The fourth movie of the Expendables franchise, 2023’s Expend4bles, was a disaster in pretty much every sense, that put the final nail in the coffin of a franchise which had already seemed ᴅᴇᴀᴅ and buried nine years earlier. When it first arrived on the scene, Sylvester Stallone’s tongue-in-cheek celebration of aging action heroes was refreshingly funny and self-effacing, while giving the genre it lampooned a much-needed sH๏τ in the arm. Three rinse-and-repeat movies later, Stallone, Jason Statham and co. really ought to have left it alone, but apparently couldn’t help themselves.
In the process, they acted like they had never seen the funny side of The Expendables in the first place, and really were trying to make a series of gilt-edged action thrillers all along. Their sudden commitment to taking a tired, stagnating franchise seriously made it even worse when its fourth installment was by far the worst movie of the lot. The Expendables 4 bombed harder at the box office than all of Sylvester Stallone’s 1990s missteps put together, and made us wonder whether the original premise for the franchise was really as good as it first seemed.
Expendables Became The Very Thing It Was Making A Commentary On
It Initially Served As The Antidote To Lazy Action Movies Made By Undeserving
In 2010, The Expendables took an action genre overinflated with aging stars and new technology in the wrong hands, and pumped it up some more, with a knowing wink. The result was a straightforward yet astute commentary on explosive but insubstantial good vs. evil flicks dating back to the 1980s, with a succession of veteran big-screen heroes on board and in on the joke.
The movie also satirized the diminishing returns audiences were getting from lazy action films made by actors cashing in on their status and overstaying their welcome, precisely by bringing back some of the genre’s biggest stars long past their prime. At the same time as laughing at itself, The Expendables and its first sequel tapped into the nostalgia for gun-toting, muscle-flexing action stars from decades gone by. Cheers rang around theaters when Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character Trent “Trench” Mauser first appeared on screen, while Stallone’s onscreen reunion with Lundgren was singled out for special attention.
Unfortunately, by The Expendables 3, both the joke and the nostalgia were wearing thin, and the franchise was becoming precisely the thing it was mocking. It was now just another uninspiring action saga with no reason to keep going, whose stars seemed to be picking up checks without putting any effort in. Mel Gibson’s underwhelming performance as Conrad Stonebanks meant that Jean-Claude Van Damme’s character was the only decent Expendables villain across three movies. It goes without saying that things didn’t get any better with Andy Garcia’s antagonist Agent Marsh in Expend4bles.
Expendables Should Have Never Taken Itself Too Seriously
The Franchise’s Self-Effacing Humor And Satirizing Of The Action Genre Were Some Of Its Biggest Strengths
Action movies with big-budget special effects and spectacular set pieces come and go, but the thing that initially set Expendables movies apart was precisely that they seemed to know how expendable they were. The filmmakers appeared fully aware that their work wouldn’t be considered a masterpiece on any level, and leaned into the slapstick elements and self-referential humor that became some of the franchise’s biggest strengths.
Expend4bles was devoid of both the knowing humor that made the first movies so entertaining, and any sense that its key players were even trying anymore.
By the third movie, however, the franchise’s lighthearted take on its own place in cinema was no longer as prominent, as Sylvester Stallone and director Patrick Hughes seemed to believe they were making a serious action thriller. In 2023, things got even worse, as Expend4bles was devoid of both the knowing humor that made the first movies so entertaining, and any sense that its key players were even trying anymore. Stallone was no longer on writing duties, while director Scott Waugh and his editing team cut up the film like they were trying to make action star-themed confetti.
What’s more, the movie appeared to be trying to turn Jason Statham into a romantic lead, pairing him with Megan Fox for an utterly vapid and pointless subplot. If that wasn’t bad enough, the filmmakers tried their hand (and failed) at tech surveillance via Andy Garcia’s CIA agent Marsh, while very little of the impressive $100m budget for The Expendables 4 seemingly went on some painfully bad CGI.
There Were Other Problems With The Expendables Franchise
Major Stars Quit After Its Disappointing 3rd Movie, And Expend4bles Spent Years In Development Hell
The movie wasn’t just badly made, though. The Expendables 4 was doomed to fail before it even got going, after sitting in development hell for several years. The Expendables 3 was hardly a successful act to follow as it barely broke even at the box office following an online leak and received a critical panning. Key franchise stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jet Li, and Terry Crews also departed after the third movie, and Sylvester Stallone himself even quit the franchise in 2017.
The writing should have been on the wall for everyone involved at that point, but it seems that certain people simply got greedy, and ᴀssumed it would be an easy win. Expend4bles was the commercial disaster it deserved to be. It made for a disappointing end to a franchise which had initially been such a welcome and uplifting addition to the action genre, riding a wave of nostalgia for an era when genuine action legends were cinema’s biggest draw.
