Expendables 4 (Also Stylized As “Expend4bles”): The Worst Action Movie Of The Year

If one takes a trip to Walmart and goes to the movie section, they will find a pretty large selection of DVDs for movies that they have almost certainly never heard of. A lot of times, these are horror movies or action movies that were produced on the cheap that never got theatrical releases and, occasionally one will find a hidden gem among them. That said, by and large these movies are not very good and not up to the contemporary professional standards that one would expect from a movie available to purchase. Expendables 4 is so bad that it makes any of those films look like a Best Picture contender, even one as notoriously bad as The Immortal Wars.

To summarize the plot for a film like this is an exercise in futility considering how simultaneously simple and complex the narrative is but it follows Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Megan Fox, and 50 Cent (among others) playing one-dimensional action heroes as they are sent out on a mission to stop World War 3.

There is nothing redeeming about this film. This is not an over-exaggeration considering it fails on a technical level, it fails on a narrative level, and it fails on a visual level. There is zero chemistry between anyone in the cast and it’s almost as if no one met until they were shooting. The plot is fairly simple but also needlessly complex yet also predictable in a disastrous mix of nonsense that does not even make sense within the context and internal logic of the film itself. There is so much poorly done green screen and other visual effects that the film cannot even effectively build tension because of how immersion-breaking these effects are. If it’s not bad enough, there are sequences on green screen that really do not need to be but also are lit improperly where there is visually a light source in the digital background but shadows are being cast in the wrong direction from the physical lights on set.

Expendables 4 is hands down the worst movie so far in 2023, which is saying something considering the veritable race to the bottom with entrants like Spinning Gold, Paint, Ghosted, and Marlowe. If one has anything better to do or has respect for themself or their time, go do that instead of seeing Expendables 4, a film that has open contempt for the viewer.

Final Rating: 0/10