Sylvester Stallone ruined his last franchise and only had to play for 10 minutes

Sylvester Stallone is so much more than the most famous muscle man of the 80s. He is an Oscar-nominated actor and screenwriter. A film producer with a keen sense of the audience. An artist who endured homelessness and poverty. An accidental 80s action star who looks at his fate with a lot of humor and humility, as the Netlix documentary Sly proves.

It hurts fans all the more what defeat he suffered in 2023. Because The Expendables 4 is one of the biggest flops of Sylvester Stallone’s career.

After Rocky and Rambo, The Expendables is the last major franchise that Stallone de facto turns his back on. In the future, Jason Statham will take over the chairmanship of the flippant mercenary group. Fans wanted to see fireworks as a farewell, but were extremely disappointed. Why?

The Expendables 4 reveals its own characters

The stories of the predecessors were flat, but here it is wafer thin. Iko Uwais steals nuclear warheads from a Libyan chemical factory as a fiend. Stallone’s mercenaries intervene, fail and banish Christmas (Statham) from their ranks in the future. He looks for Uwais’ character on his own and clashes with the rest of the team under the new boss Gina (Megan Fox).

Check out the trailer for The Expendables 4 here:

A tepid story won’t bother any Expendables fan. But here’s the dramaturgy so minimal and lazy that it betrays its own heroes. Why does the squad drop Christmas in a matter of seconds? Why does Gina plan to let Christmas cunningly save her when she could just as easily avoid her plight? What are nuclear weapons doing in a Libyan chemical plant? This isn’t a story, it’s just an apathetic minimal effort to get me to pay for a movie ticket. I feel betrayed for my fan love.

The Expendables 4 brutality is a betrayal of fans

But no one likes The Expendables for the story. The action has to save the film, right? No. Fight scenes are staged according to formula F and even martial arts experts like Uwais or Tony Jaa can’t turn things around thanks to the completely fragmented hand edge moments in the editing. The widely announced return to the FSK 18 level of violence is hardly noticeable except for one scene.

This is what our colleague Yves says about The Expendables 4:

Sylvester Stallone only appears for 10 minutes in The Expendables 4

But the film’s biggest problem is not enough Stallone. With a lot of goodwill he can be seen in the film for about 10 minutes, the rest is mainly done by Jason Statham. The action veteran may have had good reasons for his absence, but his charm is a pillar of the series. An Expendables film without Stallone will fail. Statham is also far too young to carry the retro appeal of the franchise. The mercenary troop is at its end.

Is the flop Stallone’s fault? As the creator of the series, he cannot be completely absolved of responsibility for the quality of the film. But you would like: Maybe he was just tired of the franchise after 13 years. Maybe he wants to protect his body and play quieter, more psychologically complex roles like in the gangster series Tulsa King. Perhaps he had hoped for more creativity from his successors, but they felt intimidated by his outsized shoes.

The Expendables 4 was released 9 years after The Expendables 3, which was disappointing for many, and flopped catastrophically. My gut feeling is that there are only a few fans left who are longing for a fifth part. Stallone is an action star, actor, director, producer, artist, but he is also an autocrat: the foundation of all his films is himself. Without him the building collapseseven if he spent more than a decade building it.

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