The Expendables 3

On a surface level, The Expendables franchise sounds like a lot of fun. The premise is irresistible: a multinational menagerie of over-the-hill action stars sending up their images while paying homage to their classic films. That seems mindlessly entertaining at worst, so why is The Expendables 3 so excruciatingly joyless? Sure, the Sylvester Stallone script is another cocktail napkin, too disorganized and disinterested to qualify as satire, and the dialogue is a nonstop barrage of playground putdowns that wouldn't pass muster on a third-grade tetherball court. And yes, the entire cast, which includes returnees like Jason Statham and Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as newcomers like Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson, phones it in to an embarrassing-even-for-them degree. However, the real key to the film's failure is the unwatchable action—like its predecessors, The Expendables 3 is a nightmarish catastrophe of screen direction and spatial logic.