It plays out just the way you expect it to do and those looking for action sequences will enjoy the many fights and scenes where everything blows up (Terry Crews in particular demonstrating to the world why Infinity Ward were out of their minds to make the AA-12 a 'secondary' weapon in Modern Warfare 2!). And indeed so it is, complete with unnecessary violence and overblown physical actions and seemingly indestructible heroes.
The plot is essentially a small group of mercenaries heading into a tropical island in order to take out the dictator and his ex-CIA puppet-master: so far, so 'one man against endless ethnic army' 80's style plotting. The answer to this question turned out to be 'sort of' because The Expendables has plenty to enjoy about it but yet somehow falls short of what it could have been. However the real question was can the film produce the boys-only, 1980's action movie fun that the 2010 summer season needed. The answer of course is 'no' and I doubt anyone expected it to be any other answer. 'Could it be the greatest action movie ever?' some magazines breathlessly asked themselves, assuming perhaps that the cast could somehow just produce a good film by virtue of all just being in it. With the cast it had it was no surprise that The Expendables was being hyped long before it arrived in cinemas anywhere.
