‘The Expendables 3’ Reviews: Come For The Explosions, But Leave Your Brain At Home

The Expendables 3 is finally headed to theaters this weekend. The folks over at Lionsgate are certainly hoping people opt to buy a ticket for the third installment of the action series as opposed to downloading an illegal copy from a torrent site.

Although the studio would love to separate folks from their money, the question remains: Is The Expendables 3 worth the price of admission? Will spending your money on this flick force you to question how you spend your free time? According to critics, Sylvester Stallone and company’s latest outing is just as mindless and empty-headed you’d imagine. Not surprisingly, very few recommend the flick to discerning moviegoers.

While there are explosions galore in The Expendables 3, Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan wasn’t too enamored with the film’s on-screen mayhem. While you could make the argument that he isn’t among the film’s demographic, Turan doesn’t think diehard action aficionados will walk away from the experience feeling wholly satisfied.

“With some of their members looking old enough to apply for joint membership in the RED (Retired Extremely Dangerous) action franchise, ‘Expendables 3’ has tried to make a virtue of necessity and construct a film about younger types muscling their sclerotic compatriots out of a job. That may sound interesting, but it’s really not. Instead, as directed by Patrick Hughes and written by Stallone and Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt, ‘Expendables 3’ is a kind of ho-hum experience, wherein a lot of bullets are expended and a lot of structures exploded to minimal dramatic effect.”

The folks over at Cinema Blend were particularly hard on The Expendables 3. In fact, writer Gabe Toro proclaims that the latest installment is “barely a movie.” Ouch. Even the addition of a few noteworthy actors — Wesley Snipes, Harrison Ford, Antonio Banderas, and Mel Gibson join this cast for this outing — couldn’t ease the pain of the flick’s inherent empty-headedness. Isn’t that the point of The Expendables?

“Sylvester Stallone has been the chief creative force for this trilogy, action dream teams that combine the forces of some of the starrier bottom-kickers in cinematic history. And each time he’s opted for a chummy get-together that celebrates yesterday instead of getting down to the basics of telling a story or presenting compelling, three-dimensional characters. More importantly, for being called ‘expendable,’ this is a rather bulletproof group of older men — you’ve never seen so many people run straight into gunfire and pick up no more than a minor bruise. The result carries the suspense of watching someone sign a check.”

So did anyone who writes movie reviews for a living think The Expendables 3 is a worthy cinematic endeavor? Hope arrives in the form of the Irish Times scribe Tara Brady. Although her review of the flick is far from glowing, she seems to think cinematic action junkies won’t have too many issues with the endeavor.

“‘The Expendables’ franchise has never been as meta-textual as a series featuring every movie hard-arse on the planet ought to be. But there are plenty of look out behind you moments to savour. The grammar is as excellent as ever: ‘Things got ugly real fast and a lot of people got dead.’ The one-liners improve on the previous installments: ‘I am The Hague.’ And the final credits are printed on dog tags. As you were, target audience.”

Are you planning to catch The Expendables 3 on the big screen this weekend? Do you care what critics think about the movie?

[Lead image via Lionsgate]