He's also wise enough to make the reason for the journey more than just a revenge/save the damsel mission. There's a scene between Stallone and Mickey Rourke - pegged by Sly as the most important scene in the film - where the former is convinced to act through the desire for redemption, to regain (or try to hold onto) a vestige of honour that his being a mercenary has stripped from him over the years. Little more than a token attempt at substance it may be, but the gesture is appreciated. There's even a hint of topicality, as the opening sequence involves Somali pirates.
Clearly one of the film's big selling points is its cast list, an impressive who's who of superstar machismo spanning the generations from Stallone to Statham. The poster is confident enough just to list them all by surname alone. Enjoyably, Stallone doesn't just trot out all their usual personas, casting a few of them slightly against type. Jet Li is a family man who makes fun of his own small stature, while the normally monotone Dolph Lundgren is something of a one-liner-dropping wiseass. Both Stallone and Statham's characters - Barney Ross and Lee Christmas - share a certain sense of world-weariness that helps to soften their potentially off-putting bubble of chiselled (if slightly leathery, in Sly's case) manhood. That same world-weariness manifests itself in the tone of the film, which is more interesting for its reluctance to simply celebrate the one-man-army syndrome that Stallone was perhaps partly guilty of popularising in the first place.
That's not to say that the film doesn't have a blast in the action scenes. Anything but, in fact. Stallone puts every dollar of his apparently relatively small-for-a-blockbuster budget on screen, making sure to do everything for real if at all possible - resulting in many a minor and not so minor injury for its cast. Said scenes are brilliantly executed, escalating in scale all the way to the conclusion. Stallone cuts the scenes down to the bone, emphasising pacing above all else, and while his preference for camera shaking may threaten to overwhelm at times, the physical geography of each sequence is importantly never lost. In instances like this where the overused filming style is married to a fundamental understanding of how to construct action, its impact can actually be enhanced, as proven most emphatically by Steven Spielberg in Saving Private Ryan or Paul Greengrass's Bourne films and endlessly imitated since. They also share a reluctance to resort to CGI, which gives the action a tangible sense of heft that markedly increases the stakes.
There are few concessions to anyone who might not be interested in the central conceit - the romantic subplot, for example, is relegated to a grand total of three scenes and about an equal number of minutes in screen time - but a relatively narrow audience niche, starved of similar fare in recent years, led the film to healthy box office returns, vindicating its director's convictions. Sylvester Stallone evidently doesn't believe in the crisis of masculinity.
(Read Joel's cinema review for more - his opinions closely resemble my own.)
Release Information
Country: UK / Region: B / Version: 'Bullet Proof' Limited Edition Collector's Set / Discs: 1 BD, 2 DVDs / Distributor: Lionsgate
Presentation
The image is excellent - not quite the sharpest you'll find but with good rendering of texture and colour. Impressively, even in dark scenes, which comprise a lot of the film, there's no increase in noise or grain, and black levels are resolutely consistent. The audio track, in thunderous 7.1 (but also sounding great on a 5.1 system), is extraordinary, partly down to Stallone's desires (subtlety is not one of his watchwords) and also some brilliant, precise sound design. No wonder that upon starting the film, the first thing you see is an animated DTS-HD logo: this is an advert for the technology. Out of the Blu-ray soundtracks I've heard, this ranks a close second behind Inception.
Extras
Firstly, let's address what separates this Bullet Proof Limited Edition Collector's Set from its standard cousin: the 90-minute documentary "Inferno", which is truly worth paying the extra for this edition. It's simply outstanding, a frank and honest documentary narrated throughout by extensive snippets from Stallone interviews, giving it a sort of stream of consciousness style. It is given its own disc, a regular DVD. (Strangely, it is included in HD on the same Blu-ray disc as the film in the US. There's no technical reason why that has been changed for the UK release - perhaps simply so Lionsgate can charge more for this special edition.)
It's recommended that you watch "Inferno" before the featurette included on the Blu-ray dedicated to the post-production, which is equally fascinating. Then there's the Ultimate Recon Mode - a Picture-in-Picture feature that runs alongside the whole film, with numerous on-screen appearances from Stallone and others. It's very similar to Maximum Movie Mode but perhaps even better, as it fills any gaps between the PiP segments with Stallone's excellent commentary. You can listen to his regular commentary separately too, and it's worth checking out both. A solitary 45-second deleted scene features a wisely chopped bit of Lundgren wisecracking, and the gag reel is what you'd expect. This is a fantastic set, making it clear that Sly really values his fans. The UK version is missing the Comic-Con panel - no huge loss.
Summary
It's not exactly high art, but The Expendables achieves exactly what it sets out to do, in some style. A few clunky moments never prevent it from being an absolute blast from start to finish.
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