A miss that was not supposed to be

EVERY now and then, a film that I have a sentimental attachment to comes along and, as such, I prefer to grade it on a curve.

For those who may be lost, this simply means I gloss over the film’s weaknesses and talk up its strengths.

I did it with Paramount Pictures’ “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” a couple of months ago. I also do it with some of Marvel’s not-sogood movie releases like “Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”, “Antman” and “Thor”.

This is usually due to some emotional attachment to, say, a favourite actor/ actress or simply due to nostalgia.

Try as I may have, it is hard to downplay the litany of weaknesses in Sylvester Stallone’s latest and final “Expendables” movie.

Going by the title “Expend4bles”, the movie is a 104-minute train wreck that was marred by numerous production problems, which included the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 77-year-old actor even quit the movie, only to be brought back after some gentle persuasion from the rest of the cast.

The effects of all these challenges cast a huge shadow over the film, as Stallone’s role in the movie is minimal.

The computer-generated imagery is terrible, performances phoned in and the overall movie comes off half-baked.

“Expend4bles” lacks the charm of the first three movies and the nostalgic effect.

It, therefore, comes off as no surprise that the film has tanked at the box office.

The “Expendables” team are on a mission to Libya to prevent mercenary Suarto Rahmat (Tony Jaa) from stealing nuclear warheads for a mysterious terrorist named Ocelot.

The mission goes wrong as Rahmat anticipates their arrival, fights them off and, in the process, kills the Expendables’ team leader, Barney Ross (Stallone).

Grief-stricken, the rest of the team decides to track down Rahmat and his men in an effort to avenge the death of their leader and uncover the true identity of Ocelot.

Apparently, Ocelot has some history with the now-deceased Barney Ross and always appears to be one step ahead of every government agency that comes after him.

Jason Statham’s Lee Christmas, who takes most of the flak for Ross’ death, gets side-lined from the rest of the team, forcing him to go at it alone. The plot itself is one of the film’s biggest weaknesses, as it does not take a rocket scientist to actually guess the true identity of the mysterious terrorist (Ocelot).

By killing off Stallone’s character, the writers took away one of the best things about the Expendables movies — and this is the chemistry between Stallone and Statham.

Stallone’s disgruntlement also meant he could not ask any of his old 90s action buddies to join the project.

Some of the franchise’s old guards do not even show up, with the most notable being Jet Li, Terry Crews, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Wesley Snipes, Antonio Banderas and Harrison Ford. In their stead, we are introduced to a couple of new characters like Megan Fox’s Gina, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson (Easy Day) and Jacob Scipio (Galan).

Unfortunately, Fox and Jackson are either terrible actors or their performances are simply phoned in. Scipio appears to be doing his best Antonio Banderas impression and falls flat at it.

Still on the performance front, Tony Jaa does not make for a good antagonist.

Aside from the scene in which he shoots and kills a child during the movie’s opening sequence, the martial arts expert does nothing of note during the whole movie.

I also found it rather distressing that the production has Jaa (Rahmat) and Iko Uwais (Decha) in the same movie, on opposite sides, and not having them face off. For those not familiar with the duo, Jaa and Uwais used to have their own martial arts movie franchises in the “Ong Bak” and “The Raid”, respectively. A duel between these two could have saved the movie.