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52 [Rec] 2
xx 12th & Delaware
xx 180° South
90 45365
55 8: The Mormon Proposition
xx Accidents Happen
62 After the Cup: The Sons of Sakhnin United
36 After.Life
73 Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector, The
55 Agora
82 Ajami
77 Alamar
78 Anton Chekhov's The Duel
63 Around a Small Mountain
57 Audrey the Trainwreck
xx Badmaash Company
xx Barking Water
75 Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo
62 Behind the Burly Q
63 Best Worst Movie
31 Black Waters of Echo's Pond, The
35 Boogie Woogie
64 Breath Made Visible: Anna Halprin
xx Brotherhood
24 Burzynski
51 Butcher's Son, The
xx Ca$h
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68 Casino Jack and the United States of Money
37 Charlie St. Cloud
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66 City Island
52 City of Your Final Destination, The
56 Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
58 Concert, The
xx Contenders, The
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73 Cropsey
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73 Dogtooth
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67 Eclipse, The
85 Exit Through the Gift Shop
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75 Farewell
76 Father of My Children, The
30 Finding Bliss
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52 Formosa Betrayed
60 Fresh
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53 Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema
43 George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead
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xx Gone with the Pope
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69 Good, The Bad, The Weird, The
49 Great Directors
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76 Greenberg
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55 Harry Brown
80 Have You Heard From Johannesburg?: Apartheid and the Club of the West
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51 Holy Rollers
54 Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel
32 Human Centipede (First Sequence), The
79 I Am Love
91 I Was Born, But...
33 In My Sleep
60 Infidel, The
67 It Came From Kuchar
74 Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child
79 Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
57 John Rabe
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55 Juche Idea, The
65 Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3D
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53 Killer Inside Me, The
53 Killing Kasztner
44 Kimjongilia
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68 Kisses
62 Kites: The Remix
47 La Mission
xx Last Letters from Monte Rosa
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63 Lbs.
xx Le amiche
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41 Lightkeepers, The
76 Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders
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66 Looking for Eric
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37 Love Ranch
86 Mademoiselle Chambon
xx Malice in Wonderland
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47 Metropia
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64 Mother and Child
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35 Multiple Sarcasms
65 Mundo Alas
xx My Girlfriend's Boyfriend
50 My Name is Khan
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71 Neshoba: The Price of Freedom
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72 Oath, The
xx Ocean of Pearls
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68 Patrik Age 1.5
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47 Perrier's Bounty
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78 Please Give
31 Pornography: A Thriller
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90 Prophet, A
xx Raajneeti
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63 Reel Injun
85 Restrepo
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45 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead
xx Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage
43 Salt of This Sea
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81 Secret of Kells, The
73 See What I'm Saying: The Deaf Entertainers Documentary
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xx Thru the Moebius Strip
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15 To Age or Not to Age
52 Touching Home
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xx Trust Us, This Is All Made Up
24 Twelve
56 Two in the Wave
62 Valhalla Rising
85 Vincere
xx Visionaries
54 Wah Do Dem
70 Warlords, The
56 What's the Matter with Kansas?
55 When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors
68 Whiz Kids
52 Who Do You Love
35 Who Killed Nancy
64 Wild Grass
xx Wild Hunt, The
56 Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest, The
69 Winnebago Man
90 Winter's Bone
68 Women Without Men
xx World on a Wire

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Expendables, The

EMAILPRINTLionsgate

Expendables, The reviews
45
7.0 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 1 votes
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Action  |  Adventure  |  Suspense/Thriller

Written by: David Callaham
Sylvester Stallone

Directed by: Sylvester Stallone

Release Date:
Theatrical: August 13, 2010

Running Time: 103 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: R for strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language

Starring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, and Mickey Rourke

The only life they’ve known is war. The only loyalty they have is to each other. They are the Expendables: leader and mastermind Barney Ross, former SAS blade expert Lee Christmas, hand-to-hand combat specialist Yin Yang, long barrel weapons specialist Hale Caesar, demolitions expert Toll Road, and precision sniper Gunnar Jensen. Living life in the fringes of the law, these hardened mercenaries take on what appears to be a routine assignment: a covert, CIA-funded operation to infiltrate the South American country of Vilena and overthrow its ruthless dictator General Garza. But when their job is revealed to be a suicide mission, the men are faced with a deadly choice, one that might redeem their souls…or destroy their brotherhood forever. (Lionsgate)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The way that Stallone directs, though, every machete thrust and relentless round of bullet spray is staged with a certain undeniable...conviction.

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75

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Delivers pretty much exactly what its audience wants and expects: big, dumb, campy fun so deliriously, comically macho, it’s remarkable that no one in the cast died of testosterone poisoning.

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75

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Expendables is the closest thing to movie Viagra yet invented. It’s reprehensible. It’s stoopid violent. It’s a lot of unholy fun.

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70

The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

An effective mix of lean and over-the-top, The Expendables is often preposterous, but it achieves the immediacy of a graphic novel without the overdone mythology.

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70

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

The three icons ham it up, do some verbal towel-snapping and have fun, which also describes most of this self-conscious adventure movie.

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63

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

A super-stoked action thriller.

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60

Village Voice Nick Pinkerton

This is action as timeless as the reptilian brain--and if The Expendables is no classic, for about 20 minutes, it blowed up real good.

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60

Boxoffice Magazine Pete Hammond

A who's who of classic action stars light up the screen for pure combustible entertainment in Sly Stallone's The Expendables, a sort of "Dirty Dozen" meets "Inglourious Basterds"--and then some.

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60

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

If you want to see old-fashioned nonstop mayhem with stars so venerable that "The Leathernecks" (and I don't mean Marines) might be an alternative title, reviews are going to be superfluous. If you don't want to go, no review can change your mind.

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50

NPR Mark Jenkins

Next to the hopelessly inexpressive Stallone and the English-impaired Li, Statham emerges as the movie's principal wit. But the script furnishes him with only a few deadpan quips. Besides, it's no great accomplishment to be the funniest guy in a Sylvester Stallone flick.

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50

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole

Still, what makes Sly’s new film fascinating is that, 35 years after he created and starred in the ultimate little-boy fantasy, "Rocky," Stallone remains such a guileless, big-dreaming innocent.

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50

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

And give credit to Stallone: He just leaves the camera on Rourke, in the tightest of close-ups, cutting only once, to himself, for a one-second reaction shot, but keeping the focus on his actor. A great actor.

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50

New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott

I love a good, brainless action flick as much as the next alpha male, but this time I had a whole lot of trouble laughing along.

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50

ReelViews James Berardinelli

In the final analysis, The Expendables is little more than an ordinary, uninspired action feature.

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50

Orlando Sentinel Roger Moore

The Expendables feels, well -- disposable, a movie whose nostalgia isn’t enough to make this 50. caliber trip down Memory Lane worth the fake napalm.

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50

Time Richard Corliss

What you will find is both familiar in its contours and unique in its casting: the definitive alterkocker action picture. Call it "The Old Dogs of War," or "Incontinent Basterds."

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50

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

At one point Rourke delivers a monologue about his time in Bosnia, and the conviction the actor brings to the occasion throws the movie completely out of whack. What's actual acting doing in a movie like this?

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50

Chicago Reader Joshua Katzman

Offers not a whiff of the tragic fatalism and astute critique of machismo that inform those superior dramas.

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50

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

The trailers already have given away the "surprise" cameos in The Expendables, so try not to blink when Stallone goes into a church (shades of John Woo) to meet his mystery boss, played by a bald-pated, trademark smirking Bruce Willis.

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42

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Brainless, witless, inept, ugly and crude.

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40

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It's big, it's loud, it's dumb, and all things considered, it's not completely un-fun.

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40

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Might more aptly be described as Bad Kurosawa, Bad Peckinpah or Bad Leone. Which might be a way of saying that it’s better-than-average Stallone. I can’t quite say that it’s not bad: it is bad! But not entirely in a bad way.

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40

Arizona Republic Bill Goodykoontz

You see this cast, you expect to see a lot of violent action. And in that regard, The Expendables delivers, and then some. In this case, then, the old saying applies: Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

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40

Time Out New York Keith Uhlich

The thought behind this body-splattering nostalgia trip is unformed and stagnant.

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40

Variety Peter Debruge

A nearly incoherent all-stars-on-deck actioner that plays like "Grown Ups" on nitro or a brutish, blue-collar "Ocean's Eleven."

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38

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

So why oh why is The Expendables such a limp-dick bust? Because Stallone forgets to include non-spazzy direction, a coherent plot, dialogue that actors can speak without cringing, stunts that don't fizzle, blood that isn't digital and an animating spirit that might convince us to give a damn.

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38

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Jason Statham gives the best performance. Dolph Lundgren gets the best character arc. Terry Crews gets the best gun. Jet Li gets the best kill (you'll know it when you see it).Arnold Schwarzenegger gets the best cameo. And Sylvester Stallone? He gets the blame.

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38

USA Today Claudia Puig

Sadistic mess of a movie.

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38

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Incoherent, inept, testosterone-drenched mess, which is very much the brain-dead male equivalent of "Sex and the City 2."

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30

Movieline Stephanie Zacharek

The whole exercise has the trying-too-hard vibe of a bad toupee.

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10

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

The Expendables is savage yet inert, and breathtakingly sleazy in its lack of imagination.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 1 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

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