You know what? Fuck irony. The Expendables is going to be amazing.
This is a film that will not only star Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren, Jason Statham, Jet Li and Arnold Schwarzenegger; it is a film that at various points of production also nearly starred Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal and Wesley Snipes.
That, my friends, is a cast list. I would rather watch Bruce Willis make an omelette than any film starring Zooey Deschanel. I would rather watch Sylvester Stallone punch a kitten than any film with The Moldy Peaches on its soundtrack. I would rather watch Mickey Rourke drop kick a piglet off a motorway flyover for three hours than any film ever associated with Peyton Reed. I love action films. They make me feel brilliant.
Now this summer several of my friends have got in turn weepy, uplifted, beatific and vomit-inducing over shoe-gazing, indie-schmindie, twee-as-an-icing-sugar-doilie films like (500) Days of Summer. They were actually counting down the days to the release date. They were quoting reviews that said things like “Brilliantly directed, superbly written and featuring delightful performances from its two leads, this is a charming, funny and wonderfully inventive romcom that’s easily one of the best films of the year.”
Well, do you know what I say to that? Do you know what I say? I quote that genius of celluloid, that master of subtlety, that shining light in the pantheon of Rocky, Dolph Lundgren and say “The Expendables has a seventy million-dollar budget, and it’s an old-school, kick-ass action movie where people are fighting with knives and shooting at each other.” Beat that, you paisley wearing shit-kickers.
This film has had more money thrown at it than some UN humanitarian projects and there will be people shooting at each other. You cannot, possibly, win against a film like this. It is the uber-film, the mega-film, the meta-film.
Not only have two of the stars been intimately involved with Brigitte Nielsen, they have also starred in some of the greatest action films the world has ever known. You show me a person who didn’t love Rambo: First Blood and I will show you a pussy. You show me a person who didn’t love Die Hard and I will show you an empty shell. You show me a person who didn’t love at least one of the Rocky series and I will show you a pestilential moron who barely deserves to slide across the gravel on Sly Stallone’s three mile long driveway.
Now, when it comes to great action films, plot is very important. Without a plot, there is almost no opportunity to get out a preposterously big weapon or treat someone’s face like an unkneaded pizza base. So, the plot of The Expendables has obviously been absolutely pored over by Stallone for many years. It runs like this: a group of ludicrous bad men are sent to South America to overthrow a tyrant dictator. Take that Orson Welles. These assassins, mercenaries and all-round tough nuts will bring an end to 20 years of national suffering through the medium of pure, unadulterated violence.
So, you’ve got your cast, you’ve got your plot, and you’ve already got talk of a sequel. Sadly, filming only began in March this year in Brazil, New Orleans and Los Angeles so the final film won’t be released until the August 22, 2010.
I don’t think I can wait that long. The only possible way I can get through this agony of waiting is by, oh I don’t know, setting up camp in some deserted wasteland in Siberia, learning how to disassemble, clean, reload and reassemble a huge gun in less than 10 seconds, practise driving at 9,000 miles an hour, wrestling bears and refining my aim by throwing boulders at hovering helicopters. Then, by the time I have transformed myself into a sweating, pop-veined, monosyllabic, deadly and yet sensitive and loving killing machine, The Expendables will finally be showing on my nearest big screen. Bring on the bulk.
