The Expendables, then, which was our film for the sort-of party yesterday. I wanted to put on The Expendables in particlar because (a) we could largely ignore it and I knew nothing we put on was going to get watched seriously, and (b) I kinda wanna see the silly sequel so needed to watch the silly first film. No need for a decent review – basically, a bunch of huge names of 80s and 90s action films get together, then Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, Dolf Lundgren, Jason Statham and Terry Crews (whose ridiculous ‘muscle music’ video for Old Spice I recently had hysterics over) go and overthrow a South American dictatorship with only Stone Cold Steve Austin to stand in their way. Mickey Rourke also turns up as the behind-the-scenes man. They essentially blow a lot of stuff up, fight a lot, have a car chase and win in the end. What more do you need from this action piece?

I was only a little sad it wasn’t the ensemble piece it was set up to be. Stallone was the only big, nostalgic name to be featured throughout. Jet Li was an action star but doesn’t have the stature of the big names that made the project appealing, Statham and Crews are really new to being called ‘stars’ and Dolph Lundgren was always a step below the big, big names. Of those biggest names, it unfortunately turned out that Willis and Schwarzenegger only had the smallest of cameos and even then in a scene with Stallone where they were conspicuously never all sharing the same shot, making me doubt all three were even in the same room at any point. Doing a little Googling, this seems too have been a common observation.

But hey. It’s dumb fun and taken in that context was hilarious. ‘Porn for action fans’ is probably right. It was never meant to be anything but silly and enjoyable, and that’s exactly what it was. And the sequel includes  Van Damme and the remarkably old Chuck Norris. Sign me up!