A year or so back, Sylvester Stallone tweeted that he thought The Expendables 3 could top The Raid.
It doesn’t. It doesn’t even top Daylight.
The first Expendables I actually dug for a few reasons. Firstly, it had Arnie onscreen, which at the time was a huge nostalgic joy just by itself. To have him onscreen with Stallone and Bruce Willis at the same time was a wonderful novelty. There were also some pretty decent action moments – Jet Li did some real cool moves, the shootouts were satisfying enough.
The second film I’d even give a pass, despite the overload of annoyingly bad humour and complete lack of cohesion, mainly because it actually had Arnie shooting guns in it. The novelty factor with that was again great, plus it had Scott Adkins, although like pretty much everyone else he didn’t get a chance to show off much of his skills in it.
With this third one, the novelty has completely worn off and it all seems a bit tragic. There’s a few cool moments – one of the younger guys, maybe the Twilight one, does a jump on a motorbike and chucks a grenade down the barrel of a tank. That’s a cool two second shot. I can’t think of any others right now.
Jet Li gets zero fistfights in the film, which is insane. Antonio Banderas joins with the purpose of being the most infuriating character in the franchise yet and succeeds. Most appallingly, the action is edited down to an entirely sanitized, violence-free mess. They went for a PG-13 rating in America’s bizarre and excruciatingly flawed classification system, rather than an R, so you don’t see a single drop of blood result from any of the several thousand bullets fired. You also don’t see a single fist or foot actually connect with its target, let alone a knife. Basically, you don’t see any action – you just see exciting lead-ups to it, and then shitty editing to hide it.
The opening box office weekend in America has been bad, which hopefully means we won’t see an Expendables 4. Apparently it’s already been announced, but hopefully it’ll be shelved and Arnie can make something as solid as The Last Stand again while Sly makes the next Rambo as amazing as the 2008 one. The Expendables started out as a dream-come-true concept, but has faded fast into a cringe-inducing embarrassment. There’s no point in crying about it, however, as we’re still spoilt with a lot of great alternatives.
We have a new Fast and Furious movie on the way, this one starring Jason Statham alongside Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel. In what will no doubt be smaller roles, Tony Jaa, Kurt Russell and Ronda Rousey are also in the mix. It was largely director Justin Lin that took this franchise from mediocrity to greatness with the fifth and sixth films and he’s not on the next one. But I’m hopeful that newcomer James Wan will deliver and this franchise continues to provide the sort of joy that we should’ve gotten with the Expendables.
The upcoming Kickboxer remake is, surprisingly, sounding pretty damn amazing, largely due to its hugely impressive cast. It’s looking like it’ll top all three Expendables films combined, easily.
It’s got Scott Adkins in it. This fact alone would have me opting in, of course, as he’s the most exciting Western martial arts star of modern times. But he’s not in the Jean Claude Van Damme role, he’s just one of the fighters. So is Tony Jaa, the man who completely rejuvenated the whole fight film world with modern classic Ong Bak. Then there’s Dave Batista, a muscley giant of a man who was great in Riddick and the funniest dude in the very funny Guardians of the Galaxy. Sure, he’s most well-known for WWE, but he is trained in Kali, Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and has a really great screen presence. Batista is playing Tong Po, which excites me a lot. There’s also MMA star Georges St Pierre, who I can’t wait to see show off his fighting prowess in choreographed scenes rather than actual sports matches in the octagon.
Alain Moussi is the lead and although his name probably doesn’t ring a bell, the dude has a huge amount of skill. Check this video for a taste of it. He has appeared in a few films as an actor and a shitload as a stuntman due to his great martial arts expertise in Karate, Kickboxing, Aikido, Goshindo, Kobudo, Filipino martial arts, Sambo, Judo, and Jiu-Jitsu. I really, really hope we get to see this dude fight Adkins in particular. Even though it’s Moussi in the Kurt Sloane role, deep down in my heart I hope it’s Adkins that does the Van Damme dance in the remake.
“Kickboxer will display a style of acrobatic, rapid-fire martial arts action that Scott Adkins is increasingly becoming synonymous with,” says executive producer Brian O’Shea. “Along with Tony Jaa, Kickboxer has compiled a talented cast to push the boundaries of the martial arts form.”
They’ve put out this poster for the film before it even moves into production:
I love that the producers are going for genuinely skilled fighters in this remake over anything else. Director Stephen Fung said in an interview with Timeout it will have a “gritty tone” and be “more brutal and mature” than his Tai Chi movies. He also says Van Damme will “maybe” have a cameo.
This is all adding up to a massively promising film.
Wish list of other blokes they could realistically chuck in this movie: Donnie Yen, Michael Jai White, Marrese Crump, Iko Uwais, Yayan Ruhian, Marko Zaror, Joe Taslim and Cecep Arif Rahman.
Here’s another list: the original Kickboxer, Bloodsport, The Delta Force, Death Wish 2 – 4, Over the Top, American Ninja, Enter the Ninja, Ninja III: The Domination, Cyborg, Missing in Action, Invasion U.S.A., Exterminator 2, Rappin’, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, Hercules with Lou Ferrigno, Cobra, Barfly, Masters of the Universe and Operation Thunderbolt. Those are just some of the joys that came from Cannon Films, a renegade maverick B-action movie powerhouse ran by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. Recently, Golan passed away. May he rest in peace.
A documentary called Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival earlier this month and is heading to Toronto too. It’s directed by Aussie Mark Hartley and I can’t wait to see it.
Back to The Expendables 3 for a minute. It’s directed by Patrick Hughes, the chap who landed the phenomenally difficult job of directing the American remake of The Raid. I loved that Gareth Evans was pushing for Scott Adkins to get the lead role – it doesn’t look like he has, with Taylor Kitsch hitting headlines as being in talks instead. Nothing on his CV suggests Kitsch is qualified for a role that demands such a huge amount of martial arts skill. And the poor direction Hughes exhibited in The Expendables 3 also suggests nothing positive, although this was potentially more the fault of producers flexing their muscles (here’s lookin’ at you, Sly).
If The Raid remake is just as bloodless as Expendables 3 and has Kitsch in the lead, it’ll end up alongside Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes and the Nicolas Cage Wicker Man as one of the most dire remakes yet. I’m pretty sure the good folk at XYZ Films won’t allow that to happen, but things aren’t looking great right now.
What is great The Raid news, however, is that the sequel was released in New Zealand on Blu-ray recently. It rules. There’s a great commentary track from Evans and a few nice featurettes, including one focussing on the choreography. But mostly, it’s fantastic to have just for the action sequences in beautiful 1080p as often as I want in my own lounge. The visual fidelity is quite a lot better than the first film as they used better camera tech and that translates to the Blu-ray really well – it looks flat out amazing.
If by some madness you don’t have the first film on Blu-ray, you can buy both together in one package for a very reasonable price. Action films don’t come any better and the purchase would be worth every penny.
The kitchen fight between Iko Uwais and Cecep Arif Rahman near the end of The Raid 2 is so incredible, it’s slash-tastic climax so, so gratifying. I’m going to watch it right now with a look on my face not dissimilar to this:
