Review: 'The Expendables' delivers '80s-style action

“The Expendables” oozes testosterone from every pore the way stale alcohol oozes from the pores of a drunk. The film, a class reunion of some of the biggest action genre stars of the last three decades — particularly the 1980s — is about 20 years too late. Yet preposterous and honestly awful as it is, there’s a part of you that can’t help but be thankful for the fact that a darkened theater hides a multitude of grins.

Sylvester Stallone leads a group of mercenaries employed by the CIA to overthrow a brutal South American dictator on the island of Vilena. Sly’s team includes knife aficionado Jason Statham, martial arts expert Jet Li, gun-happy Terry Crews, demolitions specialist Randy Couture, and Dolph Lundgren, haunted by one too many missions.

It isn’t long before Sly and Co. realize the dictator is just a puppet, propped up by James Monroe (Eric Roberts), a former CIA operative gone rogue, and his right-hand man Paine (Steve Austin). And with an army at their disposal, they’re not going quietly.

At its core, “The Expendables” is an old-fashioned ’80s throwback. Nothing wrong with that, though they could have done so much more with it. The plot hangs by the flimsiest of threads. Remove its modern aesthetics and its celebrity cast and all you have left is the sort of straight-to-DVD drivel that usually stars Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal or Wesley Snipes (come to think of it, where were they?). Then again, this has been such a disappointing summer, “The Expendables” is what counts for superlative action these days.

“The Expendables” is the sort of film in which arthritis is more dangerous that bullets. The combined ages of our heroes is 348 (and that’s not even counting Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who make cameos, inspiring the inevitable Planet Hollywood jokes). Stallone, 64, is still the size of two men but wisely leaves the most Herculean heroics (and romancing) to the younger guys.

“The Expendables” is essentially one large explosion. More than once, I heard Will Ferrell’s voice from “The Other Guys” echoing in my ears: “How do they walk away in movies without flinching when it explodes behind them? … The movie industry is completely irresponsible for the way they portray explosions.”

When they’re not blowing stuff up, Sly and his team are dismembering baddies, spilling blood on an Armageddon scale and testing out stunts you know they’ve waited years to try. Sly, who wrote and directs, knows what we’ve come to see but takes his time delivering. The final act — a glut of bombs, bullets and blood — certainly possesses its own sort of cut-rate, gratuitous poetry. Artless or not, it’s undeniably fun.

This is a funny film, though most of the comedy is unintentional. The jokes that work best are self-referential, especially one made at Schwarzenegger’s expense about the limitations of executive office.

In some ways, “The Expendables” isn’t really a movie — it’s one last sycophantic hurrah for a cadre of stars about to be put to pasture. But fun as the film occasionally was, those involved would have done well to take the advice from an ’80s action classic: “You’re too old for this ----!”

EXPENDABLES

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Steve Austin

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Theaters: Hollywood, Tinseltown, Carmike, Chapel Hills, Cinemark

Rated: R (for strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language)

Running Time: 1 hour, 43 minutes

Grade: C+