Major spoilers for "Expend4bles" follow.
Ever since "The Expendables" was released in 2010, the identity and tone of the franchise has been heavily in question. That first film seemed to want to have things both ways, presenting the trials and tribulations of the (very fictional) titular team of mercenaries while metatextually commenting on (and piggybacking off of) the action stars playing them. Put another way, it's as if the crossover formula seen in Marvel's "The Avengers" franchise was reversed: the coming together of the film's stars are the big draw, while the characters are (at least initially) not well known.
While 2012's "The Expendables 2" leaned far more into the meta aspects of people like Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris showing up in the same film, 2014's "The Expendables 3" attempted to find a similar balance to the first film, establishing its characters in their own right while still...
Ever since "The Expendables" was released in 2010, the identity and tone of the franchise has been heavily in question. That first film seemed to want to have things both ways, presenting the trials and tribulations of the (very fictional) titular team of mercenaries while metatextually commenting on (and piggybacking off of) the action stars playing them. Put another way, it's as if the crossover formula seen in Marvel's "The Avengers" franchise was reversed: the coming together of the film's stars are the big draw, while the characters are (at least initially) not well known.
While 2012's "The Expendables 2" leaned far more into the meta aspects of people like Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris showing up in the same film, 2014's "The Expendables 3" attempted to find a similar balance to the first film, establishing its characters in their own right while still...
- 9/22/2023
- by Bill Bria
- Slash Film
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