Film Review: The Expendables 3

The Expendables 3. Rated M (action violence and coarse language). 126 minutes. Directed by Patrick Hughes. Screenplay by Sylvester Stallone, Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt.

Verdict: Chaos reigns as the Kings of Cinema shoot lots of people.

You have to hand it to Sylvester Stallone. That The Expendables works at all is due not only to his monumental onscreen presence, but his ability to gather all his mates together into one of the largest ensembles in recent memory. And what a cast it is.

The spectacular opening sequence (there’s always one in an Expendables movie) sees Barney (Stallone) and the team freeing Doctor Death (Wesley Snipes) from a train that is delivering him to a high-tech prison. The team needs the good Doctor’s help intercepting a shipment of weapons being sent to arms trader Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson) in Somalia. When the operation goes pear-shaped, Barney retires the old team members and recruits a new, more agile and technologically savvy gang.

The fatal flaw in the concept lies in the casting of Mel Gibson, who is spectacular. Plagued with all sorts of public relations disasters in his private life, Gibson burns up the screen from start to finish. When you add Harrison Ford (who replaces Bruce Willis) and the indefatigable Arnold Schwarzenegger to the mix, the young’uns (including Kellan Lutz who is currently starring as Hercules) are at a distinct disadvantage.

Australian-born Hughes and cinematographer Peter Menzies Jr are on their way to becoming a formidable duo behind the camera, but the chronic over editing (Sean Albertson and Paul Harb) suggests that this is not the break-through they might have hoped for. There are some magnificent close-ups of Stallone, Gibson and Ford (whose faces reveal years of cinema history), but the bulk of this disappointing outing for the Kings of Cinema is just migraine-inducing, blood-lusty chaos.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

DVD Review: Edge of Darkness

Edge of Darkness. 116 minutes. Rated MA15+. Directed by Martin Campbell. Screenplay by William Monahan and Andrew Bovell. Based on the television series by Troy Kennedy-Martin.

Ranked 15 on the British Film Institute’s TV 100 (a list of greatest British television programmes of any genre ever screened), the six episodes of Edge of Darkness (1985) followed policeman Ronald Craven as he confronted a toxic mix of corporate and government conspiracy within Britain’s nuclear industry in an effort to uncover the truth behind the ruthless slaying of his activist daughter Emma.

Essentially a considerably abridged cinematic remake of the series, Edge of Darkness has something going for it as an edgy, politically-motivated crime drama – even if it doesn’t really classify as a thriller, because it isn’t ‘thrilling’ at all. While it starts well and features a couple of moments of genuine suspense and one outstanding action sequence, Monahan and Bovell’s clunky, disjointed screenplay constantly gets bogged down in all sorts of mumbled, conspiratorial hyperbole before abandoning us in disappointingly familiar ‘we’ve seen this all done so much more effectively a hundred times before before” territory.

Disappointingly, Campbell (who directed the television series and the fantastic James Bond instalment Casino Royale) has obviously struggled with the transition to the rigours and possibilities of the big screen. In spite of the efforts of his reunited Casino Royale team (Phil Meheux and Stuart Baird return as cinematographer and editor respectively), we are constantly reminded of the story’s televisual origins in the way that the film consists of one neatly packaged, tidy little scene after another – all shot in comfortable, medium close-up.

Most peculiarly, there is nothing of 2006’s Casino Royale’s fantastic cinematic adventurousness (just think about that climactic sequence in Venice as one example). And while it might seem unfair to compare the two films, the way in which Edge of Darkness just plods along, by comparison, becomes increasingly difficult to comprehend given the talent involved. Howard Shore’s (The Lord of The Rings, The Twilight Saga) score, too, is similarly serviceable.

Mel Gibson (as Boston detective Thomas Craven, pictured) certainly has his moments as the grim, grieving father and NIDA graduate Bojana Novakovic is great as his doomed daughter. Ray Winstone tries his hardest to make the cryptic and obscure character of Jedburgh work, but Danny Huston (King Richard in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood) struggles to make his mark as the dubious and evil nuclear weapon corporation chief Jack Bennett. Shawn Roberts (as Emma’s boyfriend David, also pictured) and Caterina Scorsone (as her friend Melissa) are both outstanding as terrified pawns in the game of life or death.

Ultimately, though, it’s really hard to care – and given we’re discussing a DVD, maybe just watch Casino Royale instead. Now that’s a film!