The Expendables 3 review

Genre: Action, Crime, Adventure, Thriller,
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Atonio Banderas, Jet Li, Wesley Snipes, Dolph Lundgren, Kelsey Grammer, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Kellan Lutz, Ronda Rousey, Glen Powell, Victor Ortiz, Robert Davi, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Year Of Release: 2014
Certificate: 12A (UK)
Runtime: 126 Minutes
Director: Patrick Hughes

Synopsis: "Barney augments his team with new blood for a personal battle: to take down Conrad Stonebanks, the Expendables co-founder and notorious arms trader who is hell bent on wiping out Barney and every single one of his associates." IMDB

Let me just start off by saying all you people who are saying "this film lacks substance", "no character development" or "just Action porn". You people need smack upside the head, this film never advertised itself as anything but a pure Action ride popcorn flick. You wouldn't go into "The Godfather" and complain there isn't enough Spaceships, so don't go into a popcorn flick expecting an Oscar worthy performance or perfect script! Now that is out the way onto the review.

We're back for a third instalment in easily one of my most enjoyable franchises for a long time, I love a full on over the top Action film and The Expendables franchise never fails to deliver in that department. However, this film does come with a 12A certificate which is obvious when you watch it with the lack of actual blood they use, that doesn't mean there is enough over the top violence to enjoy.

The film starts off with the the Expendables rescuing a former member Doctor Death (Snipes) after a prolonged spell spent under the capture of some Russians, turns out there is no razors where he was kept because Snipes is rocking a hella beard! Within the first fifteen minutes of the film we get an armoured prison train, helicopters, boats, planes, tankers, jeeps, missiles, guns, knives and explosion that would make an everyday man wet his pants. However the Expendables escaped unscathed, well all but one Caeser (Crews) finds himself left in a critical way after Conrad Stonebankes (Gibson) leaves him that way in his escape.

This latest close call has Barney (Stallone) disbanding his near perfect team due to the fear that they're all getting to old. Leaving Barney and his badass companion Bonaparte (Grammer) to race around America and Mexico gathering a new rag tag bunch of younger and possibly even dumber Expendables (Rousey, Ortiz and Powell) however there is one older addition to his crew Galgo (Banderas) and damn does Banderas deliver, his verbal diarrhoea is enough to drive any sane man to tears however some of the stuff he comes out with will leave you in tears of laughter.

Overall the film delivers in all the areas you expect from such an Action flick, full of explosions, gunfire, destruction and hilarious one lines one that sticks out is Arnie dropping a "Get to da choppa!" retort that made me nearly keel over on the spot. Plus we get a solid performance from Harrison Ford, leaps and bounds better than Bruce Wills' ever gave us. Then we have Mr Mel Gibson who may have just made himself the go to guy for the big dog villain in the future. He is the most deranged, crazy, insane, is there any point? I will run out of superlatives, Mel is phenomenal I can't wait to see him again.

I highly recommend this film and I always will, they're just pure Action porn, however what more can you ask for from a film that is purely built around recreating 80s Action nostalgia? So PLEASE, PLEASE if you want to see it, go see it and help these guys make some money back and get us a fourth, fifth or heck even a fifteen ha.

8/10