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"Resurrecting a team of ageing icons who once ruled their profession is a dangerous proposition. What would happen if someone enticed Pel\u00C3\u00A9, Diego Maradona and Paul Gascoigne onto a pitch for a kickaround these days? Probably little in the way of football skill, but plenty in the way of flogging Viagra tablets, ranting hysterically at journalists and drunken offers to go fishing with any nearby nutter on a killing rampage. Times change. Yet we all live in hope, which is why many have been waiting anxiously for The Expendables, boasting a cast that resembles an &amp;#039;80s action flick lover\u00E2\u20AC\u2122s wet dream - but with added testosterone. Sylvester Stallone miraculously managed to group together stalwarts of the genre like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Eric Roberts and Mickey Rourke for some heavy duty macho posturing in this project. Sadly though, the star-spotting element is the most impressive part of this movie about a bunch of mercenaries trying to take out a South American dictator and rogue CIA defector (a suitably hissable Roberts) while seeking to rescue a very bland damsel in distress. One shouldn\u00E2\u20AC\u2122t knock the plotting for being distinctly old-school, but criticism deserves to be levelled at the manner in which so much talent is squandered. As mercenary leader Barney Ross, Stallone still possesses the physicality to cut it as an action hero, even though his face now looks as if someone has stitched Michael &amp;#039;Beppe&amp;#039; Greco&amp;#039;s goatee and Michael Jackson\u00E2\u20AC\u2122s eyebrows onto Sly\u00E2\u20AC\u2122s old Spitting Image puppet. Perhaps the permanently startled expression he wears was caused by a frank look at his own screenplay rather than surgery? Raspy-voiced Brit Jason Statham shares the leading man duties as knife-loving Lee Christmas and provides much of the film\u00E2\u20AC\u2122s tongue-in-cheek humour with his amusing quips. The pair convince as staunch purveyors of bromance, but the rest of their team - including Li, Lundgren, Terry Crews and Randy Couture - barely register. What made Stallone\u00E2\u20AC\u2122s vastly underrated 2008 return to the "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/review/a256072/the-expendables/>