I’m Going Out

The Expendables won’t even come out until next year, but holy
shit: Written and directed by Sylvester Stallone, and starring
Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, and
“Stone Cold” Steve Austin, the film also features that chick who played
Cordelia on Buffy and—if rumors are to be
believed—Arnold Schwarzenegger, playing (wait for it… ) the
governor of California. The always-trusty Wikipedia describes the
film’s plot thusly: “A team of mercenaries known as ‘The Expendables’
head to South America on a mission to overthrow a dictator, who has
caused devastation for the last 20 years. The government sets to plan
the assassination to put an end to the violence.”

How great is this gonna be, right? That second sentence doesn’t
even make sense, and it’s still amazing!

Admittedly, part of said amazingness comes from a recent and
depressing lack of genuine action movies: Long past their goofy heyday,
the action heroes of the ’80s and ’90s have wussed out (remember Bruce
Willis’ PG-13 Live Free or Die Hard?), become real-life
governors, or gotten suckered by delusions of grandeur (after his
arthouse hit JCVD, Jean-Claude Van Damme refused to do a sequel
to 1988’s Bloodsport unless his character “is a complete bum,
maybe abusing his son… a guy on drugs doing karate and shit like
that”—in the hopes that the film would “show something
real”).

It’s not that potential action heroes aren’t around. Both The Rock
and Vin Diesel once laid claim to Schwarzenegger’s dusty crown; alas,
neither were able to resist trading in tough-guy cred for kiddie
comedies. But while Diesel’s making another unasked-for attempt at
action heroism this week with Fast & Furious, and while
there’s always a cartoony Jason Statham flick around the corner, those
are slim pickings. Aside from Stallone’s is-it-ironic-or-is-it-not
Rambo from 2008, big, dumb, stupid-but-grown-up American action
movies might be a thing of the past—supplanted by drifting cars
and PG-13 fight scenes. Unless the 62-year-old Stallone and his
expendables, kicking and screaming and shooting up with god knows what,
get their way.