The Expendables (2010)

Without my help, this movie averaged a 7.5 out of 10 amongst the 4 people I saw this with.
The strengths of this film was definitely the cast. Each of these guys made countless contributions to the Action movie genre (except Randy Couture) and are each a legend in their own right.

The basic plot is that a group of 6 guys. They're known as The Expendables, only because they have tattoos or a graphic on their motorcycle that says "The Expendables" with a logo of a skull. After a job goes wrong, they kick Gunner (Lundgren) out of their crew. They're offered a job to take out a dictator General Garza played by David Zayas (Dexter). The General is getting help in with his government by a rogue CIA agent played by Eric Roberts. Apparently there's a rebellion going on of maybe 4 people including the general's Butterface daughter and three guys that get killed in the beginning. After Barney (Stallone) and Christmas (Statham) survey the area and meet the daughter, I guess Barney has a crush on the daughter? After a fight they go back to what I think is America and they decide the job is too tough and turn the job down. But Barney is decides to go back anyways and save the daughter. Yin Yang (Li) decides to go with him. As they're driving some of Eric Roberts' guys go after them and among them is Gunner. Gunner and Yin wind up fighting and Barney shoots him a few inches above his heart. Gunner gives up some info and Barney and Yin go to their plane to fly back to the island and rescue the general's daughter. On board the plane are Randy Couture and Terry Crews along with Christmas. They decide to fight alongside Barney which they do and they win. Then they go home. Roll credits.

Now what could they have done to make the movie better?

First and most critically, they should have fired the director of cinematography. The fights were cool when we could see what was going on. The camera work was way too shaky and kept cutting to different scenes way too fast.

Second develop the characters a lot more. We don't get any background information about the characters. The characters didn't really seem human save for Lee Christmas because of his cheap attempt of character development. Why does Barney do what he does? He's obviously the leader. If any of the characters need to be developed it should be him. Gunner apparently is a junkie, but they should show him getting messed up or something. The only reason why we know he's a junkie is because someone calls him a junkie. Show him doing some drugs. Don't know enough about drugs? Invent one!

Third the rebellion should be bigger. We only see four rebels. I'm actually not even sure if there actually is a rebellion.

Finally, Cast a hotter general's daughter. I mean the Trojan war was fought due to a beautiful woman. No one's going to go to war for a girl with just a nice body.

Here's what I would do:

Stallone will be the obvious lead because it's his baby.

The opening scene will be on the island Vilena. Sandra (Sofia Vergara), General Garza's daughter is planning her next attack with her band of rebels. Pablo, one of the rebels looks nervous and they learn that he was captured and his family would be executed if he didn't snitch. As Pablo cries begging for forgiveness he's shot in the head by Garza's men as they rush in. The rebels scatter most of them die. Sandra and another rebel are running through the street. The other rebel turns back and fires some shots to buy them some time but he gets shot and Sandra gets knocked out by a hiding soldier. Then they show Garza (Victor Hugo Martin) walks up to the camera. It pans out to reveal that he's walking toward the rebel and he fires a shot killing the rebel.

Then they cut to The Expendables. The Somalian pirate scene is perfectly fine except they show Gunner popping some pills. Barney asks if he's okay. Gunner replies, "Yeah man." flexes. "No problem." Other than that same scene.

When they get home they should all have the same bike. It looks ridiculous that the majority of them are on harley-type bikes but Statham is on a Ducati. Based on the feel of the film, I'd go with Harleys. Have the guys drinking up at a bar not at Tool's to show that there is camaraderie amongst the crew. Then Tool gets a text for a job offer and asks Barney if he's interested. Where Barney replies, "Is it dangerous" with which Tool confirms that it is. Then Barney says something like "Fuck yeah!" A fight breaks out and the crew beats the crap out of everyone and Terry Crews gives the bartender a handful of hundreds to pay for the damage as they leave.

They get the briefing from Mr. Church scene stays the same. They plan out their attack kinda like on The Italian Job or something. They recruit another dude to replace Gunner. (Maybe Jean Reno?) They go off and fight but things don't go as planned as Lee gets captured while allowing the crew to escape. One of the guys dies, let's make it... Randy Couture cause he's not really an Action star. The rest regroup where Barney decides they need to rescue their comrade. This time it's a lot more personal.

While captured Lee is tortured along with Sandra. They develop a sort of friendship.

The crew plans out their rescue with concerns about being down a man, but then Gunner comes back clean and helps the crew out. They go off and fight their way through. Hale Caesar was supposed to be a demolitions expert, have him do more demolitions stuff. Have Jet Li be the crazy knife guy and really let him go to town with the martial arts stuff. Jason Statham can have martial arts scenes too but they really underutilized Jet Li in this movie I think.

Lee and Sandra escape from their cell and eventually run into Gunner where Gunner helps them but gets shot and killed. Lee and Sandra meet up with the rest of the group. Jet Li with a less racist name than Yin Yang fights The Brit and is getting the upperhand until Steve Austin jumps in. Lee and Yin join up and beat the crap out of them and kill them with that sweet neckbreaking kick they did in the movie.

Barney and General Garza have a showdown where they both die. The team escapes and the rescue is complete. Garza is dead and Lee decides to head back to America and rebuild the team while Sandra decides to continue the fight. Yin Yang, Hale Caesar, Jean Reno, and Lee Christmas form the new team. And the film ends with Lee getting the same tattoo that Barney has.

Introduction

Have you ever seen a movie where you're like, this would have been so much cooler if they did this? That's exactly what this blog is about. I'm going to discuss the movie, it will be laden with spoilers, and I'll talk about what was stupid and what they should have done to make it much better.