What categorizes a movie as being good?
   Is it the ridiculous, laugh-out-loud humor, intellectual dialogue, or the violence invoked by ‘roid rage?
   Whatever the answer, there is one movie which contains bits and pieces of all of the above. “The Expendables” is by far one of the best action films to come to theaters. This is about a bunch of big name actors coming together to make an honest living out of killing people. 
   Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Dolph Lundgren, and Terry Crews team up to form this mercenary group and their mission is to physically take out the opposition. All of these guys are fighting for the greater good, except Dolph Lundgren, who as we all know is the one responsible for killing Apollo Creed in Rocky 4. His character in the film changes sides more than a national championship bandwagoner. 
   There are some skeptics who say “it’s an action film, once you have seen one, you have seen them all” or “what’s the plot of this movie? It’s just ridiculous!”
   Well, the plot is simple; you give automatic weapons with a ton of ammo to testosterone driven men who could each individually bench press a small house. At one point Stallone and Statham single-handedly take out a portion of the military.
   You just don’t get that intense, heart-throbbing action out of any romance film where the main character dies, or from glittering vampires feuding with man’s best friend.      
   Despite this movie coming close to perfection, there were some aspects that could have been handled differently. For instance, during the main scene near the end, Terry Crews is nowhere to be found. All the stars are in close combat only to be stopped by a loud barrage of bullets coming from an automatic shotgun wielded by Crews.  He literally wipes out about 30 men.  I ask you “why wasn’t he there in the first place?” he didn’t just slaughter the remainder of the enemy; he obliterated anyone or anything that didn’t have the “Expendables” tattoo.
   In all due respect Statham took out a group of eight guys on a basketball court with his bare hands, but he didn’t spray the court with a shotgun and snap the people in half like twigs as Crews did in the tunnel of the military fortress. 
   All opinions aside, “The Expendables” proved to be the best movie in America for two straight weeks only to best sent down to second place last week in theatres. This move is rated R due to strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language. If its bloody violence against a drug cartel mixed with bald jokes thrown toward Stone Cold Steve Austin that gets you pumped up then “The Expendables” is the movie you need to see.  This star-studded action film is truly great, I give it 4 stars out of 5! It’s truly what the moviegoers needed to see to wrap up the summer.