The Expendables 3

A couple of minutes after the end, and I already don’t know what it was about. Maybe it’s because it was about nothing... :) While the second one made my heart skip a beat at the fact that an action film today can still be so genuinely entertaining and that can transfer that vigour to the viewer, the third one is a soulless, uninspired carnage that only tries to win fans by how many famous names appear in as super-stylish badass icons. The best character is hands down Banderas’s, who spices up the dull parade of B-movie action and script recycling at least for a while with much-needed, previously completely derivative humour. 45% (10/11/2015)

You bet I’m overrating it, because at last they managed to fine tune it. The first part was about nostalgia, part two just blinked by, part three is a big show about revenge, education and the team spirit, what else? The primary strength is Gibson, hungry for a proper role, he relishes every minute on screen, but he has criminally few of them. Snipes is out of jail and making himself known. He’s still got it. The king of the snappy line is definitely Banderas and his mouthy Galgo, his broken English enough to drive the audience round the bend. And what about the old gang? Still singing the same tune, they work well together, even if it’s sometimes a bit knives out. Arnold and Jet question their orientation with a smile. Anything for a laugh. And the youngsters a pretty fine too. Hughes proves himself to be the best director of the trilogy yet, despite occasional confusing action scenes, he has everything in hand and so in visual terms Expendables 3 comes out on top. The screenplay is full of holes and gigantic, in places exaggerated (the house packed with C4 and tanks), in places too restrained finale (Sly vs. Mel), but at least it’s consistent. In any case, it’s one big show that is best scene on the silver screen. - Why did they call you Doctor Death? - I was a medic. (08/15/2014)

I think it's a better film than the second film, which feels somewhat forced. But of course it has its flaws. On the one hand, it’s perfectly filmed and well-arranged action with an amazing finale with the army, a likeable bunch of familiar old men spiced up by the excellent Banderas and Ford, who obviously had a good time, villain Mel Gibson, and a constant pace. On the other hand, most of the time the young team is not very interesting (this is not true in the finale, where they all shine) and especially, especially, especially the lackluster Stallone vs. Gibson duel. Plus there is one glaring illogicality - the Expendables fly to Somalia to eliminate someone and they don't even know what he looks like? Very strange.___P.S. Those who watched the pirated copy instead of at the movie theatre must have missed about half of the experience. Good for you. (08/18/2014)

Morons need friends. While the second installment surpasses the first one in mutating into long action orgies that can only be interrupted by a witty line or a minor plot twist, the last foray into 80s nostalgia surprisingly does the exact same thing. It doesn't stop, it doesn't take a breath, for two hours it throws various fighting tactics at the audience, all enveloped in a disgruntled retirement subplot. Moreover, Mel Gibson's unsettling ex-Expendable works brilliantly, especially because he isn't a villain in the classic sense of the word, but a guy whose nerves are on edge (though his own nerves occasionally lightly hold him back). Thanks to Sylvester Stallone's unbreakable buddy chemistry with anyone, this team of walking bulletproof vests managed to reach such heights. Considering the zero box office revenue, it will likely remain there – and considering the maximum satisfaction and sense of closure at the end credits, I can actually live with that. (08/20/2014)

After two years, I was finally able to meet up with this gang once again. The members might have changed a lot, but I’m okay with that. Wesley Snipes and Antonio Banderas were an amazing addition to the old crew and so the fun began. What was a little worse were the young actors who were difficult to get used to – well, I didn’t manage to do that and I’ll be happier if they weren’t there the next time. But maybe they’ll convince me that they’re worth it the next time, because this time, they couldn’t convince me due to the movie’s only real flaw: there’s loads of actions scenes, but you’re never able to grasp them enough to say that they were any good. I wouldn’t call the camera shaky, I just felt that the editing sucked. A lot. And that influenced the entire movie, which is why I can’t rate it with five stars. Because everything else was a total classic, it was what I wanted and what I was looking forward to. The scenes with Sly, Statham, Snipes, Banderas, Lundgren and Ford were priceless, too, just like Mel Gibson who has also become the best Expendables villain yet. We’ll see what they do next. I’m just hoping that the camerawork gets better and that the DVD rip won’t leak a whole month before the cinema premiere. Then it really makes me sad that the so-called action movies fans on this website download the movie, critique it, but won’t support their favorite actors at the cinema. I went to the cinema at the day of the Czech premiere and the movie already had over 2000 reviews! Go to hell, this gang doesn’t deserve that and they’ll go south if things continue like that. But go ahead and call yourselves “fans”. Oh, and by the way – you won’t believe how happy I was to see the Expendables drinking Czech beer. It was an outright joy. It’s a shame that the brewery won’t even brag about it properly. (08/15/2014)