Stallone. Statham. Lundgren. Li. Explosions. Fists.

There’s no point in deceiving myself: I like 1980s style action cinema, the kind I grew up with (Big Trouble in Little China, Missing in Action, Die Hard, the Rambo movies, the Lethal Weapons). These films have a tangibility about their action, where much contemporary action cinema feels too polished, too clean. Also, I admire Sylvester Stallone. He’s liberated third world countries and fought a one-man Vietnam, and he usually exits these battles stronger and meaner than before (even if said third world country is left in ruin). Over the past thirty five years, he has built an image of unrestrained machismo where muscles are many and dialogue is limited. But Stallone has gotten old, and his macho style is long since out dated, replaced by the brooding vacuousness of many male teen idols. That doesn’t seem to bother Stallone.

For his directorial effort The Expendables, Stallone gathers some of B-cinemadom’s most familiar names: Jason Statham (arguably the current king of B-action cinema); Chinese export Jet Li; Dolph Lundgren (another 1980s behemoth long past his prime, memorable in 1992’s Universal Soldier and Preacher from Johnny Mnemonic); Mickey Rourke (Johnny Handsome), looking freshly tenderised as always; perpetual bad guy Eric Roberts; and entertainer-athletes such as Randy Couture and Stone Cold “Beer Me!” Steve Austin. These men all adhere to Stallone-esque notions of masculinity, where the size of your first determines social standing as well as who is standing.

Stallone’s team is sent on a dangerous mission into South America to root out a drug problem; things get complicated, stunts get ridiculous and fights get loud. In between are some badly rendered explosions, some adequate bare fist fighting, and some delightful jokes about how small Jet Li is. All in all, The Expendables hearkens back to a time where a small group of Americans could save a country while eradicating some social evil (such as obliterating drug dealers). I have to admit to enjoying the cheesiness of the dialogue, and the warm feeling in my heart seeing Stallone and some other 1980s icons share an all-too-brief scene in a church. I also appreciated that the film was edited like a Tony Scott movie, even if some scenes are too kinetically cut.

The Expendables is what is often referred to as a “guilty pleasure”. But why feel guilty about something that you like? And really, who doesn’t like Stallone? The Expendables 2, featuring Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme, will be released in 2012. I’ll be there. 

Note: Peter Berg’s superior The Rundown playfully addressed similar content, but with less cheese, and more Rock.

Travel with me to the early ‘90s, kung fu style

Somehow, the pairing of Jackie Chan and Jet Li has never appealed to me as much as the paring of, say, De Niro and Pacino (I’m referring to “Heat” here, not the forthcoming “Righteous Kill”). Yet, apparently fanboys wanted the two martial arts icons to join forces and here they are, together for the first time, in Rob Minkoff’s placid, harmless “Forbidden Kingdom”. Here is a film with such mediocre effects and far-from-dazzling wirework that it’s hard to believe that it was released in 2008, and not 1993. “Forbidden Kingdom” is a (unintended?) throwback to the cheesy, insipid slap & kick movies of the early 1990s. Watching this, I was reminded not only of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” but also of the vastly superior ‘80s actioner “Big Trouble in Little China”. And knowing what Chan and Li are capable of, it’s hard to think of “Forbidden Kingdom” as anything but sub-par.

The story has something to do with a hero who doesn’t know he’s a hero; a drunken master; a silent monk; a white haired woman warrior with a whip; ancient immortals who take lunch breaks every 500 years; a magic staff and a Monkey King (also, embarrassingly, Jet Li). There is even a training montage where a character gets to know his inner warrior by exhibiting outer skill. And yes, someone actually says: “It has been foretold…” At first I thought that the film was conscious of its position in pop culture, but at the end I was not convinced. I suspect that all involved set out to make a film worthy of inclusion in the pantheon of martial arts movies, and failed.