The Expendables 3: Theatrical & Unrated | Blu-ray & DVD (Lionsgate)
Today’s Deal on Fire is the Blu-ray for The Expendables 3, which includes the never-before-seen unrated edition of the film – featuring more action, more explosions, more fights – and a higher body count – everything fans have come to love in the franchise!
Extras: Documentary; Featurettes: “New Blood: Stacked and Jacked” and “The Total Action Package”; Extended Scene; Gag Reel; Unrated Edition (131 minutes); and the Theatrical Version (126 minutes).
Order The Expendables 3 from Amazon.com today!
MPM, why do YOU think “The Expendables 3” flopped at the American box office?
I think it flopped because it was PG-13. The fan base for those films are action junkies. It was also a combination of add all the young actors/actresses. It has nothing to do with the leak.
I re-watched all of The Expendables flicks back-to-back (the only exception is I didn’t re-watch the theatrical version of The Expendables, which I haven’t seen since its release date). Here are my thoughts:
The Expendables: Director’s Cut: The most polished of the bunch, thanks to Stallone’s tight directing and slick action. However, it’s not the best. I can never get over the fact that Gunner tried to kill his buddies, then at the end of the movie, he’s hanging out with them at a bar (!?) Even in a popcorn action flick, this is unbelievable and just plain stupid; I don’t care what kind of dope his character is on! Re-watching this, I noticed that Stallone looks a lot better in Part 2 and 3. In this one, he looks like a freak of nature. No disrespect intended, but his eyes look like they were forced open and his brows and shit are way too dark. Footnote: At first, I liked this cut better than the theatrical version (from what I can remember), but what ultimately ruined it was the new music. 🙁 Still, both cuts were a disappointment, especially after seeing what Stallone did with Rocky Balboa (2006) and Rambo (2008) – two of the best action movies of recent times! Not only did he successfully resurrect two of his most iconic characters, he also crafted a gratifying, full circle closure to each franchise. Then he makes The Expendables?
The Expendables 2: This is a borderline parody of Part 1, due to all excessive “breaking the 4th wall” jokes. I didn’t think it was possible, but this one managed to be both the worst, yet the most entertaining, of the three (masterofoneinchpunch, I take back what I said about liking Part 3 better!) The addition of Van Damme and Norris (not to mention Adkins) just gave it that fun, B-movie feel. Some of the cinematic shine from Part 1 was lost, due to the poor man’s Michael Bay (Simon West) taking over directing duties.
The Expendables 3: I like the subplot (spoilers ahead) of Stallone firing his old crew and working with a new group of Expendables. I also like the addition of Snipes, Banderas and ESPECIALLY Gibson (I don’t care what anyone says, I love this guy!). But as a whole, this movie is a BIG mess, and it has everything to do with the action action scenes being cut down to a PG-13. You can just smell the choppy editing, which paved the way for uninteresting violence throughout. I think it easily could have been the best of the three if it were an R flick. I’ll definitely give it another watch when the Blu-ray/DVD hits (I’m sure it’ll be unrated). I’m glad this tanked at the box office. Too bad they’ll try to blame it on the “leak,” heck, they might even blame it on Gibson! I definitely don’t blame the director for the outcome of Part 3. After all, producers threw a PG-13 at him during post production. Here’s hoping his Raid remake will show his true talent. Has anyone seen Red Hill? Is it any good? Or is Patrick Hughes the Ringo Starr of action film directors?
THE BOTTOM LINE: The problem with ALL The Expendables films is that there are too many cooks in the kitchen. I can settle for a few actions stars, but all these icons and their fist-bumping and giggling at each others’ jokes (complete with “let’s cut to each action star so we can show them laughing”) is a novelty I just can’t appreciate. It’s too much. And seriously, how about killing some of them off? There’s no sense of danger in any of them. They’re basically a GI Joe cartoon. Yes, they’re entertaining for what they are, but i can take ’em or leave ’em. There are good popcorn flicks (i.e. Commando, Rambo) and there are bad ones (i.e. Water Hill’s Bullet to the Head, A Good Day To Die Hard)… The Expendables Trilogy is somewhere in between…
Now Rambo V… that’s an expendable I wanna see! I hope Stallone directs!
i think the pg-13 had nothing to do with it. if a pg-13 jackie chan movie with superb action, no blood, no gore, can do well in theaters, so can expendables 3.
well, everyone has their own opinion about the expendables uhhh trilogy lol. i still think part 3 sucks, but showing a lil sympathy… it’s somewhat less boring than part 2. since it’s directed by someone else, the change of pace is noticeable. no wide shots, etc. stallone did the screenplay, so it felt like the first one. i hear people say this one takes itself a little too serious… yeah i guess so. the lines are awfully catchy. some are lame, but hey, they’re old men, give em a break. in this 3rd film, the story caught my attention more, but at times for anyone watching, you can easily not pay attention. it’s kinda sad that when it came to the action scenes, i notice that they were trying to do something different, but i guess it wasn’t different enough, because at times i started daydreaming off just not really caring. it’s just the usual gun fights type of thing, nothing new.
were there jokes? rambum wasn’t afraid to throw more short jokes at yin yang. i give props to jet for just appearing. they insult him to death, and his comeback one liner is so weak. i don’t know if the asian community should be proud of jet li for taking more stereotype verbal insults. the moment we see jet, he’s already insulted, and we don’t see him until near the end. he doesn’t fight… like at all, but at least we get to see him shoot a gun. for his fans though, i think they wanted to see him fight. at the end, where they live happily ever after, and drink until they pass out, we already found out that yang went to work for trench. so i guess they became friends? friends or lovers? It turned out kinda gay, but i don’t know… barney was like ‘u 2 wanna get a bedroom’, and trench goes ‘he’s jealous’ lol. it’s a lil disturbing because arnie and jet starts holding each other close like they were gay, but i don’t think it was supposed to come off that way, rather more of 2 old guys goofing off.
i like what they did with snipe, they threw in a lil truth. harrison ford looked like he didn’t belong in the movie. banderas played the typical annoying guy we seen in cartoons, tv, movies, etc. but why? it doesn’t really fit the desperado mask of zorro star, or does it? since it’s a annoying character we’re familiar with… like i said, you can easily not pay attention, because he’s throwing nonsense. kelsey grammer didn’t do much. as for mel gibson, great acting. his story is probably the only one that might intrigue most people. he does have a final fight with stallone, and i think it came out alright. mel isn’t a fighter, so obviously the fight didn’t take too long. when the movie got to this point, i was like… why am i not surprised that they were gonna have a final showdown? same as part 2, stallone kills van damme, and saves the day. same deal with mel gibson. stallone gets like the most screen time, obviously right? he is the star of the film.
part 1 is like out of a comic book, for young adults who like to rip on each other. in part 2, the expendables team is in someone else’s movie. what stays the same is that all the characters are pretty much one dimensional. maybe because there is just too many stars, and they’re trying to make old references, etc. after doing that, in part 3, all of a sudden they want us to care about these one dimensional characters? well, it didn’t work. i didn’t care when caesar ended up in the hospital. did stallone wanted us to get emotional? i strongly feel that we don’t know all the characters enough to care, because most of them don’t get enough screen time, and not enough backstory.
the idea of barney leaving his ‘old’ team to find some new ‘young’ blood was what i got curious about. that kept my attention, but those kids were not interesting at all. i started to get what stallone was trying to show. old folks, outdated. the young more adapted to the modern world. jealousy. oldies saving younglings, then finally a teamwork between the two. seemed like part 3 was aiming to show this tussle between the old and young and it flopped because of that. maybe the audience didn’t know how to take it. i think the movie kinda went like… interesting, boring, interesting, boring, etc.
I can’t complain as Sly saved an unrated cut for us hard action fans. I will pre order it along with The Hobbit 2 Extended cut.
the new blood fucked up the movie