Here I thought Meg 2 was the worst movie of the year; then comes Expend4ables 4, a geriatric actioner whose digital work alone is so pedestrian as to instill disbelief rather than fear. Major players Jason Statham and Sylvester Stallone head a loose crew engaged to stop very bad guys from getting nuclear weapons.
If you were able to hear all the dialogue over the din of rapidly firing guns, you would know that there's not a speck of dialogue worth remembering. Of course, there's macho male joking often relating to sex, no better than locker room raunch from a presidential hopeful.
The rest of the conversation is not so much about how the arsenal could destroy the world as it is about getting revenge on rivals.
Stallone and Statham have a few minutes of banter that make you wish for much more. They are better than a film that was PG-13 until it ramped up the violence to the current R, a strategy with no distinction because John Wick does it with style and Equalizer with class.
For Expend4bles, violence is a money grab with no aesthetic value. Gone is the talented writer Stallone credited in the first three and director in the first. For that matter, not even the energy and creative contributions of Norris, Ford, Willis, and Li. The franchise is going to Statham, an always charismatic presence lost in his flat hat, scowl, and innumerable easy targets, who apparently haven't yet figured out how the guns work because Christmas (Statham) delivers his presents much before they have figured out how to shoot.
With a sometimes-promising new cast that includes a randy Megan Fox as a CIA operative, little time is given for character development with time-consuming bullets. Even more outrageous is the cheesy CGI with backgrounds that look to be from the silent era. The giant airline transport plane looks like a toy in a cloud background fashioned by Pee Wee Herman. The $100 million cost of this lost labor is hidden, and the hidden CGI is lost in chaotic closeups where you can barely tell, for instance, if it's Megan Fox, and believe me I looked for her.
I have a nostalgic spot for Stallone's remarkable career and respect for Statham's tough exterior/warm interior characters, but Expend4bles is no advance for either. Here is a comic thriller that embarrasses an industry with a history of getting better all the time. Not this time.
After this discussion, I have decided Expend4bles is the worst movie of the year.
