The Expendables - USA 2010 - Director Sylvester Stallone - Book: Sylvester Stallone, Dave Callaham - Produced by: Avi Lerner, Kevin King Templeton, John Thompson - Camera: Jeffrey L. Kimball - Editor: Ken Blackwell, Paul Harb - Music: Brian Tyler - Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox - actors / actresses: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Randy Couture, Steven Austin, David Zayas, Giselle Itie, Charisma Carpenter, Gary Daniels, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke and others - Format: Super35 (2.35:1), 35 mm - Length: 103 min. - German Cinema Release: 26.08.2010.
relation with the cinema, it is similar in fashion: sooner or later everything comes back. Every old trick is excavated, placed any new style, while admittedly the coordinates of contemporary mood adjusted. The sixties and seventies witnessed a revival, with more or less successful remakes of former blockbusters like Ocean's Eleven (1960/2001), The Italian Job (1969/2003), The Longest Yard (1974/2005). Now obviously the eighties turn. floats the top of the Retro-wave Sylvester Stallone, who with Rocky Balboa (2006) and John Rambo (2009) recently recycled its most successful film series. With both films the now 64-year-old was under the hapless descent into the nineties and the Direct-to-DVD-Video Rental segment of an unexpected comeback.
The Expendables is Stallone's attempt as a High Concept film the blunt Guys-on-a-mission-sub-genre of the eighties summer blockbuster to revive, that is, the era that we are such masterpieces' like Joseph Zito's Missing in Action (1984), Mark L. Lester Commando; owe and Menahem Golan's The Delta Force (1986) (The Phantom of command 1985). Stallone has made an ensemble cast of former and current A-and B-stars of action movies rounded up, which can be plain: the well-known from the Transporter and Crank movies Britons Jason Statham, the Chinese martial arts star Jet Li , among others, with Tsui Hark's Once Upon a Time in China series (1991ff.) name succeeded and Terry Crews (Gamer) and the wrestler Randy Couture. In supporting roles connect the giant Dolph Lundgren (Red Scorpion and Punisher, 1989) and the notorious Over Actor Eric Roberts, most recently to see both primarily in video stores-B-Ware. Also, Mickey Rourke, Walter Hill's former Johnny Handsome (1989), as The Wrestler two years ago was able to experience a brilliant return to the big screen, plays a small role. And in an amusing cameo in frozzeln to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis. has the main role, Stallone, who also serves as Kodrehbuchautor and director, of course, itself written in the body.
The plot, which fits easily on a coaster, uses the familiar set pieces of the Eighties action cinema: muskelgestählte protagonists, form-fitting action, large-caliber weapons, noisy machines - Motorcycles, cars, airplanes - and beautiful women in distress, pre-CGI-gasoline explosions, one-dimensional characters who are in grim-looking villains and equally grim hero, a fictional South American torture state, the shooting the protagonists to Klump and may break, stupid macho sayings, male bonding, gay jokes and the obligatory one-liner - in short, all that awaits a spectator with the emotional maturity of a 14-year-olds from a movie. The real question is whether something is still rudimentary in the cinema work? The advertisement in the United States suggest 35 million U.S. dollars on opening weekend. But when the film is lame sloppily staged Patchwork significantly.
The main problem with The Expendables is Stallone's inability to construct the cinematic space in the assembly. How many cars are actually involved in a car chase? How many opponents compete in a shoot-out against the hero, as many of them die? Who is ever in action in a sequence at which point the room? Anyone who sees Stallone's testosterone orgy, such questions can be answered only with a lot of imagination. The Assembly is the film material, like the heroes with their opponents, they all processed into firewood, without rhyme or reason. Action directors say good, we even Sam Peckinpah and Robert Aldrich, it was always, even in the spectator section staccato a showdown with the highest concentration to guide through the chaos, even if the goal of staging the evocation of the chaos of a vast battle. In the action sequences from The Expendables by contrast, loses any order of the material, which is even more striking, since half the movie consists of such shooting one, where the average frequency often slides under the one-second limit and some of the settings to boot with shaky handheld camera is filmed.
Moreover, it is the movie from almost any irony, which makes the plot even by way of alibi legitimate act of violence completely end in itself. Stallone's dirty half dozen places the creative killing 'to new heights: The opponents are divided into small stabbed to a bloody pulp shot, strangled, beaten, etc., very proven with John Rambo style. Already in the exposition, for themselves a kind of miniature of the whole film, a Somali pirate literally explodes. Later, 40 men of Statham's and Stallone's characters are doused with kerosene from an airplane and cremated. "Good job," Stallone mumbles it.
can at this sequence, well the difference to another, is demonstrated in his time highly controversial command movie Stallone quite cited: Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen (The Dirty Dozen) in 1967. The ambivalent climax of Aldrich World War II film was a sequence in which the unwilling soldiers massacred a group of German officers, who are crammed into a bomb shelter with civilians. The basement is impregnated by the smiling U.S. troops with petrol. After that is Jim Brown, all-American hero and a national football star, a homerun on the forecourt of the chateau, throwing hand grenades into the air vents in order to set the imprisoned women and children included, in flames. Auschwitz and Vietnam, Crematory and napalm, baseball and war, all in a setting that was in 1967, during the escalation of the Vietnam War, a severe provocation to the Aldrich the myth of the honorable war completely undermined and identification with his protagonist shaken. For Stallone, however, a similar sequence only a great fun and ID is the masculinity of the protagonist, very unreflective and naive. It may be objected that, with Eric Roberts' underhanded Ex-CIA man appears a figure that can be applied which defended the Bush administration waterboarding. On the other hand, hired by the CIA Expendables win at least metaphorically, this time the Bay of Pigs invasion. And ideologically, the film is still deep in the eighties.
is surprising at best, bleak as Stallone's film is unusual - not only in terms of freedom and the irony of his hyper-real depiction of violence, but most directly on the visual. Even the opening sequence is staged in such a dark and with such a strong side light, they could have come from a film noir. Stallone's cinematographer Jeffrey Kimball-contrast images in which the protagonist is swallowed by the shadow effect, sometimes as if we were in a film by Clint Eastwood. And if things are not bangs and rattles, then dominate close ups of faces of the canvas. One can imagine the result in something like a Leone film without epic and pathos and style. Sometimes, the glorification is pushing. Shall deduct one of the heroes (Statham) is sufficient to beat up a women's club - no matter how an eighty-year standard scene - and before he landed the first blow, it detects the camera, illuminated from behind, bathed in an almost heavenly light, a halo around his head. In the center, however, is the timeless Stallone-body: tattooed and muscled the absurd anabolic-steeled Hard Body, with veins on the arms and torso, as thick as slow worms, rumbling voice, and decked with jewelry as a Christmas tree. Statham only Stallone can be developed alongside the contours, wisely as sidekick. Jet Li, however, is completely wasted in the film. The only actor scene must Mickey Rourke attend, which makes the incomprehensible in this bloke film: He's crying. Thus, in this film, in fact, almost all expendable, 'until the actor-director-writer Stallone. The real irony of the film, however, is that he was released in Germany only for adults, even though only 16 years old must not have their fun.
This criticism was first published on http://www.filmgazette.de/
relation with the cinema, it is similar in fashion: sooner or later everything comes back. Every old trick is excavated, placed any new style, while admittedly the coordinates of contemporary mood adjusted. The sixties and seventies witnessed a revival, with more or less successful remakes of former blockbusters like Ocean's Eleven (1960/2001), The Italian Job (1969/2003), The Longest Yard (1974/2005). Now obviously the eighties turn. floats the top of the Retro-wave Sylvester Stallone, who with Rocky Balboa (2006) and John Rambo (2009) recently recycled its most successful film series. With both films the now 64-year-old was under the hapless descent into the nineties and the Direct-to-DVD-Video Rental segment of an unexpected comeback.
The Expendables is Stallone's attempt as a High Concept film the blunt Guys-on-a-mission-sub-genre of the eighties summer blockbuster to revive, that is, the era that we are such masterpieces' like Joseph Zito's Missing in Action (1984), Mark L. Lester Commando; owe and Menahem Golan's The Delta Force (1986) (The Phantom of command 1985). Stallone has made an ensemble cast of former and current A-and B-stars of action movies rounded up, which can be plain: the well-known from the Transporter and Crank movies Britons Jason Statham, the Chinese martial arts star Jet Li , among others, with Tsui Hark's Once Upon a Time in China series (1991ff.) name succeeded and Terry Crews (Gamer) and the wrestler Randy Couture. In supporting roles connect the giant Dolph Lundgren (Red Scorpion and Punisher, 1989) and the notorious Over Actor Eric Roberts, most recently to see both primarily in video stores-B-Ware. Also, Mickey Rourke, Walter Hill's former Johnny Handsome (1989), as The Wrestler two years ago was able to experience a brilliant return to the big screen, plays a small role. And in an amusing cameo in frozzeln to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis. has the main role, Stallone, who also serves as Kodrehbuchautor and director, of course, itself written in the body.
The plot, which fits easily on a coaster, uses the familiar set pieces of the Eighties action cinema: muskelgestählte protagonists, form-fitting action, large-caliber weapons, noisy machines - Motorcycles, cars, airplanes - and beautiful women in distress, pre-CGI-gasoline explosions, one-dimensional characters who are in grim-looking villains and equally grim hero, a fictional South American torture state, the shooting the protagonists to Klump and may break, stupid macho sayings, male bonding, gay jokes and the obligatory one-liner - in short, all that awaits a spectator with the emotional maturity of a 14-year-olds from a movie. The real question is whether something is still rudimentary in the cinema work? The advertisement in the United States suggest 35 million U.S. dollars on opening weekend. But when the film is lame sloppily staged Patchwork significantly.
The main problem with The Expendables is Stallone's inability to construct the cinematic space in the assembly. How many cars are actually involved in a car chase? How many opponents compete in a shoot-out against the hero, as many of them die? Who is ever in action in a sequence at which point the room? Anyone who sees Stallone's testosterone orgy, such questions can be answered only with a lot of imagination. The Assembly is the film material, like the heroes with their opponents, they all processed into firewood, without rhyme or reason. Action directors say good, we even Sam Peckinpah and Robert Aldrich, it was always, even in the spectator section staccato a showdown with the highest concentration to guide through the chaos, even if the goal of staging the evocation of the chaos of a vast battle. In the action sequences from The Expendables by contrast, loses any order of the material, which is even more striking, since half the movie consists of such shooting one, where the average frequency often slides under the one-second limit and some of the settings to boot with shaky handheld camera is filmed.
Moreover, it is the movie from almost any irony, which makes the plot even by way of alibi legitimate act of violence completely end in itself. Stallone's dirty half dozen places the creative killing 'to new heights: The opponents are divided into small stabbed to a bloody pulp shot, strangled, beaten, etc., very proven with John Rambo style. Already in the exposition, for themselves a kind of miniature of the whole film, a Somali pirate literally explodes. Later, 40 men of Statham's and Stallone's characters are doused with kerosene from an airplane and cremated. "Good job," Stallone mumbles it.
can at this sequence, well the difference to another, is demonstrated in his time highly controversial command movie Stallone quite cited: Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen (The Dirty Dozen) in 1967. The ambivalent climax of Aldrich World War II film was a sequence in which the unwilling soldiers massacred a group of German officers, who are crammed into a bomb shelter with civilians. The basement is impregnated by the smiling U.S. troops with petrol. After that is Jim Brown, all-American hero and a national football star, a homerun on the forecourt of the chateau, throwing hand grenades into the air vents in order to set the imprisoned women and children included, in flames. Auschwitz and Vietnam, Crematory and napalm, baseball and war, all in a setting that was in 1967, during the escalation of the Vietnam War, a severe provocation to the Aldrich the myth of the honorable war completely undermined and identification with his protagonist shaken. For Stallone, however, a similar sequence only a great fun and ID is the masculinity of the protagonist, very unreflective and naive. It may be objected that, with Eric Roberts' underhanded Ex-CIA man appears a figure that can be applied which defended the Bush administration waterboarding. On the other hand, hired by the CIA Expendables win at least metaphorically, this time the Bay of Pigs invasion. And ideologically, the film is still deep in the eighties.
is surprising at best, bleak as Stallone's film is unusual - not only in terms of freedom and the irony of his hyper-real depiction of violence, but most directly on the visual. Even the opening sequence is staged in such a dark and with such a strong side light, they could have come from a film noir. Stallone's cinematographer Jeffrey Kimball-contrast images in which the protagonist is swallowed by the shadow effect, sometimes as if we were in a film by Clint Eastwood. And if things are not bangs and rattles, then dominate close ups of faces of the canvas. One can imagine the result in something like a Leone film without epic and pathos and style. Sometimes, the glorification is pushing. Shall deduct one of the heroes (Statham) is sufficient to beat up a women's club - no matter how an eighty-year standard scene - and before he landed the first blow, it detects the camera, illuminated from behind, bathed in an almost heavenly light, a halo around his head. In the center, however, is the timeless Stallone-body: tattooed and muscled the absurd anabolic-steeled Hard Body, with veins on the arms and torso, as thick as slow worms, rumbling voice, and decked with jewelry as a Christmas tree. Statham only Stallone can be developed alongside the contours, wisely as sidekick. Jet Li, however, is completely wasted in the film. The only actor scene must Mickey Rourke attend, which makes the incomprehensible in this bloke film: He's crying. Thus, in this film, in fact, almost all expendable, 'until the actor-director-writer Stallone. The real irony of the film, however, is that he was released in Germany only for adults, even though only 16 years old must not have their fun.
This criticism was first published on http://www.filmgazette.de/
