Film Review - Expendables 3 (2014)

Expendables 3 is the third film in the series and again stars Sylvester Stallone as Barney Ross and this time he comes up against an old enemy named Stonebanks (Mel Gibson) who may well be the deadliest enemy the Expendables come across as well as their most personal.

I have to confess sitting in the Comfy Chair that I was kind of looking forward to this movie primarily because I like the old school 1980s Action film probably more than I do the Superhero stuff we've gotten a lot of recently and also the addition of Gibson to the cast as I always like seeing him on screen despite his off screen problems in recent years, did this one shoot its way to victory or die fighting the good fight?

Well to be honest I thought the film was pretty average, don't get me wrong it's not horrible by any means of the imagination but nor is it that great burst of old school Action filmmaking that the first Taken with Liam Neeson was or the 2012 Judge Dredd reboot with Karl Urban both films I think recall that era a lot better than this series does and this one returns to the style and tone of the first film which is more Stallone driven than the second film which had a very fast moving plot and a terrific climax whereas here like in the first film there are a fair few slow parts and the action climax isn't very exciting and runs on a little too long.

Another problem this film has is its villain and despite Gibson's absolute best efforts and he looks in great shape for the role which prompted the natural question "Why did you turn down Mad Max 4?" he doesn't really get an awful lot to do here apart from smile and scheme and punch and kick and frankly another action star could've easily filled his boots in that role, Harrison Ford also gets very little to do when he like Gibson should've been a very exciting addition to this series.

And thinking about that makes me sad somewhat as rumours have surfaced that the Highlander himself Christopher Lambert may be joining this series in a future instalment and I can only hope and pray that he gets a meaty role as Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod deserves nothing less.

Probably the best new additions to the series and about this film are Wesley Snipes and Antonio Banderas, Snipes gets the bulk of the laughs here and shows that his time in Jail for Tax Avoision (Avoision it's a crime look it up) has kept him in good shape while Banderas looks terrific, really lean and mean and both of them I thought were the best thing about this film.

So sad to say, Expendables 3 is very average watching and for me it's hard to recommend it, go and see Guardians of the Galaxy instead, 2 out of 5.