Jonah Naplan   September 24, 2023

Here we have “Expend4bles,” the latest fusion of letters and numbers in a film title. The technique was similarly used in “M3GAN” from earlier this year, and of course in the infamous “Fant4stic” from 2015. But this unorthodox presentation of marketing is curiously the most notable thing about the whole movie, an experience that otherwise drolls into absurdity, sameness, and a snooze fest. Back when “The Expendables” first loaded up in 2010, there was a casual nostalgia that radiated from seeing classic action stars strutting their stuff on the big screen in the modern day. But as two sequels followed in 2012 and 2014, the spark that was once there started noticeably running on fumes, as veteran actors exited, less intriguing newbies entered, and the franchise, known for its hardcore, shoot-’em-up violence, got demoted to PG-13.

Cut to nine years later—after the rise of a box office dominated by superheroes, great new action franchises that have each spawned several outings to their name, a global pandemic, the advent of streaming, and a massive Hollywood strike that affects both the future of movies themselves and those who make them—we have a fourth “Expendables” film with half of its original actors, a retained R rating—to mostly indiscernible effect—and enough dead air to fill a couple balloons. Sylvester Stallone’s “Expendables” movies can always be found in DVD bargain bins, on third party websites, or via many of these actors’ Wikipedia pages, but they can never escape the label of a franchise most longtime film buffs have all seen at some point in their life, but not one they talk about very often or give much thought to nowadays. The odds never really favored another “Expendables” movie, yet here we are again, proven right.

This time around, Barney (Stallone), Christmas (Jason Statham), Toll (Randy Couture), and Gunner (Dolph Lundgren), are joined by new additions Easy Day (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson), Galan (Jacob Scipio), and Christmas’s on-and-off girlfriend Gina (Megan Fox), who assumes a leadership role when Christmas is ousted from the Expendables after he makes a risky move on the team’s mission in Libya to take down a dangerous arms dealer named Rahmat (Iko Uwais) and his army of goons who’ve stolen a bunch of nuclear detonators for a shadowy figure named Ocelot. The battle is portrayed with the typical, shoot-’em-up violence so common in movies like these, with plenty of things exploding, and big motorized vehicles driving around, and people being practically liquidated by machine guns and grenades with enough force to impress the punch of a mantis shrimp.

Rahmat ends up on the loose, leaving the Expendables in low spirits. Discussion of the mission is portrayed through bland dialogue exchanges and talk of what to do next, and it’s accompanied by a strain of minimalist wokeness, as in: CIA agent Marsh (Andy Garcia) informs the crew that Ocelot is still out there, and that they need to capture him, before Gina points out that “he” could also be a “she.” Wasn’t that so nice of director Scott Waugh to enhance a potential narrative corner? How considerate of him to be so inclusive.

In any case, the Expendables continue their pursuit of the big bad, leaving Christmas to fend for his own, joining forces with an old friend of Barney’s named Decha (Tony Jaa), a martial artist with similar skills to that of Uwais—an opportunity for a badass duel that’s never taken. By one point or another, all of the characters wind up on a massive shipping vessel transporting the ticking explosives as the Expendables dispatch Rahmat’s poor henchmen to an extravagant degree.

Yet even with this platform for mind-numbing violence, “Expend4bles” never once adheres to the gruesome fun of the first two, nor does it reach the modest classiness of the third. More often than not, the movie seems to be adding sound effects and blood splatters to the carnage just because it can, and each of the Expendables are so unflappable that we can’t even take pleasure in their pleasure. As the team moves from perfunctory action setpiece to perfunctory action setpiece at a tedious pace, the movie offers no rhyme or reason as to why these events have stakes, even with threats of casualty and the decimation of humanity. Phrases such as “World War III” and “nuclear weapons” are thrown around to such listless avail that we stop regarding their importance.

Stallone himself is barely in the movie, handing much of the spotlight arc over to Statham, who, similar to his performance in “Meg 2: The Trench,” seems so uninterested in actually acting that his trademark mean stare that can occasionally be seen in your periphery for a split second is the only thing distinguishing him from any other tired action star.

But it’s more than just celeb-power that reeks of sludge. Uwais’s villain has less depth than a piece of cardboard, and poses no presence of risk or urgency to the team; the flatulent chemistry between Fox and Statham has no natural groove, rendering all of their scenes uncomfortably sexual but not sexy; and the CGI and green screen after-effects are some of the most abhorrent I’ve seen in a modern movie. The technical prowess of the other “Expendables” movies is long gone here, radiating a kind of studio-mandated, manufactured spontaneity we come to see more of in straight-to-video releases than multiplex motion pictures.

What it all eventually boils down to is whether or not “Expend4bles” is at least entertaining enough to pass the time or even to watch on an airplane. The answer turns out to be “no,” and all the fixings that used to be so prevalent in the other franchise entries have either been removed, watered-down, or trotted out so scandalously we forget they’re there. Whatever juice was left in this franchise was squeezed out back in 2014, and whatever juice remains in 2023 resides in the negatives. If the characters aren’t engaging enough, we aren’t having fun. And if we’re not having fun, something’s wrong.

Now playing in theaters.