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esrblog and I just returned from seeing "The Expendables", Sylvester Stallone's latest movie.

It's pretty much your typical action adventure kind of movie, with tough guys trying to do good by Blowing Lotsa Stuff Up. The plot is pretty minimal--which shouldn't surprise me, since Stallone wrote the script. Pity that he decided to cast himself as the star, since all of the supporting cast members have a lot more charisma than he does. More surprisingly, there are few funny lines; the rescue story is mostly played straight. This is even more of a drawback because the violence is both gross and boring; the last 15 minutes are almost solid explosions with little dialogue (and what little there is is unintelligible, of course).

On the plus side, some surprisingly good acting is done. Not by Stallone, who doesn't seem to have learned anything about acting since the "Rocky" movies of the late 1970s, but by the other "expendables," particularly Jason Statham and Mickey Rourke. Arnold Schwarzenegger has an amusing little cameo, and Bruce Willis gets to play a bad guy for once.

esrblog found it mildly enjoyable (though he too thought there would be more comedic elements) but my take on it is "meh". It's a summer movie, with little to lift it above the pack, other than the clustering of well-known names.