The Expendables (2010) |
|
The Expendables (2010) |
|
|
| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Action |
Interviews-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer Teaser Trailer |
|
| Rating |
|
||
| Year Of Production | 2010 | ||
| Running Time | 99:16 (Case: 103) | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (66:56) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Ads Then Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Sylvester Stallone |
|
Studio
Distributor |
 Roadshow Home Entertainment |
Starring |
Sylvester Stallone Jason Statham Jet Li Dolph Lundgren Eric Roberts Randy Couture |
| Case | ? | ||
| RPI | $39.95 | Music | Brian Tyler |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
|
| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
 |
||
| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English (Burned In) English for the Hearing Impaired |
Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
It is certainly a fun idea to get together lots of action movie stars (many of them past their prime) and put them together to form a 'Dirty Dozen' style mercenary unit. However, the idea needs to be translated into a fun and enjoyable movie experience, which this one does not really succeed at.
The story involves a group of mercenaries who call themselves The Expendables. They are led by Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone, who also directed and co-wrote the film) and include Yin Yang (Jet Li), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Gunner (Dolph Lundgren), Tool (Mickey Rourke), Toll Road (Randy Couture) and Hale Caesar (Terry Crews). At the beginning of the film we see them finalising a job where they rescue people from Somali pirates. During this job, Gunner does not follow instructions and soon finds himself kicked out of the crew. Next, they are offered another job by Mr Church (Bruce Willis) to take out the military dictator of a small South American island nation, General Garza (David Zayas) who is backed by a drug dealer, James Munroe (Eric Roberts) and his strong man Paine (Steve Austin). On an initial incursion into the country Barney meets Sandra (Giselle Itie) and falls for her feisty resistance. The Governator also makes a cameo appearance.
Unfortunately, the screenplay (by Sylvester Stallone and Dave Callaham) is the biggest problem with this film, the dialogue is painful, the story is full of every action film cliché known to man. I know it is supposed to be a big dumb action flick but really it even fails to live up to that low standard. Other issues include that some scenes are quite hard to make out due to the way they were shot either too dark or too frenetic. There are also too many characters in the team which makes them hard to expand on in a 100 minute running time and therefore unengaging. On the plus side, as you would expect there are some quite good action sequences. Other genre films released this year which are nothing special but more entertaining than this include From Paris With Love and The A-Team.
I am sorry to say that this film is expendable.
The video quality is very good but not spectacular. The feature is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio which is the original aspect ratio. It is 16x9 enhanced widescreen.
The picture was quite clear and sharp throughout, although let down sometimes by a lack of shadow detail with some sequences being quite murky. The colour was excellent with no colour artefacts. There were no noticeable artefacts.
There are subtitles in English for the Hearing Impaired. There are also burned in subtitles for foreign languages only. They were both clear and easy to read.
There is a layer change during the main program at 66:56 which is not noticeable during playback.
| Sharpness |  |
| Shadow Detail |  |
| Colour | |
| Grain/Pixelization | |
| Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
| Film Artefacts | |
| Overall | |
The audio quality is very good. This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s, an English Dolby Digital Audio Descriptive 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s and a English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s.
Dialogue was reasonably clear and easy to understand although the subtitles were certainly useful. The score by Brian Tyler was quite obvious and clichéd. The surround speakers are used a lot for directional effects such a plane noises, gunfire, atmosphere and music. Good stuff. The subwoofer was used for music support and adding some bass to action scenes.
| Dialogue | |
| Audio Sync | |
| Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
| Surround Channel Use | |
| Subwoofer | |
| Overall | |
Nothing much here.
The menu was still, included music and had rather small text.
EPK style interviews with many of the cast & crew. They discuss the story, their characters and working with Stallone. They are
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Region 1 DVD version includes a better selection of extras including a commentary, gag reel, deleted scenes and a making of featurette making it the best of the SD choices. Also available on Blu-ray in Region A and Region B.
Despite a good idea this dumb action flick is quite clichéd.
The video quality is very good. The audio quality is very good. The extras are only promotional interviews.
| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Extras |   |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | SONY BDP-S760 Blu-ray, using HDMI output |
| Display | LG Scarlet 42LG61YD 106cm Full HD LCD. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p. |
| Audio Decoder | Built into BD player. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum. |
| Amplification | Pioneer VSX-511 |
| Speakers | Monitor Audio Bronze 2 (Front), Bronze Centre & Bronze FX (Rears) + Sony SAW2500M Subwoofer |