Review of the film “The Expendables 4” with Sylvester Stallone

Mercenaries 4 review movie Scott Waugh With Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Randy Couture, Megan Fox AND Dolph Lundgren

Predictable, tired, delusional and anachronistic. We could conclude the analysis of chapter four with these adjectives. The Expendablesbut it is useful to provide some reasoning to understand – if any – the meaning of this operation and the future of this cinematic genre.

The plot of the film is so obvious that spending a few words on its story seems unnecessary. It’s important to note that if you’re reading the review here without having seen the film, and if you have in mind the most classic narrative parable of a corny ’80s muscle-movie, then you’re getting very close to the end result.

It is clear that in the hope of finding a job similar to the works Guy Ritchie it would have been a futile utopia, but the hope of seeing something other than a series of outdated clichés was at least legitimate.

In this fourth iteration of the franchise, we are faced with what, paradoxically, can be considered the most painfully nostalgic chapter of the saga. Nostalgia, which materialized not in frequent references to previous chapters, but in the very core of the film.

Mercenaries 4 forcibly copies the style of the most classic 80s action movie, in every component, in every frame, in every line of dialogue.

Acting skills (including Sylvester Stallone AND Jason Statham), director Scott Waugh, narrative development and characterization have tragically remained in the last century, with a slight but significant difference. If in the second half of the twentieth century the masses willingly accepted the characteristics of a cinematic proposal, clearly conceived to satisfy the need for male images, with explosions and happy endings, now, even in a frankly commercial product, something more is required, or at least the absence of that same aesthetic panoramas, the same dusty stories and the usual athletic alpha males.

Thus, the operation, although superficially similar, does not even remotely resemble the one created Tom Cruise and colleagues from Mission Impossible 7 which actually manages to develop into a saga, changing the cinematic examples of its origin.

WITH Mercenaries 4 we are faced with a nostalgia operation for a product that has become particularly dated. It would be like using a computer from ten years ago to enjoy the emotions of that era while constantly ranting about the slowness of the operating system.

The film turns out to be predictable, the plot of which follows completely unoriginal templates. Moreover, the narrative gets lost in a series of unlikely and out-of-context events. The entire work seems anachronistic, as if it was created in a different era and could not attract the attention of modern audiences.

Mercenaries 4 represents an ineffective attempt to deal with the nostalgia associated with a poorly aged product by forcefully imitating the style of the most classic ’80s action movie with a series of cliches and exaggerated scenes.

Forced imitation in order to revive the magic of the past, which, however, leaves only a bitter aftertaste of bygone times.