Movies: Expendables 3

The third installment of Sylvester Stallone’s film franchise — this one aptly named Expendables 3 — brings the gang known as the Expendables together for another adventure. With their founder Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) leading them, they’ve set out to rescue one of their own, Dr. Death (Wesley Snipes), from a military convoy. They’ve also been assigned by Max Drummer, (Harrison Ford) the CIA field operative who manages them to kill Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson). Stonebanks and Ross were co-founders of the group and are enemies.

Christmas, (Jason Statham, left) and Dr. Death (Wesley Snipes) square off for a quick game of knife throwing on a dart board.
Photo: © 2014, Lionsgate.

Other Expendables (Kelsey Grammar as Bonaparte; Randy Couture as Toll Road; Kellan Lutz as John Smiley; Jet Li as Yin Yang; Antonio Bandares as Galgo and MMA fighter Ronda Rousey as Luna) come and go and fight and fight as called upon. Fighting, in fact, is about all they do. It’s difficult to hear the dialogue over the constant noise.

There’s an interesting cameo by Robert Davi as Goran Vata, head of the Albanian mafia. It’s interesting because of his dialect and, in less than five minutes onscreen, Vata seems to have a bit of depth and, thus, might have an interesting back story. But we never find out. Davi and Ford are, in fact, the two most interesting characters in the film and we probably see less of them than anyone else.

We might, however, find out more about Vata because (Hooray!?) — there is an Expendables 4 in the works.

The Expendables 3 trailer will be quite sufficient to give you a clear idea of the film: (And notice the theme music. Remember it?) If it reminds you of a video game, you get the gist of it.

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