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“The Expendables” had a simple enough concept—gather a bunch of '80s-era action cinema icons, including Sylvester Stallone , Arnold Schwarzenegger , Bruce Willis , Dolph Lundgren , and Mickey Rourke , and bring them together for an old-school-style shoot-em-up in which they, along with such current familiar faces (and pecs) as Jason Statham , Jet Li , Randy Couture , and Steve Austin, joined forces to blow things up real good. The film was no masterpiece, but the aggressively retro approach—it felt like exactly the kind of thing that the late great Cannon Films might have conjured up if they were still in business—had a certain lunkheaded charm, and it wound up being a surprise hit. Two sequels followed in 2012 and 2014, and while neither one lived up to the exceedingly mild promise of their predecessor, they served their purpose as B-movie fodder and a way for veteran action stars (including Harrison Ford , Chuck Norris , Wesley Snipes , Jean-Claude Van Damme , Antonio Banderas and, inexplicably, Kelsey Grammer ) to kill a couple of adequately-paid weeks reliving the good old days—sort of the genre equivalent of a Hall of Fame game.

That said, it has been nearly a decade since the poorly-received third film was released, and despite no discernible outcry for its return, the franchise has been revived with “Expend4bles.” Okay, perhaps “revived” is not quite the right word to describe this laughably lazy exercise in utility-grade meat-and-potatoes filmmaking. It's the kind of concussive contrivance that, to judge by the closing credits, seems to have more co-producers than actors with speaking roles and where the countless shootings, stabbing, and punches on display are nowhere near as excruciating as the listlessness with which they have been presented here.

This time around, veteran Expendables Barney (Stallone), Christmas (Statham), Gunner (Lundgren) and Toll (Couture) are joined here by new recruits Easy Day (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) and Galan ( Jacob Scipio ), who is supposed to be the son of the Banderas character, for a brand-new top-secret mission supervised by the shadowy CIA agent Marsh ( Andy Garcia ). Arms dealer Rahmat ( Iko Uwais ) and his army of goons have broken into one of Gaddafi’s old chemical plants in Libya and stolen a bunch of nuclear detonators for Ocelot, a mystery figure who decimated another squad of Barney’s years earlier. Alas (Spoiler Alert, barely), the mission goes sideways for Barney. When Christmas deviates from the plan in an effort to save him, he winds up getting booted from the group entirely.

However, there is still a loose Ocelot out there, and when it appears that they are hoping to instigate WW III between the U.S. and Russia, the Expendables once again go off to save the day, this time with Marsh along for the ride and with the leadership of the group taken by Gina ( Megan Fox ), who also happens to be the on/off girlfriend of Christmas to boot. Of course, Christmas won’t take no for an answer, and, accompanied by another old friend of Barney’s, Decha ( Tony Jaa ), also sets off in pursuit. Eventually, they all wind up on a massive shipping vessel containing the set-to-explode bomb and battle waves of anonymous bad guys as they try to save the world in the ta-daa nick of time.

My problem with “Expend4bles” is not that it is a boneheaded action film; it has been made with such obvious indifference from all involved that you can practically feel their contempt in every scene. The screenplay by Kurt Wimmer , Max Adams , and Tad Daggerhart conjures up the kind of slapdash narrative one rarely encounters outside Mad Libs. Director Scott Waugh proves to be equally lackadaisical in his duties—the big action beats are staged in a startlingly flat manner that's further dulled by some of the chintziest CGI I have seen in a major movie in a while. There are many points where "Expend4bles" feels less like a legitimate continuation to a franchise that has been quite profitable to many involved and more like a cheapo television pilot that was mercifully scuttled before it could air. 

The film's biggest, most inexplicable flaw is that it takes the irresistible hook that has driven the franchise to date—the chance to see past action icons strutting their stuff once again—and bizarrely elects to dispose of it here. At least in those earlier movies, there was a certain degree of frisson, as it were, at the sight of seeing the likes of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Willis together for the first time (at least outside of a Planet Hollywood stockholders meeting) and the first two sequels managed to keep that up as it brought new old faces into the fold. Here, with fewer returning cast members than before (and with Stallone himself barely in it), the balance shifts heavily towards the newer additions and, except for martial arts faves Jaa and Uwais (who contribute the only real thrills during the brief moments when they show their stuff), none of them are exactly action icons and a couple of them stretch the definition of “star” to the breaking point. The most ridiculous of the bunch by far is Fox, who seems to be there to serve as a reminder of that once-promised all-female “Expendabelles” spinoff and to show us that she can do anything that her male co-stars can. In this case, however, “anything” seems limited to delivering every line in a monotone and looking made up to such a degree that she might have shot this between set-ups for this year's  Sports Illustrated  photoshoot.

"Expend4bles" is just an embarrassment from start to finish, and the only positive thing to say about it is that it should pretty much put a nail in the coffin of a series that has clearly overstayed its welcome. At least for another decade. 

Now playing in theaters. 

Peter Sobczynski

A moderately insightful critic, full-on Swiftie and all-around  bon vivant , Peter Sobczynski, in addition to his work at this site, is also a contributor to The Spool and can be heard weekly discussing new Blu-Ray releases on the Movie Madness podcast on the Now Playing network.

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Film credits.

Expend4bles (2023)

Rated R for strong/bloody violence throughout, language and sexual material.

103 minutes

Jason Statham as Lee Christmas

Sylvester Stallone as Barney Ross

50 Cent as Easy

Megan Fox as Gina

Dolph Lundgren as Gunner Jensen

Tony Jaa as Decha

Iko Uwais as Rahmat

Randy Couture as Toll Road

Andy García as Marsh

Jacob Scipio as Galan

Levy Tran as Lash

• Scott Waugh

Writer (characters)

• Dave Callaham

Writer (story by)

• Spenser Cohen
• Kurt Wimmer
• Tad Daggerhart

Cinematographer

• Tim Maurice-Jones
• Michael J. Duthie
• Guillaume Roussel

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The Expendables 4

Armed with every weapon they can get their hands on, the Expendables are the world's last line of defense and the team that gets called when all other options are off the table. Armed with every weapon they can get their hands on, the Expendables are the world's last line of defense and the team that gets called when all other options are off the table. Armed with every weapon they can get their hands on, the Expendables are the world's last line of defense and the team that gets called when all other options are off the table.

• Scott Waugh
• Kurt Wimmer
• Tad Daggerhart
• Jason Statham
• 409 User reviews
• 134 Critic reviews
• 30 Metascore
• 2 wins & 7 nominations

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• Trivia Jason Statham has expressed his love for The Expendables. On co-star Sylvester Stallone , he said "Working with Sylvester Stallone is beyond a pinch yourself moment. I remember growing up watching his films, and to be directed by him, and to be in a movie that he's produced, and to be shoulder to shoulder with Sly is a privilege any man who loves action movies would never turn their nose up at. I mean, it's terrific. I'll do as many as he wants."
• Goofs The team is shown staging and departing for the mission from Hong Kong, with the north shore of Hong Kong Island in clear view of the airfield. The Chinese government would never allow a team of mercenaries, especially working for American intelligence, to operate from Chinese soil, nor would the team be able to hide their departure by plane from the authorities.

Toll Road : [on being asked if he can create a diversion] Does the Pope shit in the woods ?

• Connections Featured in The Critical Drinker: Expend4bles Is An Embarrassing Wet Fart (2023)
• Soundtracks Every Time Written by Sertac Nidai Courtesy of APM Music

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• Sep 22, 2023
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• September 22, 2023 (United States)
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• Campbell Grobman Films
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• $100,000,000 (estimated)
• $16,710,153
• Sep 24, 2023
• $37,917,985

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• Runtime 1 hour 43 minutes
• Dolby Digital
• Dolby Atmos

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Expend4bles has no more wishes to fulfill

The latest film brings the series’ best action to a franchise that never found its own personality

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The Expendables movies were always a list of names before they were anything else. Stallone . Statham . Li . Snipes . Schwarzenegger . Willis . The pileup of those names is why anyone goes to see these movies. 2010’s The Expendables , and all its sequels, were aggressively marketed as assemblages of once-great titans of action cinema, a movie where fans of the VHS era could finally see their heroes sharing a screen together. It didn’t particularly matter what kind of movie they appeared in together, as long as it promised some action.

But it certainly helped that The Expendables was specifically an unabashed throwback to ’80s action movies, with director Sylvester Stallone delivering a testosterone-fueled joyride full of guns and elder muscles. In 2010, it felt like it was going to be one last ride from a bunch of guys who knew how to sneer and fire a machine gun, and who mostly saw women as a distraction from their hobby of wearing berets.

The fourth movie in the franchise, this week’s Expend4bles , doesn’t traffic in this nostalgia. Three movies and 13 years later, there isn’t much more wish fulfillment for Expendables movies to offer. Its biggest casting coups, like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Wesley Snipes, aren’t in attendance this time out, and their poor implementation in prior installments means they wouldn’t have been a draw anyway. The Expendables movies had one trick, and that trick has been played out. Director Scott Waugh has to resort to something else with Expend4bles : finally trying to turn one of these projects into a good action movie.

If satisfying action was Waugh’s only real goal, then kudos to him for clearing that bar handily. Expend4bles is easily the best pure action movie in the franchise, thanks to the efforts of stunt coordinator Alan Ng and the Jackie Chan Stunt Team, who worked with Waugh on his previous film, Hidden Strike . There’s a clear vision for Expend4bles ’ approach to cinematic violence, which brings a bit of Hong Kong flair to a franchise that was mostly known for big haymakers and bigger guns.

With the new approach to action comes new stars to bring it to life. Series mainstays Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, and Randy Couture are joined by Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais ( the Raid films ), martial arts dynamos who can always please a crowd when fists start flying. Unfortunately, every other aspect of Expend4bles drags these bright spots down.

Clocking in at an oddly paced 100 minutes, Expend4bles ends just when it feels like it’s getting started, as the eponymous team of mercenaries led by Barney Ross (Stallone) and Lee Christmas (Statham) are hired to get a nuke back from a deadly terrorist (Uwais). With too large a cast to properly showcase in such a brief time, the film feels incomplete even as it runs through the franchise checklist, offering one memorable set-piece (a bike chase through a cargo ship) and heaps of one-liners (a baffling number of them about pee).

New additions like Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson as Easy Day feel inessential, adding little and calling attention to the cramped cast. Other newcomers, like Levy Tran as Lash, at least get a signature weapon and fighting style (a deadly chain whip), but no character beat to accompany it. That her fight scenes are good, unlike Easy Day’s, only makes the missed potential all the more noticeable. And then there are characters like Galan (Jacob Scipio), who does get a character beat (he talks too much), but no real action scenes to make his own.

Expend4bles stretches the franchise to its limits, and those limits frankly don’t reach very far. There’s a level of self-awareness to Expendables films that can make their paper-thin plotting and characterization excusable — in the end, they’re just a reason to see certain action legends interact with each other. But in a decade-plus of homage, the series hasn’t developed any stylistic flourishes of its own. Mission: Impossible movies have their signature stunts, Fast and Furious movies have their improbable applications of cars, but the Expendables lacks a comparable calling card. There’s nothing for fans to look forward to beyond Jason Statham’s resilient charm and Sylvester Stallone’s braggadocio. And frankly, there are plenty of other places for people who want those things to get them.

Expend4bles opens in theaters on Sept. 22.

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50 cent, megan fox team up with sylvester stallone in action-packed ‘expendables 4’ trailer.

Dolph Lundgren and Jason Statham are joined by franchise newcomers Fox, Iko Uwais and Andy Garcia in the latest entry in the shoot-em-up franchise.

By Mia Galuppo

Mia Galuppo

Film Writer

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The first trailer for The Expendables 4 sees franchise stalwarts Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham teaming up with a cast of series newcomers like 50 Cent and Megan Fox.

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Returning to the franchise along with Stallone and Statham are Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture, joined by a new generation of Expendables including Fox, 50 Cent, Garcia, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Jacob Scipio and Levy Tran.

In a recent THR cover story, Stallone talked about Expendables 4 , saying, “I heard it turned out pretty good. Jason Statham is 80 percent of it. He’s happy with it.”

The official synopsis for the film reads: “The Expendables are the world’s last line of defense and the team that gets called when all other options are off the table. But new team members with new styles and tactics are going to give ‘new blood’ a whole new meaning.”

It has been nearly a decade since the last Expendables film. The first three Expendables outings, released in 2010, 2012 and 2014, have collectively grossed an impressive $800 million at the global box office.

Lionsgate will release The Expendables 4 on Sept. 22.

Watch the trailer below.

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Expend4bles: release date, trailer, cast and everything we know about the action movie

Stallone and Statham are back for an all-new Expendables movie.

The Expendables are back. It's been nine years since the action franchise released its last entry, but Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham and more are back, along with some new blood. The franchise looks to prove that it can still kick butt and entertain moviegoers.

Started in 2010, The Expendables franchise brought together a number of Hollywood's biggest action stars — Stallone, Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and more — for world-saving adventures. The result was more than $800 million at the worldwide box office across three movies, the last of which was released in 2014.

What can we expect from this latest entry? Here is everything that we know about Expend4bles .

Expend4bles release date

Expend4bles is now playing exclusively in movie theaters worldwide.

Expend4bles plot

Is Expend4bles going to be a passing of the franchise torch? Too early to tell, but the official synopsis is sure to point out that this latest entry is bringing in a bunch of new recruits. Here is the plot description from Lionsgate:

"A new generation of stars join the world’s top action stars for an adrenaline-fueled adventure in Expend4bles . Reuniting as the team of elite mercenaries, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture and Sylvester Stallone are joined for the first time by Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson, Megan Fox, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran, and Andy Garcia. Armed with every weapon they can get their hands on and the skills to use them, The Expendables are the world's last line of defense and the team that gets called when all other options are off the table. But new team members with new styles and tactics are going to give 'new blood' a whole new meaning."

The script was written by Kurt Wimmer (2015's Point Break ), Tad Daggerhart ( Black Lotus ) and Max Adams ( The Terminal List ).

Expend4bles cast

Four of the original members of the Expendables team are back, including Sylvester Stallone as Barney Ross, Jason Statham as Lee Christmas, Dolph Lundgren as Gunner Jensen and Randy Couture as Toll Road. Other original members of the team, including Terry Crews, Jet Li and Steve Austin, are not currently listed as appearing in the movie.

Their potential replacements come in the form of Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson ( Power , Den of Thieves ) as Easy Day, Megan Fox ( Transformers , Jennifer's Body ) as Gina, Iko Uwais ( The Raid , Fistful of Vengeance ) as Rahmat, Jacob Scipio ( Bad Boys for Life , The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent ) as Galan, Levy Tran ( MacGyver , The Haunting of Hill House ) as Lash and Tony Jaa ( Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior , Furious 7 ) in an as yet unspecified role. 

One other big name is joining the cast for the first time, Andy Garcia ( Father of the Bride , Book Club: The Next Chapter ), playing Marsh.

Expend4bles trailer

Watch the Expend4bles trailer below to meet some of  the new team and get a taste of the action the movie is going to deliver: 

A red-band trailer for Expend4bles has also made it's way online, playing up the fact that the movie is going to take full advantage of its R rating. Give it a watch below:

Expend4bles reviews

Critics are not fans of the latest Expend4bles movie, as the movie has a 14% positive score on Rotten Tomatoes , which classifies it as "Rotten. It'll be interesting to see how audiences score the movie though.

How long is Expend4bles?

The Expend4bles runtime comes in at one hour and 43 minutes.

What is Expend4bles rated?

Expend4bles earned an R rating in the US and 15 in the UK for "strong/bloody violence throughout, language and sexual material.

Expend4bles director

In addition to new stars, Expend4bles has a new director for the franchise (Stallone, Simon West and Patrick Hughes directed the previous entries). Expend4bles is in the hands of Scott Waugh, whose previous movies include Act of Valor , Need for Speed and 6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain . 

Expend4bles posters

Check out the official posters for Expend4bles right here.

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Michael Balderston is a DC-based entertainment and assistant managing editor for What to Watch, who has previously written about the TV and movies with TV Technology, Awards Circuit and regional publications. Spending most of his time watching new movies at the theater or classics on TCM, some of Michael's favorite movies include Casablanca , Moulin Rouge! , Silence of the Lambs , Children of Men , One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Star Wars . On the TV side he enjoys Only Murders in the Building, Yellowstone, The Boys, Game of Thrones and is always up for a Seinfeld rerun. Follow on Letterboxd .

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New ‘Expendables’ Film in the Works With Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone and Megan Fox

By Rebecca Rubin

Rebecca Rubin

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A new “ Expendables ” movie is in the works, with Jason Statham and Sylvester Stallone among the cast members returning as elite mercenaries tasked with carrying out perilous missions.

Along with Statham and Stallone, franchise vets Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture are reprising their roles for the fourth installment in the action-packed saga, while 50 Cent, Megan Fox and Tony Jaa are joining the series.

Scott Waugh is directing the latest “Expendables” from a screenplay by Spenser Cohen with revisions by Max Adams and John Joseph Connolly. The film, from Lionsgate and Millennium Media, will begin production this fall.

“We are thrilled to partner with our friends at Millennium Media for the next installment of the ‘Expendables’ franchise,” said Jason Constantine, Lionsgate Motion Picture Group’s president of acquisitions and co-productions. “It’s so much fun to bring these stars together for a no-holds-barred action film. The new film will raise the stakes and be the biggest, most badass adventure yet.”

Jeffrey Greenstein, Millennium Media president, adds, “The Expendables are back, and we couldn’t be more excited to bring this star-studded, action-packed film to the big screen with Lionsgate, who have been with us since the inception of this franchise. To keep it fresh and fun, we’ve added exciting new stars to join the veterans; popcorn entertainment is guaranteed.”

Popular on Variety

Stallone directed the first “Expendables,” which opened in 2010 and featured cameos by Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Despite mixed reviews and modest box office returns, it spawned two creatively named sequels — 2012’s “The Expendables 2” and 2013’s “The Expendables 3.” Statham and Stallone have appeared in each installment, with the sequel featuring Chuck Norris, Terry Crews, Liam Hemsworth and Jean-Claude Van Damme, and the threequel enlisting Antonio Banderas, Jet Li, Wesley Snipes and Kelsey Grammer.

The three movies, which pay homage to the blockbuster action films of the late ’80s and early ’90s, have collectively generated more than $800 million at the global box office. Talks of a fourth movie have been percolating for years, but it didn’t officially get the greenlight until recently.

The Hollywood Reporter first reported the news.

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Lionsgate and Millennium Media have a new  Expendables  movie in the works.

Coming back together for the elite mercenaries feature are franchise stars Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture and Sylvester Stallone, who will all reprise their roles as Lee Christmas, Gunner Jensen, Toll Road, and Barney Ross respectively. In addition, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Megan Fox, and Tony Jaa are joining in this fourthquel.

Lionsgate will release the pic in US, Canada, and the UK. Through three movies, the  Expendables  series has grossed $804M at the global box office.

The film will begin production this fall and is being directed by Scott Waugh from a screenplay by Spenser Cohen with revisions by Max Adams and John Joseph Connolly.

The new Expendables installment is produced by Statham, Kevin King Templeton, and Les Weldon Yariv Lerner, Jeffrey Greenstein, and Jonathan Yunger on behalf of Millennium Media. EPs for Millennium Media are Avi Lerner, Boaz Davidson and Trevor Short with Christa Campbell and Lati Grobman on behalf of Campbell Grobman Films. Co-Producer is Abby Mills. Eda Kowan and Jonah Leach will oversee the film for Lionsgate.

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The Expendables

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Watch The Expendables with a subscription on Max, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

What to Know

It makes good on the old-school action it promises, but given all the talent on display, The Expendables should hit harder.

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Sylvester Stallone

Barney Ross

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The Expendables Review

20 Aug 2010

108 minutes

Expendables, The

In 2030, the indomitable Sly Stallone, along with the surviving members of the eight-strong action ensemble which make up his titular team, will unite with the common goal of wiping out, once and for all, the dreaded Meatloaf Night at their nursing home. Until then, there’s The Expendables, the action movie equivalent of a Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame ‘super group’, or one of those Doctor Who episodes where all the old Doctors turn up in the same show. (With Eric Roberts, late of the unloved Doctor Who movie, as the villain, the illusion is almost complete.)

If The Expendables had been made a decade ago — and if Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme had answered Stallone’s casting call, as the likes of Dolph Lundgren and Arnold Schwarzenegger did — the film could have been a poignant, life-imitates-art examination of a group of once-great action heroes, finding themselves washed up, out of step with the touchy-feely times — like Space Cowboys, but for meatheads. After all, we live in a world in which the movies’ biggest action heroes are played by pantywaists like Robert Downey Jr. and Christian Bale, proper ac-tors whose biggest muscles are inside their heads. If nothing else, such a film would have given much-needed employment to its dole-drawing stars.

As it turns out, things haven’t quite worked out that way: although the title of Arnie’s 1993 flop, Last Action Hero, seemed unintentionally prescient, the past decade has been good to the ’80s action stars. The careers of The Expendables, you might say, have proved anything but. Stallone has gone the distance, largely thanks to Rocky Balboa, a critical and commercial hit; Rourke parlayed an Oscar-nominated comeback (The Wrestler) into a meaty villain role in a hit franchise (Iron Man 2); Steven Seagal sent himself up — at least, we think he was in on the ‘joke’ — in an Orange ad; even Jean-Claude Van Damme, the once-proud “Muscles From Brussels” pulled off an exercise in postmodern existentialism in the film that bore his initials, and — Gott im Himmel! — Ah-nuld was elected, and then re-elected, Governor of Kah-lifornia, and is a constitutional amendment away from a tilt at the White House.They are, however, “getting too old for this shit”. Clive James once described Arnie as looking like “a condom filled with walnuts” — now it’s the other way round. Perhaps that’s why Stallone (64) has recruited young upstarts like Jason Statham (38) and Jet Li (47) to accompany fellow fossils-with-muscles Lundgren (52), Bruce Willis (55), Rourke (57) and Arnie (63) to take down the bad guys (and possibly the insurance premiums). If only Sly had spent less time on the phone to his mates, and more on the script.

Instead it seems that, having assembled his dream cast — and thrown in wrestler ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin and Ultimate Fighting Champion Randy Couture for the ‘kids’ — Stallone clearly felt that such fuddy-duddy film staples as story, characterisation and dialogue that makes sense were, well, expendable. Sure, there’s some direct-to-video-level plotting (see above), and an attempt at creating motivation for Stallone and his fellow cigar-chompers to care — in a nutshell, “The general’s daughter is a hottie” — but that’s really as far as it goes. As the film lurches from scene to scene, one becomes increasingly convinced that not only is everyone making it up as they go along (director Stallone shares a screenwriting credit, so it’s entirely plausible), but that Sly could only convince his cast to jump on board if he agreed to very specific, and often very strange, demands: ‘I want a scene where I kick Jet Li’s ass.’ ‘I want to blow up a dock from the open-air gun turret of a giant seaplane.’ ‘I want to meet Charisma Carpenter, can you fix us up?’ (And apparently, in the case of the much-ballyhooed on-screen team-up between Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis, ‘I want a scene with all the verbal and visual fireworks of a Planet Hollywood annual general meeting circa 1993.’)

That said, The Expendables does what it says on the tin: it delivers a super-size portion of bone-cracking, bullet-spraying, muscle-flexing, head-exploding action, thankfully with the kind of tongue-in-cheek ironic distance which was fatally absent from Stallone’s last directorial outing, the ill-advised, ill-fated Rambo. Although the set-pieces are hardly on a par with the man-fires-tank-falling-out-of-plane antics of the all-new A-Team, the fight scenes prove that the almost-all-old ‘E’-Team can still cut it when push comes literally to shove.

If nothing else, it gives the audience a chance to answer the perennial question, who would win a no-holds-barred fight between Dolph Lundgren and Jet Li?

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The expendables, common sense media reviewers.

Legendary action cast teams up for violent, racist muddle.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Positive messages are thin: At best, you shouldn't

Main characters Barney and Lee, plus the rest of t

Racist depictions of angry Black "pirates" who yel

The characters shoot, stab, impale, pummel, pound,

A character visits a woman he's dating, but she's

A few uses of "f--k" and several of "s--t." Other

Characters use Panasonic and Canon cameras.

The main villain controls the cocaine industry on

Parents need to know that The Expendables has a cast of action legends like Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis. Unsurprisingly, it's filled with over-the-top action violence, including shootings, stabbings, severed limbs, spurting blood, explosions, and burning…

Positive Messages

Positive messages are thin: At best, you shouldn't take pleasure in murder, and don't mutilate dead bodies. But it's OK to be a mercenary who kills for money as long as you "save" helpless people as you do it.

Positive Role Models

Main characters Barney and Lee, plus the rest of the Expendables team, use extreme machismo and physical aggression to "save" helpless people. Sandra puts herself in danger to stand up for what's right, but she gets kidnapped and tortured and needs to be rescued by men.

Diverse Representations

Racist depictions of angry Black "pirates" who yell in Arabic and wear turbans and headwraps as they hold prisoners at gunpoint. They're mowed down and executed by the film's mostly White team of "Expendables," led by Sylvester Stallone's Barney and Jason Statham's Lee. Other villains are stereotypical, generic Latinos, led by "the General" (played by David Zayas, who's Puerto Rican), who are from a fictional island in South America -- they wear red berets and camo uniforms and grow cocaine for money. Other Latinos on the island are portrayed as poor and helpless, needing to be saved by White men. The General is being funded by the film's main villains, who are White Americans. The Expendables team technically includes Black actor Terry Crews and Chinese Singaporean actor Jet Li, but they have much less screen time than Barney and Lee. Li's character has the clich éd nickname "Yin Yang" -- no other Expendable has a race-based code name ("Toll Road," "Paine," "Hale Caesar," etc.). Another minor team member is White and has "cauliflower ear"; he's portrayed as overly defensive about it, but it's positive for representation that the actor, former wrestler Randy Couture, also has the condition in real life. A character doesn't know the name of a girl he's seeing and when she answers "Cheyenne," he jokingly rambles Native American tribe names, "Arapaho, Cherokee, Pawnee." Women exist as love interests and damsels in distress. A man slaps the girl he's seeing on the rear end as she walks away. A woman being abused by her boyfriend needs another man to save her. Iffy jokes include a homophobic one ("You're not going to start sucking each other's d--cks, are you?"), plus many references to Yin Yang being short.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

The characters shoot, stab, impale, pummel, pound, and blow up just about everything and everyone in sight. Some prefer guns -- including some of the biggest, loudest weapons you've ever seen -- while others are knife experts. Many minor characters die without much consequence. Blood spurts, explosions, car chases, and burning bodies. Severed limbs and heads and exploding torsos. A woman has bruises on her face from an abusive boyfriend. Another woman is kidnapped and tortured (with water), then later tied up and imprisoned as she's leered at, called "bonita" by two guards, implying their intent to sexually assault her -- she's saved by the main character before anything more happens.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A character visits a woman he's dating, but she's seeing someone new, who's at her home. A man loudly slaps a woman's rear end -- she doesn't react, seemingly fine with it. Brief discussions of sex and relationships. Implied sexual tension between Barney and Sandra (which includes a nearly four-decade age gap), but the characters never do more than share a heartfelt hug. Domestic abuse and implied threat of sexual violence -- see "Violence & Scariness."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

A few uses of "f--k" and several of "s--t." Other words include "suck d--ks," "ass," "goddamn," "balls," "hell," "a--hole," "bitch," and "damn."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

The main villain controls the cocaine industry on a small island; there are bricks of cocaine in one scene. A character is said to have a drug problem, though viewers never see him actually taking drugs. A few characters smoke cigars and an old-fashioned pipe; villains smoke cigarettes. Main characters clink beers, bring an unopened champagne bottle as a gift, and order a martini with olives (it's never shown).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Expendables has a cast of action legends like Sylvester Stallone , Jason Statham , Jet Li , Arnold Schwarzenegger , and Bruce Willis . Unsurprisingly, it's filled with over-the-top action violence, including shootings, stabbings, severed limbs, spurting blood, explosions, and burning bodies. There's also implied violence against women (a character has bruises on her face, and an imprisoned woman is leered at by guards). Language includes a few uses of "f--k" and several uses of "s--t." The main villains are funded by cocaine sales -- bricks of cocaine are visible in one scene. Characters smoke cigars, pipes, and cigarettes and infrequently drink beer. Positive messages and role models are hard to find, given the premise of an all-star team of mercenaries who kill for money, plus themes of extreme machismo that portray women as helpless damsels in distress. There are also racist depictions of Black Muslim "pirates" and generic Latino stereotypes (Latino characters grow cocaine and wear red berets and camo uniforms, terrorizing a poor island population that needs to be liberated by White main characters). To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (21)
• Kids say (46)

Based on 21 parent reviews

Great Choreography, Okay storyline

It's a man's world, what's the story.

Barney Ross ( Sylvester Stallone ) and his team of THE EXPENDABLES ( Jason Statham , Jet Li , etc.) are hired for a nearly impossible job involving a rogue CIA agent ( Eric Roberts ) who's taken over the drug trade on a small island and converted the local General Garza (David Zayas) into his puppet. Barney initially decides the job isn't worth the money, but then the General's daughter, Sandra (Giselle Itié), changes his mind; she truly believes in fighting for a cause, the way Barney did before he became a mercenary for hire. So the team storms the island with full force and brutal firepower, this time for all the right reasons. Can they survive the impossible odds that await?

Is It Any Good?

Sadly, Stallone's movie is a giant mess and a wasted opportunity. The Expendables has too many characters for any to develop any kind of depth: Lee (Statham) is upset about his girlfriend, Yin Yang (Li) has a complex about his size, Gunner (Dolph Lundgren) is on drugs and out of control, etc. Writer-director Stallone misses his chance to be playful, or -- better still -- to deliver a commentary on action movies in general.

Then there's his action footage, which is among the worst ever filmed. It's shaky and hacked up to the point of inducing headaches, and it's often difficult to tell which player is which. A fight between Li and Lundgren should have been an enticing draw, but instead it's ridiculous and mushy. Fortunately, Mickey Rourke is absolutely superb in his few scenes as a burned-out former team member, ruminating about his lost path in life.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in The Expendables . How did it affect you? Did it seem over the top? Why, or why not?

What did Barney learn over the course of the movie? Did any of the other Expendables share his journey? Are they heroes? What kinds of traits do heroes have?

Many of the characters in the film smoke . How does this make them look? Do they seem cool? Do you think that was the intent?

How does the movie portray women? What about Black, Latino, and Muslim people? Does this seem true to life or stereotypical? Who do stereotypes harm?

Movie Details

• In theaters : August 13, 2010
• On DVD or streaming : November 23, 2010
• Cast : Jason Statham , Jet Li , Sylvester Stallone
• Director : Sylvester Stallone
• Inclusion Information : Asian writers
• Studio : Lionsgate
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Run time : 103 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language
• Last updated : September 15, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Arnie's surprise 2023 success proves he's perfect to take over the expendables (without stallone).

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Arnold Schwarzenegger's Incredible 2023 Success Proves He Was Right Not To Return For Expendables 4

The expendables 5: will it happen everything we know, i'm stunned by anya taylor-joy's role in furiosa.

• Arnold Schwarzenegger's success in Netflix hit FUBAR proves that audiences still love the action icon.
• The Expendables 4 received poor reviews and underperformed at the box office, potentially killing the series.
• Arnold's character Trench could be the best choice to take over The Expendables franchise, offering a new perspective and potential for new cast additions.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's big 2023 success could make him the ideal choice to take over The Expendables from old chum Sylvester Stallone. Expendables 4 started life as a planned spinoff focusing on Jason Statham's character Christmas, which was fittingly dubbed A Christmas Story . The final version retained some of the ideas from this canned offshoot, since Statham's character is very much the lead while the team dynamic is downplayed. Sadly, The Expendables 4 may have killed the series, as it received poor reviews and only grossed about half its production budget back.

It didn't help that the series had been offscreen for almost a decade either, following the disappointing performance of the third entry. Where The Expendables movies go next is unclear, but a fifth entry that follows a similar vein to the last sequel is very unlikely . If the saga is to have any a future it will need to be creatively overhauled, which would mean bringing in a new cast of characters. That said, a soft reboot might be the best way to proceed, retaining some key characters while bringing in new blood.

Arnold Schwarzenegger could have been in a major film flop in 2023, but luckily, the iconic action star chose this streaming hit to star in instead.

Netflix's FUBAR Proves Arnold Should Take Over The Expendables

Arnold's action-comedy hit proves audiences still love the screen icon.

Notably absent from Expendables 4 was Arnold Schwarzenegger's Trench, a friendly rival to Stallone's mercenary leader Barney . One of the major selling points of the original was that it finally united action legends Arnie, Stallone and Bruce Willis onscreen, but Schwarzenegger's role across the first three entries amounted to little more than extended cameos. After several movie flops in recent years, Arnie scored a major streaming hit with Netflix's FUBAR in 2023 . This played like a riff on his 1994 spy comedy True Lies , except this time it was a father and daughter who realize they're both spies.

FUBAR received mixed reviews, but Schwarzenegger's undeniable charisma still powered it, and it will return for a second season. The show also proved that despite some duds like Terminator: Dark Fate , there's still a willing audience for the action icon. Having Arnold's Trench take over The Expendables from Stallone could be the best path forward since he's a familiar character but one who can offer a different perspective on the mercenary saga .

Schwarzenegger also co-starred with Stallone in the 2013 prison break thriller Escape Plan.

Plus, Trench has been completely underutilized in the past, with the films burdening Arnie with lame one-liners that pull from his past roles. An Expendables 5 that puts Arnold front and center and pairs him with other action greats - the series has yet to add the likes of Jackie Chan, Keanu Reeves or Charlize Theron, for instance - could be the shot in the arm the property badly needs.

FUBAR Is Arnold's First Major Solo Hit In 20 Years

Arnie's post-governor movie career has been mixed.

Arnold's movie star heyday came to a close towards the end of the '90s, and his move into politics saw him take a long break from the big screen. Audiences also moved on from Arnold Schwarzenegger's action movies of yesteryear, so comeback vehicles such as The Last Stand or Sabotage met with little success. In fact, Arnold's only real hits during this era were The Expendables - which were sold on the ensemble cast instead of one particular actor. That's why FUBAR is a turning point for Arnold's latter-day career, as it's his first big solo hit since 2003's Terminator 3 .

Even 2015's Terminator: Genisys - which despite its faults, was a financial hit - moved the star to more of a supporting role, rather than focusing on him as the lead. That shows that with the right material, viewers will still turn up for an Arnold vehicle. Not only could another Expendables with Trench take the films in the right direction, but it could be the exact kind of elder statesman role Schwarzenegger needs on the big screen .

Arnold May Not Want To Take Over The Expendables

Arnie would want stallone's blessing to take the lead.

Arnold passed on an Expendables 4 return in favor of FUBAR , which was a wise move for more reasons than one. Arnold could also pass on an Expendables return if he doesn't receive the blessing of good friend Stallone, who also created the franchise . Part of the appeal of working on the movies for Arnie was being paired with his former action rival, so being offered the lead role and not getting to work with Stallone could be a dealbreaker for him.

Expendables 5 is likely several years away, but that doesn't mean speculation hasn't started around the fifth chapter of the Expendables franchise.

In all likelihood, a future Expendables will wipe the slate clean and not bring back any of the original cast. The smell of the fourth movie's failure will take a few years to recede, and there's little demand for more installments at the moment. Still, if a new sequel has to happen in the next few years, promoting Trench to the head of the unit isn't the worst way to go.

The Expendables

• The Expendables - Franchise
• FUBAR (2023)

'It Actually Got Kind of Physical': Glen Powell Was Kicked Out of The Expendables 3 Party

Glen Powell says his first real-life Hollywood fight scene happened while on a night out with the cast of The Expendables 3.

Twisters star Glen Powell compared his casting in The Expendables 3 to a random guy given a lucky opportunity. He said this was made evident when "no one recognized him" even though he had his own banner at a screening after-party.

Top Gun: Maverick may have been Glen Powell's breakout film, but his growing fan base has come to realize he flew under the radar in prior blockbusters. Those who've seen The Dark Knight Rises may have focused on Bane's back when he broke into the Gotham stock exchange, but Powell played the stock trader Bane roughed up before he hijacked the system. Powell played a bigger role in The Expendables 3 , where he acted alongside an ensemble of '90s action heroes. The Twisters star told The Hollywood Reporter that The Expendables 3 was a highlight in his charmed career; he said it was a privilege to be headlined among Hollywood legends.

Glen Powell Explains Turning Down Jurassic Park Reboot Role

"I did this movie Expendables 3 — it's like Sylvester Stallone , Arnold Schwarzenegger, Antonio Banderas, Wesley Snipes, Jason Statham," he said. "Somehow I'm the 'random' guy that snuck in. So I'm like the only unknown person in a cast of legends." Powell's role was prominent in the film, where he proved an asset to the team as a drone pilot and hacker. He playfully told ScreenSlam that he got the role by forcing himself into the casting. " Seeing your name on a billboard and a poster with [the cast] is the coolest thing you can imagine ," he added. Unfortunately, at least one person was oblivious to this - a bouncer at the film's Cannes party.

Powell Was Kicked Out Of His Own After-Party

Powell joined the cast of The Expendables 3 at the Cannes Film Festival, where they made a big entrance with "tanks [driving] down the Croisette." A screening party was held at the Carlton Hotel, which was decked out with "all these character banners" (including Powell's). The actor said this didn't guarantee his access to the event, saying, "Just because you've got a banner doesn't mean you're getting in the party."

Glen Powell to Lead Reboot of Stephen King's The Running Man

" I got kicked out of the VIP section of the Expendables 3 party ," he recalled. "It actually got kind of physical. There was a large bouncer that was convinced that I shouldn't be in the VIP section, so it kind of turned into a physical altercation where I got hit in the face at the Expendables 3 party, 'cause no one recognized me even though there was a banner in the party of my face ." Hopefully, the same thing doesn't happen again at a Twisters event , now that Powell's credits include Top Gun: Maverick , Anyone But You , and Hit Man .

Hit Man streams on Netflix on June 7, while Twisters premieres in theaters on Jul. 19.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter via YouTube

The Expendables 3

Steven Seagal never appeared in The Expendables because of his hatred for Van Damme

I t is no secret that Steven Seagal is a controversial figure who has had many quarrels and feuds with other action movie stars such as Van Damme . And it is precisely this animosity and reluctance to get along with the Belgian that is the main stumbling block preventing him from appearing in a movie of ‘The Expendables’ , the saga created by Sylvester Stallone as a tribute to his fellow guild members. In Seagal’s own words, there are people in these movies he doesn’t like, referring to familiar faces such as Jean-Claude Van Damme himself and producer Avi Lerner .

Steven Seagal will never appear in ‘The Expendables’ movie because of his feud with Van Damme

In a 2014 interview for the Big Issue media, and with ‘The Expendables 3′ about to be released, Seagal revealed why he has never appeared in a movie of this blockbuster saga created by Stallone. Basically, the actor claimed that he didn’t like a lot of the people who participated in those movies . He limited himself to “naming the sin” but not the “sinner”, avoiding giving specific names.

But even if he didn’t name names, considering his past problems with Jean-Claude Van Damme and knowing that the Belgian was involved in the second installment, released in 2012 , it doesn’t seem far-fetched to think that the main person he wouldn’t want to cross is Van Damme . And the feeling was mutual back then , as JCVD vetoed Steven Seagal in ‘The Expendables 2′ if he wanted Sylvester Stallone to count on him .

Another reason that would have made him not even consider appearing in the saga in general could also be the strong rumors about JCVD’s return as a new villain in a then future movie of ‘The Expendables’ . His character in ‘The Expendables 2′ was Jean Vilain , and the actor joked that he “might return” as his twin brother named Claude Vilain , a reference to both his own name and the twin brothers as a recurring theme in his filmography.

Though Van Damme buried the hatchet in 2023 for what he considers past quarrels, Seagal would still have a dislike for the actor, because for some of the comments he made about the Belgian in the 90s, JCVD went after him at a party where they met at Stallone’s house with the intention of beating him up .

Avi Lerner in the spotlight: Seagal’s Other Big Enemy

Another of the people involved in The Expendables films that Seagal has a grudge against is producer Avi Lerner , who helped finance the first three installments. Lerner has worked with Seagal in the past on some of his direct-to-video films, but their relationship became strained and the actor went so far as to sue Lerner and his production company , claiming they owed him money .

Lerner and his team first sued the actor because they felt Seagal was interfering with the filming of movies like ‘Mercenary’ and ‘Today You Die’. These were direct-to-video feature films released in the 2000s, very much in the vein of other productions by former action stars who fell from grace and were relegated to these lesser projects.

Avi Lerner has been a prolific producer of action films, taking under his wing such stars as Van Damme, Seagal himself, Wesley Snipes, Stallone, and Dolph Lundgren. All of these actors, except for Steven Seagal, have appeared in at least one installment of ‘The Expendables’.

The future of the ‘The Expendables’ series

Last but not least, Steven Seagal may never appear in another ‘The Expendables’ movie for another compelling reason: there may be no more ‘The Expendables’ . ‘The Expendables 4′ was released in 2023 and has been one of the most resounding box office failures of productions of this caliber , as it barely managed to gross $50 million on its $100 million budget , effectively causing huge financial losses for its production companies.

Critics have not been kind either, with aggregators such as Rotten Tomatoes giving the film a 14% rating , while IMDb is more generous, giving it a 4.8/10, which still falls short of the pass mark. Due to its box office performance and poor reviews, there is already talk in Hollywood circles that this fourth installment has killed the saga.

Scarlett Johansson's New Jurassic World Movie Almost Added A Very Different Newbie A-Lister

One recent Jurassic World 4 casting decision came after another star turned down a role.

Since co-starring alongside Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick , Glen Powell has quickly become one of the bigger names in Hollywood. Despite the fact he was once kicked out of the VIP party for his own movie because nobody recognized him, he’s a big name now, which means he’s being offered big roles. He was apparently offered a role in the new Jurassic World movie, but he passed on it and Jonathan Bailey should probably send him a fruit basket.

In a new piece for THR , Powell reveals that since Top Gun , he’s been offered several major franchise roles, including a new Bourne Identity movie and a spot in the upcoming Jurassic World film with Scarlett Johansson . Powell says that he loves the Jurassic Park franchise but didn’t think he would add anything to the film. He explained…

Jurassic is one of my favorite movies. It’s one of the things I’ve wanted to do my whole life. I’m not doing that movie because I read the script and I immediately was like, my presence in this movie doesn’t help it. And the script’s great. The movie’s going to fucking kill. It’s not about that. It’s about choosing where you’re going to make an audience happy and where you’re going to make yourself happy.

With the recent announcement that another up-and-coming star, Jonathan Bailey was joining the Jurassic World 4 cast , it seems likely that he’s playing the role that Glen Powell turned down. Bailey’s role in Bridgerton has done for him what Top Gun did for Powell, making him very in demand, so it wouldn’t be a shock if they were both considered for the same part.

It’s interesting that Powell has been offered both Jurassic World and Bourne movies. His biggest role to date was in a Top Gun sequel and this summer he’ll lead the Twisters cast . It seems Hollywood has decided that what Powell needs to do is star in new entries in lots of old franchises.

Powell doesn’t discuss specifically what it was about the Jurassic World role that wasn’t going to make him happy, considering he loves the franchise. In the same interview where he mentioned being thrown out of The Expendables 3 VIP party, he mentioned that Jurassic Park was the movie that made him want to be an actor, so he clearly has love for the franchise.

Beyond the fact that we’re getting another Jurassic film, and the names of several members of the cast, little is known about the movie itself. While it will certainly fit somewhere in the timeline of the previous two trilogies, how that will work is far from clear. Even calling it Jurassic World 4 may be something of a misnomer as it may be no more connected to those films as the Jurassic World movies were to the Jurassic Park trilogy.

Glen Powell in a Jurassic Park movie sounds amazing, but as long as they keep making those films, the chances of seeing it are still possible. Maybe somebody can write a role in the next movie that will make him happy.

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CinemaBlend’s resident theme park junkie and amateur Disney historian, Dirk began writing for CinemaBlend as a freelancer in 2015 before joining the site full-time in 2018. He has previously held positions as a Staff Writer and Games Editor, but has more recently transformed his true passion into his job as the head of the site's Theme Park section. He has previously done freelance work for various gaming and technology sites. Prior to starting his second career as a writer he worked for 12 years in sales for various companies within the consumer electronics industry. He has a degree in political science from the University of California, Davis.  Is an armchair Imagineer, Epcot Stan, Future Club 33 Member.

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10 Movie Stars Who Surprisingly Do Their Own Stunts

These actors are talented as they are daring.

With the release of the Ryan Gosling -led The Fall Guy , a love letter to the stunt industry that celebrates the incredible performers in Hollywood, the topic has captured the attention of many. Now, while we all know Jackie Chan does his stunts — that's common knowledge in this day and age, and almost every movie fanatic knows it — there are, of course, plenty of movie stars who like to live dangerously without announcing it to the world.

For years, we've had to second-guess action sequences in movies and TV shows. Analyzing every frame and flick of the wrist, we tried to catch out as many stunt doubles as possible. But to our absolute surprise, many of them have turned out to be the real deal, and have often left us at a loss for words. From Liu Yifei 's efforts in bringing Disney Princess Mulan to life to the iconic Sylvester Stallone in The Expendables , t hese are some actors audiences may not know have done some of their stunts .

10 Liu Yifei

Movie: 'mulan' (2020).

Anybody who has seen Disney's reboot of Mulan (or even the real thing, really) will know the amount of action it contains. In fact, it makes up the bulk of the movie, which ended up falling slightly short of expectations. Naturally, this means stunt doubles must have been on screen more often than the actors, right? Well, no, not exactly.

To prepare for her role as Mulan, Liu Yifei first had to endure various courses in martial arts and sword fighting , as well as learn to ride a horse. Using all of her accumulated knowledge, Yifei was able to execute the role to perfection, meaning stunt doubles were a redundant asset for her during the production and Yifei absolutely nailed 90% of her sequences .

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9 Chloë Grace Moretz

Movie: 'kick-ass' (2010).

If you're planning on playing a young superhero with a mask to cloak your identity, then you can probably get away with handing over the reins every once in a while to a more experienced stunt performer. Chloë Grace Moretz, on the other hand, preferred to do things the old-fashioned way , using talent instead of sly camera tricks to get the job done.

At the tender age of 13, Moretz bravely took it upon herself to train for the role of Hit-Girl in the critically acclaimed Kick-Ass , which features one of the most underrated superhero movie villains . “By the time we got to filming, about 90 percent of it was me, except the big, big stunts, which I probably could have done, but we legally couldn’t do them for insurance, because it was too risky,” the Moretz shared in an interview . Having done that, the blossoming actress paved her way to a whole new branch in the film industry, resulting in ever bigger and more fleshed-out action-heavy roles.

8 Mary Stuart Masterson

Movie: 'fried green tomatoes' (1991).

Dubbed "The Bee Charmer" in Fried Green Tomatoes , Mary Stuart Masterson 's character, Imogene Threadgoode, had an unusual interest in stealing honey from beehives without getting stung. Little to Masterson's knowledge, the stuntwoman would eventually pull out at the final hurdle, leaving her to film the scene for the final cut of the movie.

Using queen bee pheromones, Masterson attracted thousands of bees, all of which cloaked her as she extracted honey from the hive . Years later, the actress went on to install several beehives at her New York home, taking up beekeeping to keep the Threadgoode flame alight. Luckily, this turned out alright. "I walked away really slowly and the bees weren't going anywhere and he kept putting more and more smoke and was like 'ok walk a little faster, okay RUN!' And then I jumped into a car, took my shirt off that had the queen bee pheromone on it. Drove away. Put on another shirt, came back and did it three more times,” Masterson revealed in an interview .

Fried Green Tomatoes

7 tom holland, movies: 'spider-man: no way home' (2021), 'uncharted' (2022).

Tom Holland was destined for greatness after his astounding performance in Invincible . However, the second he slipped into the Spidey suit and delivered an incredible performance in the MCU's acclaimed Spider-Man trilogy , he proved to also be a great action protagonist. Speaking of which, stunts in such action-heavy movies can, of course, be done with stunt doubles without breaking the immersion.

However, behind the mask wasn't a stunt double, but rather the courageous actor himself. Well, most of the time, anyway. Holland has reportedly said that he tried to do as many bits as possible , though he couldn't legally undertake the whole thing. Having a gymnastics background, it would make sense that he wanted to take off some of the work from the stunt crews' shoulders. What's more, Holland also did his stunts in the big-screen adaptation of the video game Uncharted . "I walked away from every stunt, but I definitely limped from a few," Holland said.

6 Adam Driver

Movie: 'star wars: the rise of skywalker' (2019).

There's a reason why Kylo Ren's stuntwork looked so believable in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker , and that's because Adam Driver actually performed everything himself . Although having a stunt double on set and ready to fill in at any available opportunity, Driver insisted on carrying the entire role, which meant the unlucky double never had the chance to slip into the robes.

Wanting to make the character as believable as possible, Driver worked tirelessly trying to mesh his own evolving talents with his on-screen counterpart. Of course, it all paid off eventually, with Driver delivering an outstanding performance and effectively turning Kylo Ren into a character of his own making and one of the most memorable in the entire Star Wars franchise.

Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

5 leonardo dicaprio, movie: 'django unchained' (2012).

While the most obvious style of stunt work is usually parkour-based, a chunk of it does tend to revolve around simpler things, such as inflicting pain to capture the raw emotions of the scene. Take Django: Unchained , for example. When Leonardo DiCaprio , who portrayed Calvin Candie, slammed his hand on a table in a burst of rage partway through a monologue , the actor accidentally broke a glass and pierced his skin, resulting in one of the most unforgettable moments in the movie.

Of course, being Leonardo DiCaprio, he powered through the scene and refused to break character for a second, oblivious to the fact that his hand would need several stitches after shooting. According to DiCaprio , watching the other actors’ true reactions was the “fun part.” Now that's a professional.

Django Unchained

4 kate winslet, movies: 'titanic' (1997), 'divergent' (2014).

According to Kate Winslet, who famously portrayed Rose in James Cameron's Titanic , one of the scenes filmed within the ship's interior almost caused her to drown. After her coat got stuck when transitioning from one body of water to the next, the actress had to essentially shimmy out of it to resurface. Of course, with the number of dangerous stunts that had to be performed during the sinking of the Titanic, it comes as no surprise that Winslet had to endure the bulk of it. To help give the maximum effect, the actor endured through her scenes as best as she could, which eventually paid off with the movie becoming an international sensation.

This, however, wasn't the last time that Winslet has done her own stunts: she reportedly also surprised the team and crew by doing her sequences in Divergent — while pregnant. "It’s pretty funny because she was pregnant when we were shooting, but she wanted to do her own stunt falls,” author Veronica Roth revealed .

3 Milla Jovovich

Movie: 'resident evil' (2002).

By the time the long-running horror-action series Resident Evil became a household name, Milla Jovovich was already lining up rows of top-level action flicks to smash out of the park. With VH1 referring to her as "the reigning queen of kick-butt", it was only a matter of time before she cemented her place in the hall of fame.

Looking back at her incredible performances, it's understandable why she acquired such a title. The fact that Jovovich pulled off her own stunts in most of her movies was just a massive plus. Still, it’s worth noting that the actor was not the only stunt performer in the franchise: one of the most heartbreaking moments in the film was when one of the major stunts for Resident Evil ended up in a tragic accident on set that left her half paralyzed.

Resident Evil

2 sylvester stallone, movies: 'the expendables' (2010), 'rocky iv' (1985).

Not that it comes as a surprise to learn that Sylvester Stallone actively does his own stunts or anything. However, we do have to say, with the number of injuries — including dislocated shoulders and a fractured neck while filming The Expendables — the A-lister has taken over the years, it's a miracle the tough-as-nails guy is still standing.

Doing his own stunts in The Expendables led to traumatizing results that the action star looks back at even today , despite brushing the injuries off and continuing the scene. "There's something romantic about doing your own stunts," he revealed in the latest season of his Paramount+ reality show The Family Stallone . "Here we go ahead, it's back operation season." Furthermore, Stallone was also hurt when filming Rocky IV , as his fight with Dolph Lundgren 's Ivan Drago got a little too serious. "My blood pressure went up to 260. They thought I was going to be talking to angels," Stallone said in an interview .

1 Dwayne Johnson

Movies: 'the fate of the furious' (2017), 'skyscraper' (2018), 'red notice' (2021).

Considering Dwayne "The Rock"Johnson 's enormous size and stature, it would be hard for production crews to locate a suitable stunt double. In terms of his stuntwork, the former wrestler had the odd flick now and again, but Johnson himself has confirmed that most stunts have been completely authentic.

Wanting to give the studio and audiences more bang for their buck, Johnson decided to perform his own stunts whenever the opportunity arose . Being known as "The Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment" (with his role as Black Adam taking that to a literal conclusion), he continues to keep that title through his dedicated stuntwork. His efforts in Skyscraper are also notable, as Johnson shared on X (formerly Twitter) that he had a blast doing his stunts in the film.

NEXT: The Best Action Movies of All Time, Ranked

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Best of Late Night

Jimmy Kimmel Roasts Republicans for Crying Wolf

President Biden “sent an elite team of ultraliberal F.B.I. agents to assassinate Donald Trump, but somehow he slipped out the back door,” Kimmel joked on Wednesday.

By Trish Bendix

Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now .

Losing the Plot

Newly unsealed files from the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago in 2022 showed that agents were authorized to use deadly force if necessary.

“Which is standard operating procedure, whenever the F.B.I. execute a search warrant,” Jimmy Kimmel noted on Wednesday, “but in the MAGA-verse, it is a plot to kill Donald Trump.”

Conservatives reacted with outrage to what some have called an assassination attempt, with Trump writing in a campaign email, “Joe Biden was locked and loaded ready to take me out and put my family in danger.”

“I always thought of Biden as a doddering old man, but Donald Trump makes him look like one of The Expendables .” — MICHAEL KOSTA “‘Locked and loaded’? ‘Ready to take me out’? I’ve never heard Joe Biden sound so [expletive] cool in my life.” — MICHAEL KOSTA

“The diabolical mastermind Joe Biden sent an elite team of ultraliberal F.B.I. agents to assassinate Donald Trump, but somehow he slipped out the back door. Somehow, they missed the fact that the loudest and most famous man in America and all 15 of his Secret Service agents were in New Jersey at the time that they raided Mar-a-Lago.” — JIMMY KIMMEL

The Punchiest Punchlines (Trump’s Bedroom Edition)

“Well, speaking of the former president, according to a new report, Trump’s attorneys found classified documents in his bedroom four months after the F.B.I. searched Mar-a-Lago. The lawyers knew Trump was hiding something when they saw a box labeled ‘books.’” — JIMMY FALLON “Oh, my God, the only thing more shocking to find in Donald Trump’s bedroom would be a current wife.” — STEPHEN COLBERT

“Now, to be fair, Trump rarely goes into his bedroom. As we’ve recently learned, he does most of his sleeping in court.” — STEPHEN COLBERT

The Bits Worth Watching

Jay Pharoah performed diss raps in the style of Shaquille O’Neal, 50 Cent, Katt Williams and more on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”

What We’re Excited About on Thursday Night

The musician and “The Voice” star John Legend will appear on Thursday’s “Daily Show.”

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The actor Peter Gallagher discussed his four-decades-long marriage to Paula Harwood on this week’s Modern Love Podcast.