Expend4bles (2023)

The fourth Expendables picture arrives with a numeral wedged into its title where a letter used to be, a decision that drew widespread mockery and was defended by its producer with a perfectly straight face. Jason Statham assumes the lead, Sylvester Stallone's Barney mostly recedes, and the ensemble fills out with Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, 50 Cent, Levy Tran, Jacob Scipio and Andy Garcia. This is diversity of the ordinary action-franchise kind. Nobody announces anything. They simply hit people, in several countries, with assorted ordnance.

Megan Fox and Levy Tran play capable CIA operatives who shoot and fight beside the men without a speech attached to it. This is staffing, not a thesis. Dolph Lundgren's Gunner carries years of combat stress and a sober streak, which reads as texture for a man who glowers rather than as any kind of diagnosis. The villain intends to ignite World War III for money, a device pulled from the standard thriller drawer, and it critiques nothing about markets, wealth, or the arrangement of economies. The geopolitics are invented wholesale, with Libya and the Russian Far East serving as scenery.

What remains is spectacle: a cargo ship disguised as an aircraft carrier, stolen warheads, a man faking his death by way of a ring. Critics were unkind, the Razzies were kinder, and the budget was not recovered. There is no sermon here, no lesson, no cause to adopt. Just a great deal of ammunition discharged in Bulgaria and Greece by men of a certain age and their younger, faster colleagues. The cultural conscience rests easy. A sommelier of such vintages swirls the glass, finds no note at all, and marks it down without complaint.