The Expendables

The Expendables is not a good film. It is a great time. Sylvester Stallone assembled the most ridiculous action star roster in cinema history — himself, Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke, plus cameos from Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger — and aimed for nothing more ambitious than giving audiences the 1980s action movie they’d been starved of for two decades. And it worked.

The plot is tissue-thin: a team of mercenaries takes on a South American dictator backed by a rogue CIA operative. Nobody cares. You’re here for the explosions, the one-liners, and the spectacle of watching legends share the screen. Terry Crews unloading an automatic shotgun into a dock full of soldiers is worth the price of admission alone. Jason Statham’s knife-throwing set piece on the basketball court is the best character introduction in the film.

Mickey Rourke’s monologue about a woman on a bridge is genuinely moving and completely out of place — it’s as if a real actor wandered into a demolition derby and decided to perform Shakespeare. The Expendables earns its rank not for quality but for joy. It is the ultimate dad movie.