Movie Review: The Expendables

Minus: Realism factor was zero. Plus: Pure sweet awesomeness factor was 5000. Walking out of the theatre, I echoed others who commented that "this movie oozes testosterone," or "I think I grew a third ball," or even "if all the most kick-butt guys in the world pooled their DNA into one pure kick-butt kid, this movie would be the story of his life." I'm not kidding- this is the best guy's guy movie I've seen in years, just pure out fun, laugh out loud in sheer delight at how incredibly and unapologetically manly it is.

Of course it is all the actors who make it that way- Sylvester Stallone is a man, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis face off with him, Dolph Lundgren has been beaten with the ugly/cool stick, Mickey Rourke is the soul of the Expendables, and Jet Li looks like he was born for that part, Jason Statham is a touch of new age, Terry Crews is scary sweet, Randy Couture is an MMA guy, and Steve Austin is a WWE guy. I'm not going to spoil the movie by telling you the plot, but there are a couple scenes that stand out- the duel between Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren, the duel between Steve Austin and Stallone, the duel between Gary Daniels (a kickboxer) and Jet Li, the blowing up of everything, the shooting up of everything, the knife work and knife throwing, and maybe the sweetest use of a AA12 shotgun ever.

This movie isn't the most realistic and won't push any sort of message on you (unless you consider killing third-world dictators and drug dealers some sort of message), but is the funnest ride you'll have in under 2 hours this summer. I can't wait for the sequel! Go see The Expendables today!