Cinema-Maniac: The Expendables (2010) Review

First to begin with, i’m a huge action fan and I know great action movies when I see them. This is not one of them, unfortunately, I have to blame the cast for this. Most of these actors can’t even speak English properly, especially Dolph Lundgren. Now going into this movie I didn’t expect much from the story, Stallone can’t write a good story let alone write a good action sequence. It’s such a huge let down given the great talent of Stallone, Jet Li, Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, and even Terry Crew presence were wasted.

I’m not going to be completely harsh on this in terms of action as John Woo classic Hard Boiled and Gareth H. Evan Indonesian martial art movie The Raid (2011) prove America is behind in this category. So why does it have a 40%, because Jet Li and Terry Crew proved they should have been the stars. Jet Li is the only action star in this movie that was both likable and kick-ass at the same time. Even Terry Crew from Everybody Hates Chris was more fun to watch then Stallone fighting Steve Austin, it’s ashamed he’s not in the movie much.

So how was the action, in American standard it was nothing spectacular considering Willis’s in the Die Hard franchise and Stallone’s Rambo franchise. Now if I compared The Expendables to foreign movies it would just be completely unfair, but i’ll do it anyways considering the cast of action stars. My personal favorite Police Story 3: Supercop (or just Supercop in America) was better in terms of action because there was plenty of it and it was all real (except of the death of course). Jackie Chan alone in this classic proves he has more balls than the entire cast of The Expendables as he literally hangs on to a helicopter for several minutes, hundred of feet in the air. Before I start comparing The Expendables to superior movie and start repeating myself how much the action suck, i’ll suggest this if you got some time, but if you want a good action movie I recommend Ip Man 1 & 2, Supercop, Hard Boiled, and The Raid (2011).

4/10

Cinema-Maniac: Fist of Legend (Jing wu ying xiong) (1994) Review

The classic Bruce Lee film, The Chinese Connection (1972), Bruce portrayed the character of Chen Zhen so amazingly that the character had an impact on the media. Since 1972, Chen Zhen has become the subject of numerous films and television series. Of course, no one can out do Bruce Lee legendary performance, but Jet Li comes pretty damn close to doing that.

If you haven’t seen the Chinese Connection (shame on you), here the overall plot without any spoilers. Chen Zhen fights to salvage Jingwu School’s reputation after the death of Huo Yuanjia. There’s more to it, but I don’t want to ruin anything as the story is well paced knowing when to bring in the action scenes (all well done and filmed) and dramatic scene that are actually entertaining unlike many action movies.

I love the hell out of this movie, if you like Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee movies, you should check this out. If you don’t like Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee, for some reason, you should still check this.

10/10