Patrick Hughes brings old and new guns to a premise consisting of cinema’s most cherished action heroes and villains in The Expendables 3.
With The Expendables 3 still showing on Amazon Prime UK, I thought I would give a quick review of the third installment leading up to the mighty fourth installment with Andy Garcia and Megan Fox, what a strange combo for an Expendables flick.
This third installment was helmed by Hollywood newcomer Patrick Hughes, coming off his debut with Red Hill, he was in charge of steering a cast of action icons onto the screen with a narrative more personal this time around and the end result is at times a jumbled mess, but an entertaining ride with plenty of well-choreographed fight scenes, this time with Banderas, Gibson, Ford, Snipes, and the whole traditional cast as well as a new cast of world champions including Ronda Rousey.
This time around, upon experimenting twice with the tone, this third installment balances drama, comedy, and action fairly well together. There is some great use of comedy with Antonio Bandera’s character, whose backlog of work includes the classic shoot em up Desperado, and the film, in general, gets a lot of each of these characters, with references and winks to some of their best work without overloading us with references and that’s essentially what these films are about, nothing more and nothing less.
The addition of Mel Gibson really adds to the quality of the project as he really is a serious action star whose work has consisted of a lot of oscar material films, of and behind the camera. Only 3 years later he would direct Hacksaw Ridge, a hard hitting war film.
Mel Gibson is easily the best part of the film and perhaps the series best villain. He has the most amount of character development and has a long history with Barney Ross. Other slick additions include Arnie, who gets a lot of screen time in the action scenes, effortlessly blowing bad guys to the face just as he did in the Terminator films.
Mel’s character gets a standout scene in the middle section of the film where he talks to Barney about his experience in The Expendables crew and confesses his hatred towards him, as well as his fight scene with him in the final part of the film, which wasn’t quite as knuckle headed as it was in The Expendables 2 with Van Damme.
The biggest complaint that I have with the film isn’t the addition of the new expendables team or even the 12a rating. The overall cinematography of the film felt very watered down and tame. The final action scene has some thrilling moments, but its visual look mainly consists of a grey filter, which doesn’t exactly scream summer entertainment.
I think this really impacted the film, more so than its streaming release. The film could have used a more bright, colorful, and gritty edge as that could have really sold the action scenes. A similar gripe that I had with The Expendables 2, the overall look didn’t come across as exciting as it could have been. Much of the action scenes take place inside this big damaged building, which is a pretty dark and uninteresting environment.
The films runtime is long and we get a lot more character development than in the previous film, with Kelsey Grammer aiding Stallone in the process of finding new young talent. With this, the standout character is Kellan Lutz who resembles similar qualities to Stallone. Both have similar traits and it was fun to see a character resemble and sometimes challenge Stallone and his values.
That’s where the USP of the film starts, it’s the interaction between the old and new cast, which that dynamic really makes the old cast’s traits stand out. It would be interesting to see how this third film completes the trilogy and adds to the narrative of the films for action audiences.
The questions to ask is does it complete The Expendables narrative in a satisfying manner, does it add something more to the characters and their personas, setting itself nicely for the fourth installment. I’d say yes.
The first half is the most enjoyable part of the film with a really solid opening action scene involving the rescue of Wesley Snipes who looks like he has been absent from the screen in a while, but his presence begins to blossom when he meets his old gang. The actual action scene itself is long and involves car chases, shoot outs, boats and a whole list of fun, with Terry Crews showcasing why he is the king of big weaponry.
The second half mostly consists of the new talent. The new talent are pretty slick and add a sense of purpose to the team, but you tend to loose interest whenever they are on screen, you want to cut back to the old expendables crew because of their star status.
The scene takes place in a different location, with different outfits and enemies. The scene begins to increase in tension where we see Mel Gibson arrive in a helicopter and that’s when we know who the main villain is.
There is also a little more emotion and revenge this time when Terry Crews gets injured, the music and the way the scene is shot gives off a dramatic sense of loss, even though Terry Crews survives the gunplay, but Stallone is ready to fight back but old age seems to be a problem this time around.
However, I still believe that this may be one of Hollywood’s and Lionsgate’s most enjoyable and entertaining action series of the 2010’s. The action is well filmed and has a great sense of heroism attached to it, where you really want these guys to succeed in these epic and practical action scenes of car chases and gunplay. This alongside their banter in bars and planes gives the action that extra dash of charm.
The hand to hand combat scenes are some of the best in today’s industry, with each installment giving us the goods. But, equally the banter and comradery between these stars is always fun to watch and unique as you can’t experience this element in any other action film, making The Expendables a breathe of fresh air in the action genre.
With The Expendables 3, you need to know what you are getting, a big action film with a love for its own cast, providing self aware jokes that sometimes don’t land, with a villain who actually is giving a good performance. Its a real audience picture that ties a nice explosive bow over the action genre.
For a big action film like this with so much talent and screen presences, Patrick Hughes does a pretty solid job of managing a cast this big and making sure that each character has enough screen time to sell their performances. I think its well phrased, especially in the last action scene where each of the characters have their chance to shine and say a few funny one liners. It must be a challenge to balance all of these performances.
I highly recommend watching each of the character’s action films beforehand to get you in the mood to have a laugh seeing all of these legends just talk and fire guns, that’s the film’s sweet spot, purpose, and audience.
The Expendables 3 is best served as a self-aware picture that is a nod to the action genre and its history, if you watch with this in mind you will have a blast.
You can watch The Expendables 3 extended cut on Amazon Prime UK.
Author Bio
Sam is a content writer. He loves all elements connected with film and writes with passion, always. You can find him on Linkedin, where you will be able to read more articles. When he is not writing, you can find him practicing football
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