With 바카라˜The Expendables 4바카라™, Sylvester Stallone joins hands once again with Jason Statham to bring together a band of action stars to give audiences another larger-than-life action extravaganza. Is the film on Lionsgate Play worth your time? Or can you simply skip it? Read the full movie review to find out.
바카라˜The Expendables바카라™ has been one of the most popular action franchises in Hollywood. The franchise which started off with Sylvester Stallone as the lead trying to get together a bunch of Hollywood big-wig action stars together for a larger-than-life action-adventure, has grown to have a handful of the original cast and accumulated bigger and bigger stars with every sequel. With the 4th part, 바카라˜The Expendables바카라™ becomes bigger than ever.
The team of Expendables is the world바카라™s last line of defence against a potential World War 3. They are armed with every weapon they can get their hands on. The team gets called for the mission when all other options are off the table. They try to pull every resource available to stop a nuclear bomb from detonating at a Russian port while being laden inside an American ship. If the bomb explodes the Russians will feel that the Americans have attacked them. In an act of retaliation, they will hit back with a bigger attack, which will eventually spiral into a world war. The team of Expendables try to stop this ship from crashing into the Russian port.
Jason Statham is the only person holding the entire film together on his shoulders. Even though he has nothing else apart from action in the film, he still flaunts a swagger that keeps his character interesting.
Sylvester Stallone came all guns blazing to pick up from where he left in the previous film of the franchise. His character has less screen time in this part, but he does manage to get you excited and pumped up every time he is onscreen.
Megan Fox is possibly there just to increase the sexual quotient in the film. While she is there in some of the action scenes even, it seems that she was there just for that one raunchy intimate scene with Jason Statham. There was not much relevance to her character.
Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, who is a new addition to the cast, is just there to attract his immense fan following to watch the film. Sadly, he doesn바카라™t have a role that바카라™s even worthy of his time.
Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais and Randy Couture are all wasted in roles that are massively small. Their action has been shown in fewer scenes and you바카라™re just feeling whether or not they바카라™re just there as a favour to Sylvester Stallone trying to keep alive this genre of action.
Andy GarcÃa, another new addition this time, tries his level best to up the ante. However, having seen Andy GarcÃa바카라™s films over the years, you know that the character isn바카라™t what it looks on the surface of it. And when your expectations are proved right, you바카라™re slightly disappointed thinking about how predictable it was.
The script by Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart and Max Adams based on the story of Spenser Cohen, Kurt Wimmer and Tad Daggerhart is the weakest link of the film. There is barely any storyline. It바카라™s so wafer-thin that you바카라™re constantly feeling that you바카라™re watching just a bunch of action sequences that are strung together.
Director Scott Waugh does well to try and stitch together the numerous action sequences together and try to make a semblance of a storyline. He has managed to get the action to come out brilliantly, which helps make the film look larger than life. However, where he misses out is in the VFX aspect. The visual effects in some of the scenes are so bad that you end up feeling that video games have better visual effects than this. Scenes of a helicopter blasting and falling off the ship, scenes of actors jumping from one vehicle to another 바카라“ there are simply so many scenes where the visual effects were too amateurish, and you don바카라™t expect that to happen in such a high-profile film franchise. But one thing that Scott Waugh gets brilliantly is the intent of the film. He didn바카라™t let the film bring on too much of the backstories and the emotional baggage. He stuck to an old-school actioner and went straight to action and ended it with some action.
The cinematography by Tim Maurice-Jones is something that바카라™s decently good. While on the one hand, you love the way the action sequences have been filmed, at the same time, you바카라™re also hoping the outdoor sequences atop a ship to be a bit more lighted, so that audiences could see what바카라™s happening when. It바카라™s a small detail but would have made a lot of impact on the action sequences. But those knife fights and high-flying action sequences have been filmed brilliantly. They make you feel like you too want to be a part of that fight.
Michael J. Duthie바카라™s editing is fairly good. It helps you ease into the constant gunning and knife fights without any serious jump cuts. Also keeping the crisp is also a masterstroke. He didn바카라™t let the film go up to the 2-hour mark, which was really good. Otherwise, the film may have started to drag a bit too much in the middle.
Guillaume Roussel바카라™s music is something that is a high point of the film. The constant shelling and action sequences needed a background score that will help you feel like you바카라™re sitting in the midst of it all. Guillaume Roussel manages to get that perfectly. Some of the action sequences had fast-paced music, which sort of gave it a comical feel, but it somehow gelled well with the scenes.
Director: Scott Waugh
Cast: Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Megan Fox, Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Randy Couture, Andy GarcÃa
Available On: Lionsgate Play
Duration: 1 Hour 43 Minutes
Yes
바카라˜The Expendables 4바카라™ is an old-school actioner. If you바카라™re a fan of this genre and, even more, a fan of the stars doing the action, then only you바카라™ll end up enjoying this. The script is wafer-thin and there is barely any storyline. It바카라™s just a bunch of action sequences which are strung together one after the other. If you바카라™re searching for an iota of a story, you바카라™ll be left disappointed, just like I was. So, please Avoid. I am going with 1.5 stars.