Sylvester Stallone’s face looks like he has been attacked by a swarm of bees and he sounds like he is talking underwater.

I need to begin this with a clarification. I am reviewing Expendables 3 because the only other movie that came out this week was that horrible looking Helen Mirren French Restaurant film that is produced by Oprah and has some terrible title that I can’t remember right now.

When given the choice between watching a ‘roided up monster claiming to be Sylvester Stallone trying to speak English or Helen Mirren’s learning to love Indian Food I went with Stallone. What do you want from me?!?

Anyway … as I sat there staring at the screen I was wondering what would make these guys debase themselves like this and then it all suddenly made sense. Most of these ancient idiots like Schwarzenegger, Antonio Banderas, Kelsey Grammer and obviously Big Mel Gibson have just had expensive divorces. Plus Wesley Snipes hilariously just got out of jail for tax evasion. As such you can bet that most of this movies budget has either gone to Wesley’s tax bill, Melanie Griffith’s plastic surgeon or towards paying college tuition for the illegitimate kid Arnold had with his maid.

Ladies and Gentleman I may have just solved the mystery of The Expendables 3. You are welcome!

My biggest problem with this movie is that I honestly had no idea what these wardrobes were saying a lot of the time…

Sylvester Stallone’s face looks like he has been attacked by a swarm of bees and he sounds like he is talking underwater. Whole discussions would take place between him and Dolph Lundgren while I stared at the screen puzzled, completely incapable of deciphering what they were actually talking about.

I did enjoy that the super villain’s name is Conrad Stonebanks which we can all agree is an excellent name. Plus he is given extra authenticity because he is played by real life super villain Mel Gibson.

I was interested in this movie because Aussie director Patrick Hughes made a great little modern western called Red Hill a few years back and I’ve been keeping my eye on him. This prestigious gig is not exactly how I had hoped he might follow it up but he probably had bills to pay too.

That’s what they should have called this movie: Expendables 3 – Bills to Pay.

Anyway, to the guys credit he has made a decent action movie. Things explode real good. You can see there was not a lot of budget left over after paying these guys due to the top notch Eastern European tax shelter location work (Bucharest – the Hollywood of the Ex Soviet Satellite states) and frequent uses of warehouses to stage action scenes. What there was though was used well, and he stages a good climax.

The story is stupid, there are way to many character just standing around, and the whole middle act was boring as hell, but my point is this is exactly as terrible as it looks, not as terrible as it could have been. You already know if you are going to enjoy it.

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