Expend4bles

In cinemas now

There has been much talk as of late about the burgeoning role of artificial intelligence within the film industry, and rightfully so. Technology has the potential to be a boon to any industry, but it should never come at the expense of human creativity. And yet, after watching the fourth and allegedly final instalment in The Expendables franchise, I couldn’t help but wonder whether our future robot overlords could have done a better job than the shitshow concocted by director Scott Waugh and screenwriters Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart, and Max Adams.

While that final comment is of course said with tongue firmly in cheek (I fully support the SAG-AFTRA strikes), it really is unfathomable that any professional filmmaker or writer could be happy with putting their name to something as extraordinarily turgid as Expend4bles. If its title alone is not enough of an affront to your senses, then its derisory CGI, overly misogynistic dialogue (which is enough to make you wonder whether the Me Too movement ever happened), ludicrous plot, and/or leaden action sequences will be.

With many of the franchise’s former stars nowhere to be seen, it’s left to the dependably bad Jason Statham and a disinterested Sylvester Stallone (who literally goes AWOL for the majority of the film) to helm proceedings, and the results are about as dull as you’d expect them to be. Admittedly, there is a self-awareness about Expend4bles that somewhat insulates it from criticism, but its shortcomings are far too apparent for it to ever be anything other than a bad use of one’s spare time.