The Expendables
Mar. 30th, 2011 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redfiona99Mostly because I don't want to talk about RL.
The Expendables
My first, and major, piece of praise for the Expendables is this - it failed or succeeded on its own merits, it wasn't a remake, an adaptation or a reboot. It hadn't been focus-groupped to death. More of this kind of thing, please.
I appreciate what Stallone was trying to do, and I think he walks that tightrope remarkably well. Not perfectly, don't get me wrong, but I can at least get that the intended message was, 'these are cool guys but being a mercenary is a shitty thing to be.' I also laugh and point my finger at the critics who said it was too pro-American. I think they were deliberately not watching it properly.
It wasn't perfect, not even close, but I give it points for trying.
Things I didn't like:
The bad CGI. Of all the films I didn't think would bother with bad CGI ... Blood doesn't look like that, nor do decapitated necks.
Steve Austin committing violence against women, for the obvious reason.
Not enough Jet Li.
Things I am undecided on:
The whole Statham/Charisma Carpenter sup-plot. P and O, who I watched it with, were trying to decide if Statham took her back or not, and whether he ought to. I pointed out it was his fault for vanishing for long periods of time with no warning. I think my view was held to be part of the general perfidy of women.
The Gunnar sub-plot. Don't get me wrong, there are things I liked about it but I think it would have been better if they'd gone with either kill-crazy or drugs. Not that they're mutually exclusive, but I think it would have worked better in terms of the telling the story.
Things I liked:
- the music
- that the intransigent, immovable rebel was a woman.
- shades of grey (or well, shades of something anyway) with the General.
- The bit with the gun in the plane's nose. Totally unrealistic, totally ridiculous, totally awesome.
- Jet Li. His character was right; everything is harder for short people ;)
- a minimum of mushy romantic sub-plot. Which worked for the film. Is Stallone in love with her, or the idea of her or does he see her cause as right and just, or is it a bit of all of those?
- Mickey Rourke's speech *
- The film's sense of confidence of purpose. A film less confident would have been the pastiche or epitome of 80s actioneers that people were expecting and it would have been terrible.
- The film's subtlety, or relative levels of such. Not what I was expecting, but there were lots of parts where most films would have been all tell not show, for example, most films would have had a ten minute speech about the power of friendship rather that 'what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger, eh' directed at Gunnar. See also the Mickey Rourke speech.
- Sly Stallone is not a bad director. He's efficient and doesn't use epilepsy-inducing cuts or vomit-cam. I ask for very little.
*Dear Mr. Rourke, you'll undoubtedly do a bang-up job in your film about Gareth Thomas, but you're still to old to play him.
The Expendables
My first, and major, piece of praise for the Expendables is this - it failed or succeeded on its own merits, it wasn't a remake, an adaptation or a reboot. It hadn't been focus-groupped to death. More of this kind of thing, please.
I appreciate what Stallone was trying to do, and I think he walks that tightrope remarkably well. Not perfectly, don't get me wrong, but I can at least get that the intended message was, 'these are cool guys but being a mercenary is a shitty thing to be.' I also laugh and point my finger at the critics who said it was too pro-American. I think they were deliberately not watching it properly.
It wasn't perfect, not even close, but I give it points for trying.
Things I didn't like:
The bad CGI. Of all the films I didn't think would bother with bad CGI ... Blood doesn't look like that, nor do decapitated necks.
Steve Austin committing violence against women, for the obvious reason.
Not enough Jet Li.
Things I am undecided on:
The whole Statham/Charisma Carpenter sup-plot. P and O, who I watched it with, were trying to decide if Statham took her back or not, and whether he ought to. I pointed out it was his fault for vanishing for long periods of time with no warning. I think my view was held to be part of the general perfidy of women.
The Gunnar sub-plot. Don't get me wrong, there are things I liked about it but I think it would have been better if they'd gone with either kill-crazy or drugs. Not that they're mutually exclusive, but I think it would have worked better in terms of the telling the story.
Things I liked:
- the music
- that the intransigent, immovable rebel was a woman.
- shades of grey (or well, shades of something anyway) with the General.
- The bit with the gun in the plane's nose. Totally unrealistic, totally ridiculous, totally awesome.
- Jet Li. His character was right; everything is harder for short people ;)
- a minimum of mushy romantic sub-plot. Which worked for the film. Is Stallone in love with her, or the idea of her or does he see her cause as right and just, or is it a bit of all of those?
- Mickey Rourke's speech *
- The film's sense of confidence of purpose. A film less confident would have been the pastiche or epitome of 80s actioneers that people were expecting and it would have been terrible.
- The film's subtlety, or relative levels of such. Not what I was expecting, but there were lots of parts where most films would have been all tell not show, for example, most films would have had a ten minute speech about the power of friendship rather that 'what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger, eh' directed at Gunnar. See also the Mickey Rourke speech.
- Sly Stallone is not a bad director. He's efficient and doesn't use epilepsy-inducing cuts or vomit-cam. I ask for very little.
*Dear Mr. Rourke, you'll undoubtedly do a bang-up job in your film about Gareth Thomas, but you're still to old to play him.
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Date: 2011-03-30 10:48 pm (UTC)I flat out didn't like the Statham/Carpenter subplot. That was wholly unnecessarily imo, and as I said, as much as I enjoy Statham beating up assholes, I could live without the whole implication that he's somehow better for her. Relationships don't work that way, jeez.
Interestingly enough, for me, I thought it was pretty clear that there was no romantic attachment between Stallone and Sandra, which is why I liked it so much. Granted, she was essentially an idea to him more than a person, but I was so glad there wasn't romantic overtures. He was motivated by her strength, that she stood for something, while he has always just done bad shit for good money. Ties into Rourke's awesome speech about having had the chance to do something morally right, but didn't care, and how that ate at his soul.