
or whatever, you know, whateverthe case is. So that's my kind
of hypothesis here, is that peopledon't like this movie. People don't like
these movies. People just want tobe able to see these guys in action.
They want also want to see themtogether. It's like it's the MCU

(14:26):
for dads. That's a that's areally good comparison. Actually, yeah,
and and you know, like that, my enjoyment of the first two Expendables
movies, you know, just kindof solidifies the fact that I'm one of
the oldest young people in the world. And you know, I hold that
with a badge of honor. Butlet's get into the Expendables. Let's talk

(14:48):
a little bit about this movie now. Of course, for Expendables fans,
the main villain of Expendables three inthe future it would be mel Gibson.
In part two it would be JeanClaude van Dam. And in this movie
we have Eric Roberts, who meansnothing. Okay, his involvement means nothing.
It's no skill of approval. Iknow. He was going through something

(15:11):
of a little renaissance. He wasin The Dark Knight a few years before,
not really though. A few yearsafter this he was in The Human
Center Bed three. So so he'shad an interesting career himself. The same
year that this came out, hewas in another movie with Stone called Steve
Austin called Hunt to Kill, whichI actually think is a bit of an
underrated movie. Nobody's really seen it. It's not great, but it's a

(15:35):
decent little, you know, lowbudget action movie. But that was what
he was doing around this time.I mean, I know he was in
the Dark Knight, but his careeris so up and down, and eventually
it just stayed down, and he'sstayed down for the Count. And I
think it's kind of unfortunate because Idon't think he does too poorly in this
movie. What did you think aboutthis, about him being kind of our

(15:56):
main villain of this mean, I'mglad we had somebody who wasn't the scene
chewing General Lissimo, who is atfirst presented as the main villain. Not
a fan, not not a fan. I wish they could have just cast
Hugo Chavez. It would have beenreally nice if they could discust. They

(16:18):
could have just gone right past metaphorand just cast Hugo Chavez or one of
those guys. But Eric Roberts,it's a huge inside joke in the in
the film industry, especially in thelow budget space, that all of these
no budget productions try to reel inpeople with the promise of being able to

(16:45):
work with Eric Roberts because he doeswhatever, I don't know what the hell.
Jim and Kevin Sorbo and every singlehold budget they're the Cameron Mitchell of
of this era of low budget movies. I mean, Kevin so Is,
I mean, he's relegated to evenmore of a niche space because he really
only does this kind of like rightwing right well nowadays movie space now yeah,

(17:11):
yeah. But Eric Roberts, Imean, he's still just up for
grabs. You know, we could, we could cast Eric Roberts right now
or something. Let's do it.Let's just look, let's let's just make
a movie. I don't hate EricRoberts, but I have seen him and
what was supposed to be his heyday. I saw him sharing the screen with
another member of the cast here,Mickey Rourke. We've talked about previously in

(17:36):
a in a movie called The ThePope of Greenwich Village. Eric Roberts was
terrible in that movie. If that'sif that's supposed to be an example of
of him and his best I don'tknow. I don't know what to say
about that. He was better inthis movie. So Eric Roberts doesn't even
take up too much time in thismovie. I don't think we're even That's

(17:57):
part of my problem. We're notactually supposed to care about the villains.
We're not supposed to care about thestory. It's all just an excuse.
I mean, tell me if it'sbeen wrong. But this is all a
thinly veiled excuse to send Sylvester Stalloneon a mission with his friends, with
his buddies, one hundred per i. And look, that's not to say

(18:22):
that I don't think there are thingsin this movie that are still worth talking
about or that are still you know, I guess highlights are not low lights
at the very least. But that'swhat this movie is. And I mean,
if you go into this expecting asuper strong story, a super strong
villain, no clichs. This iscliche the action movie. I mean that's

(18:45):
that's as much as it is aretirement home, as much as it is
the Avengers for Dads, it's it'salso or at this point, I mean
Avengers for Grandpa's that this is atthis stage. But as much as it
is those things, it's also justan excuse for Sylvester salone to get together
with his friends, make inside jokesabout his friends lives and movie careers in

(19:08):
the script, and just I wantto direct that. We haven't did direct
this, we haven't mentioned that hedirected it. So let's let's uh,
let's let's take a pause here,and let's compare it to other films directed
by Sylvester Salone. So, inaddition to directing The Expendables, he has
also directed Rocky two. Okay,I mean pretty beloved movie. Overall,

(19:33):
letterbox has its sitting at a threepoint seven, so solid than it should
be. But okay, Rocky fourthree point six, Ivan Drago, Okay,
you know, beloved, pretty beloved, Rocky three three point five.
Why did you go from two tofour to three? I'm doing it in
order of most popular on letters?Oh oh, I see yeah. So

(19:55):
then we have the Expendables, andthen we have Rocky Balboa, which we
just talked about a little earlier threepoint five, you know, not as
beloved as the other Rocky movies,Rambo from two thousand and six, I'm
sorry, two thousand and eight,Rambo from two thousand and eight three point
one, and then and then wehave Staying Alive, the sequel to Saturday

(20:18):
Night Fever. Yes, at atwo point five. I believe that is
the only movie he directed that hedid not acting that he didn't start.
Yes, that's correct, because thelast one is Paradise Alley at a two
point nine. Yeah, that wasnot like Paradise Alley. That was his
directorial debut. I want to say, yes, seventy eight. I've never

(20:41):
seen Paradise Alley. Quentin Tarantino defendedit in his book Cinema Speculation, so
I figure it's worth a watch.I'll probably track that down one of these
days. Let me set the stagefor my relationship with Sylvester stem because it's
interesting. I don't care or havemuch interested in Vester Stallone until until I'm

(21:03):
well into high school. So tome, Sylvester Stallone was the bad guys
by Kids three he means by Kidsthree D. He gets by Kids three
D game labor, I believe ye. So to me, Sylvester Sloan is
the washed up action star. Andthen I discover he made a little movie

(21:27):
called rock I watch Rocky. Ihear about the story of how he wrote
that script when he was broke,and the totally awesome underdog story behind that,
And then my respect for him,and my interest in him just shoots
up. And then I start toget into the ups and downs of his

(21:48):
career. Right, I am apretty big fan of the first Rambo,
have no interest in seeing the rest, knowing the reputation and knowing the weird
jingoism that gets pedaled into those movies. Then you know people people like the

(22:08):
new Creed movies. I go checkthose out. Holy shit, it's like
one of his best performances in Forever. He's nominated for another Oscar. He
is Oscar nominated writer actor, soLester Stallone. So why is he doing
shit like Lockdown? Why is hedoing shit like Cobra? Why is he
wasting his prime years on these vehicles? It's because, you know, the

(22:33):
money and the fame. It justfueled his ego. He is. He's
so different from Arnold to me.Who Again, he has a cameo in
this movie, and he filmed thatcameo while the state that he was governing
was in the worst recession of itshistory. So again, just weird context
surrounding this movie, and these peoplewere at such weird points in their careers.

(22:57):
But Arnold is he knows exactly hisstrong suits. He knows exactly what
he can do what he can't do, and even though he's not really a
good actor in the traditional idea ofgood acting, he he he's like Keanu
Reeves. He has such charm,such magnetism, and he built such a

(23:18):
good will with his audience that hejust he just goes through and an amazing
eye for scripts and projects. TerminatorPredator A true lies, total recall.
Sylvester Stallone. He's got some missustoo, but he's got not nearly as
many as Sylvester Stallone. It feelslike the misses that Arnold had were good

(23:41):
attempts. I'm talking like End ofDays Eraser. You know, these are
not movies that on the surface lookedlike failures script Sylvester Stallone. Those are
not humiliations. Sylvester Stallone has beenhumiliated multiple times in his career. Now,
my favorite story to contrast these twomen is that Arnold Schwarzenegger gets the

(24:06):
script for Stop or My Mom WillShoot and realizes that it's talk shit,
and to play a prank on hisrival sy Leicester Stallone, he pretends to
be interested in it so that whenSly hears this, he jumps on the
project immediately, then years later afterthat becomes like one of the worst bombs

(24:26):
of his career. He learns thetruth and oh my god, Arnold got
me again. But that's the contrast. Like Arnold, I'm sure he had
an ego, but he was reallylike strategic and very intentional with his career
in a way that Sylvester Stallone,with all of his talents, just let

(24:47):
his ego run away with them.He did, and it's kind of cool
now to see. And by theway I think it, we would be
doing a disservice to Sylvester Stallone ifwe didn't mention the fact that he is
in a pretty beloved television show rightnow, which I believe is called Tulsa
also King Tulsa King. I'm notfami with the show, clearly, but

(25:11):
I do know that everybody who checksit out seems to enjoy it. So
I'm glad that he's found his successagain these days. But he still is
a guy who. Sly is aguy we went around. I don't want
to see Sly go away, andI love the guy. I kind of
adore him, honestly. He's aninsanely funny, really cool, fascinating person.

(25:36):
I just my heart goes out tohim anytime I see him sign up
for something, so obviously beneath histalents. But that's like, let's compare
him to Mickey Rourke, right,So they brought up Mickey because I didn't
say about him. Yeah, theyhave a very interesting relationship. So when
Mickey Rourke is down and out,Sylvester Sloane pays him personally to get him

(25:59):
a job, get Carter a moviethat I've not seen, most people have
not seen. But that starts afriendship that leads to this being one of
Mickey Rourke's last hurrahs. This isthe last time you'll see Mickey Rourke in
a major theatrical something or other,I guess for the rest of time.
Probably this is clearly he was shootingIron Man two at the same time because

(26:22):
he looks exactly the same. Butyou know Mickey Rourke, I would say
he's one of the most charismatic peoplein the cast here. What did you
think of his involvement? So Iabsolutely think so. Aside from the action
scenes, the most interesting thing inthis movie for me was Mickey Rourke.
I wanted to see more of thischaracter and he wasn't emoting in a way

(26:45):
that you would normally and traditionally saylike, oh, what a great performance.
But there's a scene in particular wherewe see him for the second time
at this point. The first timewe see him, he's got like a
hooker with him and and he's tattooingour our lead character, Barney Ross.
And then the second time we seehim, he no longer has the prostitution.

(27:08):
She has left him. I guesshe didn't pay her enough, and
he's like kind of broken up aboutit. But then he has this kind
of monologue where he's talking about theirpast together and he's talking about all these
things, and the way he's talkingabout it, it's like such an like
it's like a down played performance,like he's he's he's he's doing it so

(27:30):
well for me, like I washanging It was the only time in the
movie that I was hanging on anydialogue. I want more of this character.
It's the only time in the moviefor me that it And it even
tries to be a real movie likethat. It tries to. Yeah,
I would say, so character notdo like cliches around a real movie,

(27:52):
right, Like with the character oflike the girl that falls in love with
Barney Ross, who's like forty yearsyounger than They tried to do movie stuff
with her and her story, butthis felt like it actually had heart behind
it, like it had a purpose. It should have played a bigger Let
me clarify. This is the onlytime where it felt like they were telling
a story for the story's sake,right, Yes, Sylvester Stalloone in the

(28:15):
movie he directed, chose to havethis smoking hot, forty years younger woman
fall in love with him. Okay, that's not to me a story that
is. It goes back to mycomment. It is his ego kind of
taking the reins here and I meanno, ill will towards the guy and
if he wants to live it up, let him live it up. But

(28:36):
I can't get invested in that.I see it for what it is.
Let's let's play. Let's play oneof my least favorite games. What guess
the age difference? What is theage difference between Stallone and actress Gazelle.
I can't pronounce her name, buther name is Giselle and her last name

(28:56):
starts with an I. Forty chewsurprisingly you overshot, It's thirty five years
difference A little better. Yeah,a little better, barely. She was
only thirty five years old when shewas born. Yeah, I feel better

(29:17):
about that. Yeah, she wasborn in eighty one solicits alone forty six,
so that's rough. But let's getinto her for a moment, because
she's kind of where the movie triesto put a lot of it's heart into.
Here's this character who's trying to fightfor a noble cause, and you
know is is she loves her home. I can't tell you how many movies

(29:40):
have this. I'm pretty sure Rambothat came out a few years before this
has a very similar kind of storyto it, but there are many movies
that have this exact copy pasted typething here. What did you think about
her performance as an actress? Andthen kind of like how her character plays
into the story of the Expendables.She does a completely thankless role pretty well,

(30:03):
I mean, I I mean,how do you analyze such a utilitarian
part of this whole thing? Yeah? Like, the only the only reason
I could see this having any weightis because of Mickey Rourke's little soliloquy about
that that woman that he refused tosave. Yes, okay, so the
Expendables save this woman the same waythey save every single other other human being

(30:29):
they've come into contact with by bykilling a lot of people and blowing things
up, killing everyone. I agree, Bloody dies this entire island. What
is she staying for? Everybody's dead. This island does not seem at all
like a real place. I don'teven know. I'm not sure if there
are any extras in the streets outsideof this one scene where it drives me

(30:52):
crazy. This it's so like oneof the things that made Rambo in two
thousand and eight so good for me. I actually love that movie. I
own the four K. I've neverseen that. I sprung for it on
four K because I liked it somuch. It's a little bit like heavy
on CGI and it's a little youknow, like macho action. But I
like that every once in a while, hence why I like The Expendables.

(31:15):
But one thing that that movie didreally well is it made the villains.
It made you hate the villains,even if it didn't put a face to
every single one of them, Andit made you feel like you were in
a real place. Even with itsisolation, you felt like you were in
a real place. This feels likeit could have been filmed on a set
on a real island, on aplace that doesn't really exist. It doesn't

(31:37):
matter, Like you could have cg'dthis whole thing and it wouldn't have It
wouldn't have mattered because it doesn't feelreal. You're telling me you couldn't get
a couple of people that are actuallywhere you're filming to just stand around every
once in a while at all.There's nobody except these soldiers except for one
scene. But that's what I'm saying, It's all just an excuse, Like

(32:00):
why bother Sylvester Sloane knows what hisfans are there for. Yeah, and
look, I'm never gonna like thiskind of this rogue battalion of troops going
in and fixing up some country ofbrown people by killing a lot of your
soldiers. Unfortunately, that's one ofthe things that Sylvester Sloane does best.

(32:23):
That's something that he's really practiced alot throughout his career. So I don't
think you will like Rambow two thousandand eight. Why do you think I
haven't seen it? I get thedrill. I know what these movies are
about. Although I'm willing to betthat that movie functions a lot better as
an action movie, yes, thanthis movie. I mean, should we

(32:44):
actually talk about the action? Iguess you you brought this up that you
think it's one of the movie's redeemingqualities. Am I getting that right?
I believe it is. I don'tthink so, So I want to I
want to clarify that I do believethat this movie acomplishes what it set out
to do, which is and allof his friends, well it was that,

(33:07):
but also provide I mean, like, let's not let's not just uh,
let's not pretend that a lot ofwork and and and effort went into
the action in this movie, becauseit did. Sylvester Stallone literally broke his
neck for this movie. I don'tknow why you would break your neck for
the Expendables. But yes, heis a man committed to the physicality of

(33:28):
his art. He always has.He famously let himself uh get hit for
real in Rocky Balboa, even athis age. So I'm never gonna deny
the man's commitment there. I thinkit's fueled by by some kind of match
like machismo, but it gets there. Yeah. But well, I think

(33:50):
that effort kind of shines through withwith a lot of the action in this
and and don't get me wrong,some of it's very generic. Oh,
we're just gonna blow this up andblow that up and you know all of
that. Let's set the bombs sowe can blow everything up at the end
of the movie. But I'm abig fan of fight scenes. I love
fight scenes. Give me a goodfight scene and I'll be happy. And
in this movie, I don't thinkthe fight scenes were exactly what I would

(34:13):
be looking for. In fact,there is a much lower budget movie starring
Jean Claude van Dam and featuring DolphLungren that I've talked about a lot on
this show. I can't wait topossibly bring it here one day. I
don't know if it'll ever actually panout, but if you want to see
good fight scenes, check out UniversalSoldier Regeneration. Oh yeah, very generation.

(34:35):
Where I thought you were going withthat, I thought you were getting
to talk about the original Universal Soldiermovie, which actually is another solid movie,
pretty solid action movie with a lotof pretty solid fight scenes. Yes,
I want to bring Universal Soldier Regenerationto the show, if not just
to get you to see it forthe first time. I'd be curious to
hear your thoughts on it. Thatone I might not finish. I might

(34:58):
have to record with I think you'dbe surprised. I think you'd be surprised.
But that said, what I appreciatedabout this movie is that here are
these guys who are a little older, a lot of them doing most of
the stunt work themselves in this movieand putting together some pretty fun action and
fight sequences. And it sounds likeyou were a little let down by what

(35:19):
you saw on the action side.One of my notes here says even the
camera work is geriatric. The cameracamera work is kept shaky. It wasn't
still, especially during the hand tohand fight scenes. I don't whoa broke
a light? That's okay, continueyour hear light is suffering for for our

(35:47):
podcast the way the Lesters songs neckapparently suffered for this movie. Correct,
No, man, I guess Ican't. I can't. I mean I
would have to be able to pointto a specific a specific fight, a
specific stunt something to to really Iguess be able to say that I thought

(36:09):
this movie measured up in the actiondepartment. But there's nothing, there's nothing
that's even going to like really makean impression on me. There's a very
underwhelming fight between jet Lye and Dolphlondren. There's a pretty ridiculous scene. I
thought of Sylvester Stallone and and JasonStatham, you know, bombing this this

(36:31):
port of the island, and everythingelse was just noise. I really struggle
to even like remember specific specific instancesof fighting. Everything just kind of like
just came together to be this whitenoise of explosions. So I actually kind

(36:53):
of liked the fight scene between jetLye and Dolf longer. Were you even
able to see it proper? Wereyou able to like tell what was happening?
Yeah, Okay, you know.I mean, don't get me wrong,
this movie suffers from shaky camp.But I do think there are action
movies that that that have their fightsequences shot worse than this. I mean,
by far in my opinion. Idon't know how somebody could if you

(37:15):
even compare this to movies if peoplelike more. The Born movies I think
are huge examples of movies that shoottheir fight scenes horrifically. Are you to
be a shot better than those?Okay? Yes, the fight sequences and
in the expendables are shot better thanthe fighting sequences in the early Born films,
absolutely, I will I will dieon that hill. Wow. Okay,
then this movie's got shaky cam.We get to have a real fight.

(37:37):
That's so different. That is agritty, bare knuckles movie of panic
and danger. This is supposed tobe a nostalgic kind of uh look back
on action movies, and it issupposed to be pure popcorn entertainment, which

(38:05):
I believe it is. So justcomparing I mean, I technically, yes,
the shaky cam is more egregious inthe Boorn movies, but that's artistically
done. I mean, it's justI'm not gonna let you go with that.
No, I'm not gonna let thatfly. Here's here's why though.
You know what, like those Bornmovies are more on the artistic side.
And I'm not gonna say that thismovie is better than those movies as a

(38:29):
whole. They they they get thephrase that they deserve. I'm not.
I'm not saying that because it's nottrue. Objectively. However, when you
when you're when you're telegraphing a fightsequence and when you're making a fight sequence
matter, shaky cam makes sense moreso when it is a gimmick than when
it is used to hide the factthat the fight sequences aren't that good.

(38:53):
And in the Boorn movies, thefight sequences aren't that good. They're not
even getting close to connecting with theseblows. It doesn't look real. When
you try to slow it down orstabilize the camera, it looks bad.
So they just filmed it with shakycam and figured they could, you know,
pass with what they had, andfor many it doesn't bother them.
For somebody who loves fight sequences,I would prefer that you do it as

(39:15):
a gimmick. I would prefer thatthat shaky cam is used because it's just
popular to do. Then it's usedto hide a fight sequence. Perfect example,
Stone Cold Steve Austin started a moviecalled The Condemned in two thousand and
six. This was like the heightof shaky cam. Those fight sequences have
a lot of it dizzying amounts ofshaky cam. But what they do is

(39:37):
they make the hits feel like theyare connecting. It makes it feel real,
like a real fight. And Ifeel like this movie does that a
little bit better than what's done inthe Bourne movies. And I think the
way that they shot this was moreso as a gimmick than to hide something.
In fact, I don't think theywere trying to hide anything when you

(39:58):
watch the behind the scenes of this, because there's a scene my favorite fight
of the movie between Steve Austin andSylvester Stallone where Stallone does break his neck.
He's really taken some of these hits. He's really falling back into these
bricks. He's really getting thrown againsta wood pillar and and spinning in the
air after hitting it. This isreally happening while we're watching it, and

(40:22):
so it's it's evident that it's notmeant to hide anything in this movie.
Does it bother me a little bit? Yeah, I would have loved to
have seen a little bit more ofthat Jetly and delpf Lungern fight scene,
because I did enjoy what I saw. But yeah, I don't think it's
nearly as egregious as it is.And movies that are are considered better then

(40:43):
movies are not considered better. Theyare better. I think objectively, it's
a better made movie. But Icould see how somebody would enjoy the expendables
more than That's different enjoying something Itold you. I mean, there's an
audience for the Expendables. I'm skepticalof how much these movies stand on their
own, even to fans, butthere's an audience for it. That's fine.

(41:06):
I'm not saying the audience there hasto prefer watching the Bourne movies.
But I mean, we are weare comparing apples to oranges. In one
case, the apples are some ofthe most critically acclaimed action thrillers of the
two thousands, and the oranges are, you know, a vanity project for
Celesti Stlane and his friends. Andthat's fine, that's fine. But returning

(41:30):
to the expendables, I don't thinkwe've talked enough about the supporting characters here,
and well, I agree, notsupporting because this this is supposed to
be a real ensemble movie. Butlet's kind of go through them, I
guess, one by one. SoJason Statham, he is the second most
important star here. What do youthink of Jason Statham in this movie?

(41:51):
I also believe he's the second mostinteresting character in the movie. He's the
one that we're given the most reasonto root for, most reason to relate
to, because Hema Carpenter that Imean, yeah, I mean, but
but you know, like who wouldn'tget behind a guy who you know,
just wants to make a family workin this hectic life that he has,

(42:12):
and and who beats the shit outof a guy who hits his you know,
ex wife or ex girlfriend or whatever. You know that like you you
root for a character like that.But but I felt like he had a
little bit of Uh. I thinkone thing that doesn't get talked about enough
about movies like this is there's alwayssomebody who's trying to do something. And
I think with with with Jason Stathamin this movie, I like that when

(42:37):
you're going into the game plan,right, the game plan is to go
and save this island, he's visiblyand clearly distracted throughout the beginning of that
mission. Now, eventually that doesn'tmatter, and I fault the movie for
that, but like the beginning ofit, he almost gets them caught in
the beginning when they first arrived tothe island because he's so distracted by his

(42:57):
issues. Uh. And so youknow, I thought he was the second
most interesting character in this movie,behind the very limited Mickey Rourke. But
what did you think of Jason Stathum, I don't know how you really feel
about him as a whole, Buthow do you think about anything. I
like Jason Stathem. I saw Thebee Keeper, and I think he is.

(43:21):
He's one of the reasons I sawit because I was pretty intrigued by
how earnestly he was selling those bepuns in the trailers. So let me
be clear, I'm not above aJason Stathan movie or the types of movies
that this is trying to emulate.I'm a sucker for them. Actually,
I have a soft spot for alot of them. Depends obviously, there's

(43:44):
some that are more offensive to methan others. Jason Statham was he I'm
not going to place any blame onhim. I think I just I didn't
see what real purpose he served forthe story. I think think I get
that they're trying to get this ideaout of you know, these these guys

(44:08):
wanting to be action stars in reallife, but how do they find the
balance, you know, to havepersonal lives or what is it? What
does it mean to save somebody?I mean, he he beats the ship
out of the guy who hit hisex girlfriend. To me, that was
a very off putting scene because tome, it just felt like a you

(44:31):
know, a masculine power fantasy,right, h Like Jason Satham, he's
not there for his girlfriend emotionally,but he can beat the shit out of
people who's threatened her, and asfar as I understand it, that resolves
his problems completely. Mm hmm.Okay, I'm going to push back a

(44:54):
little bit on that, because thewhole, the whole conversation they had at
the start was I may not behere a lot, but when I'm here,
I'm I'm here for you, likeI'm here when I try to be
here when I'm here. But herpoint was no, you know, you're
in your work, and he learnsin that to not do that, but

(45:17):
in doing so, he notices that, you know, she's got some bruises
and he's got to take care ofsome business. I think, as anybody
would. I mean, if ifyou know, this is something that's almost
happened in my life, not quitethe same way, you know, but
it's it's something that could that couldreasonably come too. So I think if

(45:37):
they didn't put that scene in wherethey had that conversation, which, by
the way, I don't think islike any masterpiece or anything. It's not
really well written and it's not itdoesn't have the weight that it should,
but they put it in there,and I think for that, I'm going
to push back a little bit onthat. I believe the idea was that,
you know, he he learned,he has to kind of be there
for and he's he's got to domore than just show up with roses on

(45:58):
her doorstep. But also, sofuck this guy. I gotta kick his
ass. Okay, you're being obviouslyyou have more goodwill towards this movie than
I do. I'm I'm very I'mskeptical of the idea that this movie is
saying as much as you just saidright there, if I got that impression,

(46:20):
I could be more forgiving. Butthere's just I mean, for one
thing, there's just the way thatthe whole scene is done that just felt
gross to me. Jason Satham says, you bruised her face. I liked
it the way it was, like. I know, the movie's not literally
saying like Jason Satham is mad becausehis girlfriend isn't as pretty anymore, But
that's the movie just doesn't give mea lot to go off of as far

(46:45):
as characters are concerned. But JasonSatham, he's a good bloke. I
think I once said he was probablygrown in a blow laboratory or something,
and I don't I don't even rememberwhere that context would have come up.
I don't, I think because Ihad just seen The beat Keeper. Now

(47:07):
the word thing is Jason Satham isa hell of a good actor. Watch
Snatch, Watch any movie where he'snot you know where he's not doing this
thing, and which, by theway, he mostly does nowadays. Like
that, like i'd say, sincelike maybe like what two thousand and eight
is almost exclusively right, almost exclusivelyYeah, like starting with like death like

(47:27):
Transport. After he did Transporter,it was like getting worse, and then
he did Crank and like Death Raceand it was like, yeah, you're
this is you for the rest ofyour Yeah, yeah, you're done.
Interesting, right, So he doesDeath Race, but Sylvestis Stallone one of
his first movies was Death Race fivethousand. Yeah, yeah, really pretty
cool. I actually Death Race wasuh was a weird one. I don't

(47:51):
think people look upon it favorably,but one of those nostalgic movies for me.
I haven't seen it a long time, so it probably doesn't hold up.
But another one that was just likemarketed to Ship Right came out and
nobody liked it. So but itobviously, uh you know, set Jason
Statham on a path to being theman we know in Love today. And

(48:14):
I I do like Jason Satham andI like him in this movie well enough.
I don't like his poetry. Ithink he should stray from from that,
but uh yeah, he's okay inthis movie. Then there's Jet Lee.
He barely has a presence, hebarely has anything to do. There's
some there's some like half assed jokesthey make about his height. I couldn't.

(48:40):
I've never been super into the wholeJetly thing. What is his what's
his enter the dragon? What isthis guy supposed to be like best known
for? Like what's his best movie? Or like I guess I'm I just
feel like I must have missed themovie that has made him as famous as

(49:02):
he is. So what what ifI'm trying to understand the Jet Lee phenomenon?
What should I watch? I wouldsay two, well, maybe three
movies, but the two that Iwould throw out would be The One and
Unleashed. Those are the two thatI think are I think the one is
considered one of his worst movies.So that's interesting to hear. I like

(49:24):
you say, is Jason Sathan inthat one too? That's War. He's
in War two thousand and seven,which I also was gonna mention. I
actually like War. His movies arenot like it's not like jet Lee is
known as like this incredible actor.He's he's a martial artist. So like
when you go through his you know, filmography, you know, talking about

(49:45):
movies like Fist of Legend or letme look at his him Huge One.
Yeah, I'm not asking him todo Shakespeare. I just what's his enter
the Dragon? Like if you wantto understand if you the jet Leaf and
I think Fearless would be the answer. Okay, you're asking me, I'd
say either the one or on Leaf. Well, maybe I'll check out Fearless

(50:05):
to understand that the only other movieI've seen of his. This probably sounds
wrong to a lot of people,but is it's goddamn whats the name of
it? Lethal weapon four four?Yeah? Not not not a great not
a great use a great representation ofhis talents. Neither is the Mummy Tomb

(50:30):
of the Dragon Emperor. Also nota good Jetly showcase. But what what
I I'm surprised to hear you saythat he was kind of nothing in this
movie, because he was the sourceof like all the last for me,
like the fact that not the shortjokes. The short jokes are what they
are. But I love I lovehow he's just like, I need more
money from my from my family,and they're like, when did he get
a family? You like that?Oh my god? Forced No, I

(50:52):
love and I loved I love Blater. When he just gives up on it,
he's like, I don't have afamily. He Instead of that,
he just starts going on about howhe's smaller so it takes more effort for
him to do things. I thoughthe was. He was very funny.
I don't think he is. Soif I'm ranking characters based on my interest
in them, he is not inmy top three. But he's maybe four,

(51:16):
maybe five, I don't know.I think he's probably he's probably he's
probably five or six. To behonest, he doesn't. He doesn't do
as much in this movie as asmany would expect. Are you saying that
he comes up short? Yeah?Was that any worse than the jokes in
this goddamn movie? No? Itwas. It was better than the short

(51:38):
right, it was better than theshort jokes. Yes, okay, So
moving on, tered Cruz, Iwrote down, he is the most charismatic
member of this cast, and he'sgiven the least due. I don't even
know the characters. He's absolutely wasted. He's a weird fit in this because
he was He's not an action here. He's not an action star. I
know he was an NFL player,but he's a goddamn comedian. Okay,

(52:00):
dude, hilarious. So he couldhave been the comic relief, and in
the few lines he's given, he'skind of given that. You know,
he's the sassy black guy. No, you're right, though they didn't.
They didn't give him a chance tobe like funny. He wasn't telling any
jokes. He wasn't doing anything funny. He didn't his character didn't have asted.

(52:23):
His character didn't have a personality.He's he didn't play a character.
It was I have a gigantic shotgunand I'm and I'm I think he was
the only black guy in the group, right, Uh yeah, until I
guess they get Wesley Snipes. That's, by the way, that's I believe

(52:45):
they don't bring Wesley Snipes until thethird film. Ye, so yeah,
well well wait, hold on,hold on, hold on, I want
to make sure I'm not misremembering it. Because Expendables too, I know they
also had him him in that movie. Oh no, yeah, he was
the only one. Okay, yeah, I haven't seen Expendables for but I

(53:05):
know they brought fifty cent in there, so maybe he was on the on
the team or whatever. But yeah, I mean you you bring in the
guy who arguably is the funniest,most charismatic person in the entire cast,
and he completely waste him. Ithink his name is like Hail Caesar or
something that sounds about right. Thereare some funny ass names in this movie.
I'll give him credit to that LeeChristmas Christmas. I don't even get

(53:30):
that one. I don't know.That sounds like just like mad libs or
like word association or something. Ido like the part where they bring in
they waste another character. Well,I don't know how much he was wasted
because I don't know where he wasat this point, because I guess this
was around the time that people startednoticing something was off. I believe based

(53:52):
on the timeline I've I've been given. But Bruce Willis appears in this movie
very shortly. He does, hedoes, and he I did to say
he was wasted, but I dobelieve he he had some highlights for me.
I do like that he was justlike, you know, let's cut
the ship. You know, youmade cameo. It's just one Arnie Ross.
Isn't your name, you know?Yeah, but uh yeah, they

(54:14):
got some they they they used chatchat GPT to come up with their action
hero names here, and uh,you know, they're interesting enough, I
guess. By the way, doesArnold come back in the sequels. Yes,
he has a much bigger role inExpendables two. That makes sense because
he was not governor anymore. No, he wasn't at that point. I

(54:37):
do like they made the joke abouthim wanting to be president in this,
uh with he kind of, youknow, gives a smirk to the camera.
Yeah, kind of a nod.I mean, but that's that's the
thing about the cameos in this,Like you could even consider Mickey Rourke kind
of a cameo and a glorified cameo. And I don't understand the dis part
of the movie. I don't understandwhy his role is as small as it

(54:59):
is. Maybe it was scheduling conflictswith Iron Man two definitely could have been.
Yeah, but he has I mean, he has less than five minutes
of screen time, I would say, but he delivers the only memorable lines
of the movie, and he givesthe most weight to the movie. I
mean, like, you know,don't get me wrong, like Sylvester Sloan
does his best to like sell whatthe movie is trying to sell, as

(55:20):
far as the emotional weight of itsstory, but like it's not there,
so he's not He doesn't have muchto sell, and I don't I really
don't have anybody else to blame buthim. I mean, I know he
didn't write the thing, but hedirected it, so you know, you
have a say in what's happening onthe screen. I think he did the
best that he could with it.But again, there wasn't much there.

(55:40):
And but I want to I wantto bring it to somebody who who I'm
curious for your opinion on here,And it's Dolf. We didn't talk a
lot about Dolf so far, andhe actually is one of the more.
He's one of the more. Hemight be the most interesting character, or
at least he might be the mostHe seems to be having the most fun

(56:00):
giving an actual performance, like Dolfis not just playing himself. No,
I've gone a record. I likeDolf. I actually think he's a better
actor than people are likely to givehim credit for. I mean, obviously
he's been miscast and he's given somemore awkward performances, but even in something
like The Punisher, where you knowhe is a miscast, Yeah, there's

(56:21):
something. There's something I'm inclined tolike about Dolf. I think he just
has a very interesting screen presence.I think he somehow brings more gravitas to
his characters than I would expect.And I think he's given the worst dialogue
of the movie. I didn't Ireally thought he was close to wasted except

(56:45):
for just his natural menace. Ithink he can just power through the movie
and the performance being Golf, Butsomething was off about the way his character
was handled. I thought, firstoff, first off, what the fuck
is he doing hanging out with thesepeople at the end of the movie.

(57:07):
So, you know what's funny isthis time around. I always just talked
it up to like, oh,he's he's you know, he's doing better
now. But then I realized there'sa line that they put in about asking
him to go to therapy, andI'm like, wait a minute, you
mean he didn't already do that.That's not why he's back. He didn't
resolve his conflict and his issues thathe has. And you're right, he

(57:29):
like he has one of the mostinteresting motivations and even like stories of the
movie of this guy who you know, he's been in the game so long
that he's he's taken it too farnow and he's too far gone by the
way worst dialogue. You're telling meyou didn't like the line that he said
to jet Lee, bring it happyfeet. You didn't like that line?

(57:51):
Oh man, everybody's a critic.I guess no, he was. He
was. He was by far themost affected by the writing in this movie.
I do think it was kind ofcool to have him do this,
like switch side the thing. Iknow, it's kind of a generic thing
of like, oh, the guywho gets thrown off the team, so
he joins the other team whatever,You're going to give him a redemption?

(58:15):
Like no, it is like,if you're gonna give him a redemption,
go full board with it. AndI don't think they did. It's completely
wasted. He he switches aside likethat whole subplot uh is resolved. I
guess within like ten minutes they havea they fight, he gets shot,
and then he has a complete changeof part. Yeah, he gives up

(58:37):
all the information for the bad guyswhile he's supposedly dying. Uh. And
they even they even say a lineabout the fact that he's dead, do
they not? Like on the planethey talk about how they have to give
him a Viking funeral now, andthen he shows up at the end of
the fucking movie. Again. Iguess that was probably a reshoot, or
maybe maybe test audiences were disappointed thathe died, yeah, or maybe they

(59:02):
realized they wanted to make sequels andthey wanted to bring Golf back. Does
he come back? Uh? Yes, he does come back in Expendables too.
Yeah. All right, But hischaracter is a great testament to what
I'm saying that nothing like any attemptsto make a story characters, to give

(59:25):
character arcs, to have themes.It falls flat on his face, like
this movie doesn't know how to approachthat doesn't know how to do that.
You would think that this is afirst time director. Frankly at the helm
when it's you know a guy who'sbeen around the block many times, so
Lester Stallone. He's directed himself manytimes in movies with much better acting,

(59:50):
much better stories, even the actionmovies, even what I'm thinking of as
the kind of schlock era of hiscareer, seem to have a better grasp
on these things than the sles.You know what is a little interesting about
that, though, is that ifyou were describing this movie to somebody,
they would be like, WHOA,that movie's doing way too much. But
this movie does it both does toomuch and too little at the same time.

(01:00:15):
Like they have so many different thingsthat they set up. Right,
So you have this island that's theirnext job. Here's this like underground group,
right that's being like run by likeBruce Willis and his guys, who
are better seemingly than Barney Russ andhis group, but they're not gonna go
do it, so they're sending theseguys to go do it. And then

(01:00:35):
they're here's this island, and theisland is being controlled by this former fed
drug kingpin who's who's got a heavythat looks just like he belongs in the
expendables, and he's in control ofa native army who is who is both
evil but loves the island at thesame time, with a daughter who is

(01:00:57):
against her father but also for herfather. They're coming back to the good
side of things. Who wants toleave and stay on the island at the
same time, All while Barney isconflicted with himself of whether he should follow
his heart or follow his brain andkeep his team safe, while we have
a guy who's lost his mind.Stop me when when I'm not saying something

(01:01:20):
that's happening in this movie. Butit all amounts to nothing except for we
saved the day on this island bycompletely fucking destroying it and killing off at
least seventy five percent of the population. Yeah, I like this movie.
Yeah no, this is definitely onpar with the Born movies. That's a

(01:01:42):
that's a fair comparison. Hey,now I said they. I said the
fight sequences, that's all I said. All Right, don't you misrepresent me,
you bitch. I'll kill you.I will Dolph Lungern here. See,
this is what this movie does topeople. Okay, this is toxic
masculinity at its damn right. Steroidsbefore this episode, nice cinematics equivalent of

(01:02:02):
steroids. Yes, yeah, yeah, okay, I want to ask you.
You know, we we've we've we'vetalked a lot about this movie and
about what it fails to do.What did you enjoy about the Expendables?
Was there any part of the experiencethat you did enjoy? Oh? You
got to the hard question. Okay, Uh, I feel very put on

(01:02:28):
the spot. I feel really youmean a movie, you mean a show
where we talk about things that arenot that bad. You're not ready to
talk about the not that bad part. Honestly, this is this is like
water World levels for me. Ohfucking shot. Oh my god. I
know what I will say before yousay this. I'm surprised that we didn't

(01:02:50):
get more like wrestlers turned actors inthis, like you know, like where
where's uh you know, at thispoint, whul Cogan's not canceled yet,
you know, what's he not doingin this movie? Where's you know,
Where's hul Cogan has been in Nowheresvillesince like nineteen eighty nine? What are
you talking about? You expected himto be in this movie? Yeah,
for sure, yeah, yeah,yeah, okay, you know what,

(01:03:13):
let me say something. Randy Couturwas in this movie. You didn't do
anything before this, I have noidea who that is. Still after having
watched the movie. Not a UFCfan, I see. Let me say
something. I meant to say thisway earlier to set up context. But
there was a movie. There's auniverse where this movie could have been really
fun and it could have really worked, and there's a movie where I could

(01:03:34):
have championed this. Here's the thingabout this this film. I I was
dismayed at how seriously this took itself. I was expecting something almost like a
parody, definitely something self aware andwhere the where the inside jokes felt more
like for the audience's benefit than forthe casts. You know what I mean,

(01:03:58):
I think you'd enjoy the second onewere hearing you say that. To
be honest with you, actually suspectI would. I suspect I would because
I think they just took an approachthat really sunk my chances of enjoying this
movie as it was like, youcould have had all of the problems that
we've discussed, but if the moviehad, like had a more sense of

(01:04:23):
humor about itself, was I thinkmore in the know, you know what
I mean? Like I feel likethis movie is not really I thought this
was gonna be kind of like alike like intentionally self referentially about these old
school guys coming together. But Imean this, you wouldn't know how old

(01:04:47):
Sly is supposed to be. Justfrom the movie. They never address any
of these things. They never addressedhow inherently silly this is. And that's
probably charming for some people. Iknow they don't like it when, like
the Indiana Jones fourth thing of likeevery other joke is about how old our
hero is, every other every otherline is I'm too old for this shit.

(01:05:10):
But hey, I don't like thecomplete opposite of that either. I
don't like being asked to pretend thatSly is like thirty years younger than he
is. This feels like way morelike Rocky five than Rocky Balboa in that
sense, you know, five worse, You're just talking to somebody who also
liked Rocky five. So I likeit more too. But the approach in

(01:05:34):
contrast with Rocky Balboa was clearly lesshumble and yeah, I don't know,
just just didn't uh, less respectfulto the audience's intelligence. I found that
to be the case. I thinkthat's fair to say. I mean,

(01:05:56):
you know, I want to saythis because I've said some good things and
I've said some bad things about themovie. What I want to say and
I want to make clear, isthat like part of the appeal for this
for me goes back to something thatI said a couple of episodes ago talking
about my Bloody Valentine. There isa synthetic nature to this movie that that
feels like you are just like,it feels like you're watching a movie.

(01:06:17):
You know, it doesn't feel likeyou're you're immersed in this world and you're
you know, this feels like youjust grabbed your popcorn and you're like,
ah, look at Sylvester Salone.I I only called his character Barney Ross
in this discussion because I think that'sthe most ridiculous name ever, and I
just wanted to say it a coupleof times. But you're not watching Barney

(01:06:39):
Ross and Lee Christmas and Yin Yangand and Toll Road and fucking Ail Caesar.
You're watching You're watching Sylvester Salone.Even Steve Austin is Steve Austin in
this like to an extent. Andso another person I think was wasted with
what kind of movie this was?Us? You know, give him more

(01:07:00):
of a chance to say some shit. But I w was despite my affinity
for this movie, I can,I can, I can genuinely admit that,
like, this movie is not gonnabe for everybody. If you're not
a fan of feeling like you areliterally like like you're not immersed in a
world at all when watching a movie, You're not gonna be into this because

(01:07:24):
I don't think there's anything to immerseyou into this world minus one scene,
and I do mean one scene,and it's not a long scene between Sylvester
Stallone's character, Barney Ross and andMickey Rourke's character to be taken out of
the movie. That's the funny part, right, It's like it could be

(01:07:45):
in everything would still make sense.And now it adds a little more gravity,
and I think we can admit thatit adds a little the only gravity
it adds the only I mean theyshould I mean. But what I what
I find hard to even kind ofgive the movie credit for it, is
that that is actually a scene thatcould be cut out of the movie.

(01:08:06):
It's not baked into the movie.It almost seems like Sylvester Sloan was doing
a favor to his friend Mickey Rourkegave him a scene, and it accidentally
became the best scene of the movie. I would argue maybe the only good
scene of the movie. I wouldI wouldn't go that far, but I
what I was doing go that far. But from my perspective, with all

(01:08:29):
the problems I have with this movie, this is the only time it clears
any of the hurdles that the thatthe movie has for itself. I do
think this movie wouldn't have been sucha like obvious taking itself too seriously if
they would have killed somebody off,just one, just kill one member of
this team, uh in in battle? I mean like not, you know,

(01:08:53):
like if if they would have killedoff Dolph, like whatever, you
know. Like I not to saythat I don't enjoy Dolphin. I didn't
enjoy him in the other movies becauseI did, but I think even as
inexpendables for it. But the issuethat I have is there's this big weight
of like, I'm worried for myteam, but I want to do the

(01:09:15):
right thing, and I feel likethe right thing is going to this island
and he's gonna do it alone atfirst, and then his whole team comes
with him. Would it not haveadded more gravity for one of them to
die. Just just kill one ofthem. It doesn't matter who it really
doesn't you want these what these peopledoe. It's just because when you don't

(01:09:36):
kill anybody off, it's it's sillyand it's okay for me, Like,
that's cool. If you want thisto be a super team of of of
just of immortal beings that are justshooting their way through islands of people,
sure I can get on board withthat. But like again, it goes
back to what you said a littlewhile ago, which is that this movie

(01:09:57):
does take itself a little too seriouslyin my case of only in your case,
way too seriously, and so oneway to fix that is by actually
adding some weight to what they're doingpast I'm going to have sex with this
woman, which he doesn't even getto do. So yeah, I don't
know, man, Like everybody lives, everything's okay, everybody's friends again,

(01:10:20):
it's just give it a little bitfils. It's funny because you're acknowledging all
of my problems with the movie.It's not that we seem to disagree that
these problems exist. I guess forme that they're crippling like they I mean
right, It's like, I don'tI'm just not nostalgic enough for this type

(01:10:40):
of movie to be won over whenthe movie barely tries to address these problems.
But I guess we just come atit from a different experience. You
have to understand, too, Icame from a very anti Sylvester Stalon household.
Like my dad was a film critic. He was a snob. I
would I mean, this was thiswas not forbidden Fruit, but it was.

(01:11:04):
It was. There was a stigmato this type of movie that I
probably have still internalized somewhat. SoI think for the movie to win my
respect, I don't know, Ijust I'm gonna need more. I don't
expect everybody to feel this way.I acknowledge that there's an audience for this
movie, although I challenge people todefend this movie without without I think,

(01:11:30):
just talking about how fun it isto see these guys all work together.
Like I just want to hear thecase for this movie as a movie,
and that's fair. And that's nota case that I'm here to me.
I mean, I'm just I'm justnot and look and I you know,
I make jokes on the show aboutabout being the dumb one, which which

(01:11:51):
I think is a you know,all in all in good fun, but
I do not endorse that running joke, to be clear, I do anyways.
What I will say is this,like, you know, I joke
about not being above certain things orwhatever, and I do that because I
think when you when you're in aspace of you know, we try to

(01:12:13):
be positive on this show, butwe at the end of the day,
we're still critiquing films. We're stilllooking at a film, and we're analyzing
it, and we're breaking it downand doing all those things. And I
think from an analytical level, ifI was a film reviewer, despite the
fact that I would give this adecent review, it would not be one
that I would recommend to just anybodyto go see. There are movies on
this show that I've said, Idon't know why everybody doesn't go back and

(01:12:34):
gives this a chance for the firsttime or for the second time or whatever.
But this is not one of thosemovies. And when I you know,
I'll obviously I can get to thatto my final verdict, but like
this, at this point, Ican tell everybody definitively this is not a
great movie. This is not amovie that is going to deliver tear jerking

(01:12:57):
scenes, that is going to deliverdrama and and and you know, thrills
and all of these things. Allit is to people like me is just
a fun thing to sit down andwatch. It's it's it's started, and
it's over before you even realize it. And it's everything that you see is
just a turn your brain off funthings. As Gabe from Flockbuster would say,

(01:13:21):
you just turn your brain off andhave a good time. I would
say that about other movies. WhatI don't appreciate about that kind of defense
And I mean, obviously everybody's entitledto their opinion, but it's just something
that people seem to ascribe to anymovie like this, you know what I
mean, Like it's it's always soflippant and to me, like you're like

(01:13:48):
a defense of the movie still hasto be specific to the movie, Like
I don't like these kind of like, oh this this is an action movie.
I just turn your brain off.There are are many movies that I
can turn my brain off and havea good time. I mean, I've
referenced The Big Keeper more than once. Although The Big Keeper is surprisingly ambitious

(01:14:10):
for a movie of that of thatilk. But you know, we can
go down the list. I'm I'mnot too good for this type of movie,
but the movie still needs to workfor that defense right to work.
Otherwise, I mean, you canuse that defense for any movie. Then
there's no such thing as a badmovie by that logic. Yes, and

(01:14:33):
no, I don't think this moviefails completely. Like there are still defenses
that I've that I've pushed back onand still things that I think work.
But I think, at the endof the day, a movie like this,
and I'm gonna admit this because thisis this is like, I think
this is the case for all ofthe movies like this, And I think
that's why I see so many peopleuse those terms that I'm using here,

(01:14:57):
is all of these movies kind ofhave all this bad and all good that
people see in it, and theyjust kind of meet in the middle.
And however you feel while watching themovie, or however you feel about people
in the movie, or whatever factorsoutside of the movie itself can play into
your viewing experience will push it eitherwhich way. Big example, I don't
like any of the Transformers movies.I just don't like them. They're not

(01:15:18):
for me. I don't have funwatching them. I will never go back
and watch them. I don't carehow much you tell me they're fun and
enjoyable. I'm not gonna watch thembecause I don't like them. But could
I absolutely see why somebody loves those, like gave from Flopbuster one hundred percent.
Yeah, they are fun. They'remade for you to go and have
fun at the theater. You know, there's a movie I just watched recently

(01:15:42):
that people say is much more enjoyablewhen you turn your brain off. Came
out the same year as this one. It's a horror film, and I'm
not gonna say what it is becauseI'm pretty sure it's gonna be on the
show pretty soon, but I will, Yeah, I will, definitely,
And it's a movie I've flip floppedon. But people will say it's more
fun when you turn your brain offand just laugh at it. And I
don't think that's something to say forevery film. In fact, even as

(01:16:05):
somebody on the show that we talkgood about things and then try to be
positive, it's something that we saysometimes, but I don't mean it as
like a all encompassing thing. Ithink ultimately it's gonna come down to you,
how is this movie play for you? And with with the factors outside
of the film for you, itdoesn't push it that way. It pushes

(01:16:27):
it the opposite way. And I'mjust on the other side of that coin.
Okay, well, I think that'sa good segue to talk about our
final verdicts. Sound good? Allright? So you brought this movie who
should go first? Who? Ithought this was a mutual movie for some

(01:16:49):
reason. I don't know. Ithink technically this is your movie. I
it was on my list. Yeah, we were looking for a movie to
fill into the slot, and itwas like, ah, you know,
here's an idea. And we werelike, sure, well, look I've
given the game away, so I'lljust go first. I'll get my verdict

(01:17:10):
the way I'm sure you get predicted. God, I was pretty disappointed with
the experience that I had in thismovie. I was not prepared to come
in all grumpy and sound like thesnobby critic. I hope that's not how
I've come across. I know I'vetaken some cheat shots and made it sound
like I can't appreciate this type ofmovie. I can. They just come
in different forms and they still knowhow to If they're not clever, they're

(01:17:40):
they're at least more humble, youknow. They they wear their flaws on
their sleeves and they just invite theaudience to have a good time with them.
This movie struck the worst kind oftonal balance for me. It was
not taking itself seriously enough to tryto make a good movie by conventional andds

(01:18:00):
you know, screenwriting, choreography,themes, characters, that that whole thing.
But it was not allowing itself tohave a sense of humor about about
the premise, about the the actorshere. That would have would have engaged

(01:18:24):
somebody like me. So again,it was it was a movie that could
have been a really fun time.I could have shut my brain off,
But even with my brain firmly shutoff, I would not have been met
with much of anything to to inviteentertainment. You know, I just can't.

(01:18:45):
I mean it's I literally had torent this movie twice because it was
that much of a chore to getthrough. And I don't understand how a
movie with all of these guys ascharismatic as they are, there's no excuse
for that. I mean, itshould have it should have flown by at
the very least. But I wouldbe lying if I said that I think
this movie is worse than a twopoint seven or whatever it is. I

(01:19:09):
gave it a much worse score onLetterbox, so it is. It is
that bad and worse. Oh boy, Okay, very sad to hear that
this was a two time rental foryou, not just because you wasted the
money on it, but also becauseyou know, this is this is one
that I do derive a lot ofenjoyment from. I'll be the first to

(01:19:31):
admit that a lot of this comesfrom nostalgia. It hit it the perfect
time for me. It was kindof the peak of how I felt about
all of these guys in the movie, kind of crossing into one and this
was you know, like I said, this is when I got from Netflix
when it was still a DVD service, and you know, watching it back
this time. I've owned the BluRay for years. I believe I own

(01:19:55):
the first three Expendables movies all onBlu Ray. Yeah, I'm not.
I'm not shy to say that theseare movie These movies are kind of made
for me. They they're they're funmovies. They do fly by for me.
This was a very easy rewatch.It was over before I knew it.
I was like, oh man,this was shorter than I remembered.
And uh, While I don't thinkthe movie's near perfection, I don't think

(01:20:21):
this is a movie that, youknow, as I said before that I
would recommend to all of our listenersout there. But you know, if,
if, if anything about this moviesounds appealing to you, I don't
think it's a waste of time togive it a watch if you've never seen
it before, but really give thata thought before you watch this. And
it's with that that with caution,I do say that that The Expendables is

(01:20:45):
not that bad. I think,you know, at two point seven,
i'd probably give this movie a threeout of five. You know, it's
it. It does enough to keepme there. The problems are are pretty
heavy. I don't think audiences havebeen super unfair to this movie. I
just want to say that, eventhough I think it's not that bad,
personally, I would have expected amuch lower average rating than the two point

(01:21:09):
seven. That said, I dobelieve it is higher than that. So
not that bad is where I'm goingto land. Well, we have a
fair and balanced take on this show. It was nice to stir the pot
and get some real discussion going.I think that's always probably more interesting than
when we're just just going back andforth agreeing with each other. No,

(01:21:30):
So I mean, if you havebeen swayed by either of our opinions,
I still think you should. Iguess check this out if you're a huge
fan of Fly because this is thefranchise that he's been entangled with recently,
and this is probably the best placeto see him and the whole generation of

(01:21:55):
movie stars. So yeah, it'sstill probably something that's worth the watch if
you know what you're signing up for. But be warned. Be warned you
might come out of it disappointed likeme. But that's it for this episode
of Not That Bad. Thank youguys for joining us. It was fun
to talk about a real, puretestosterone action movie. I feel like that

(01:22:16):
is a genre that has been underrepresentedon this show. Maybe we'll be doing
some more in the future. Ifyou guys have any expendables like movies that
you think are Not That Bad,I guess go ahead and let us know.
We don't expendables too here we come. We don't cover all of our
requested films, but if there's onethat really seems like the perfect opportunity,

(01:22:42):
we try to get to it.Connor, how can people support Not That
Bad as they surely want to?After having listened to this episode, Legavee,
I'm so glad you asked. So. People have a couple of ways
that they can support the show.Along with liking, subscribing, commenting,
sharing our content across video and audiosharing platforms, they can also check out

(01:23:11):
our Patreon, Patreon dot com slashNot That Bad, where we put up
exclusive content every once in a while. We have a lot of exciting things
that you can get, including anexclusive Not That Bad sticker at a certain
tier or higher, which we tryto put up as much fun as we
can on that Patreon. You know, we're still working out the kinks.
We are sort of new to thatrealm, but you know, we got

(01:23:33):
some fun stuff on there, includinga review or an episode that is exclusive
to Patreon at this moment of SantasSlay starring wrestler Bill Goldberg, a Christmas
classic for so many out there,including several other ones. I got actually
a pretty exciting one that I'd liketo bring to the Patreon pretty soon that
I'm going to talk to Gabe offcamera about so yeah, we got we

(01:23:55):
got some exciting stuff coming, sodefinitely check that out. But if you
don't want to give us your money, don't worry. That's not something we're
going to take personally, at leastnot me. I don't know about you
know La Gabe over there, ButI only do this for the money.
I only got podcasting for the money. So I will I pay Gabe for
the show. Not enough, butyes if you if you want to support

(01:24:18):
us outside of that, you know. In addition to sharing our content,
we also have a website, notThat badpod dot com. We have a
full catalog of all of our websites, websites of all of our episodes,
rather now organized by season, soyou can check out the entirety of season
one of Not That Bad and thenget into season two and dive in and
binge. Yeah, we know ourepisodes can be a little long, so

(01:24:41):
definitely pace yourself. Don't get sickof us, please, we need you.
But anything you want to see aboutus, the show, our history,
our backgrounds, how the show cameto be, all of that stuff
and more is on our website,including links to our Patreon, and all
of our social media pages, sodefinitely checked out out if you'd like to
support us. Other than that,I think I'm done whorring out. Not

(01:25:03):
that bad, And Gabe, wouldyou like to take us out? My
friend? I have to take usout. I'm running out of money,
I can't pay you any longer forthis episode, and I desperately have to
go to the bathroom. But we'vebeen too busy talking about the goddamn Expendables
movie from twenty ten. Okay,all right, guys, until next time.
This is Gabe and this is Connor, and we are not that bad. Signing