The Expendables 3 Review: 10 Things That Sucked

8. The Action Is (Mostly) Forgettable & There's Not Enough Of It

In fairness, the action sequences in the Expendables movies aren't trying to burn themselves into your brain forever more: they're just trying to be fleetingly entertaining while you're watching them. However, the previous movies at least featured fun set-pieces that we actually remember, whereas for the most part the same can't really be said here. While we're absolutely tainted by the lame PG-13 rating, the action sequences just don't have the same punch and bite as in the previous movies, in part because of the lack of violence, and also because the set-pieces are mostly just rehashes of what we've seen before. Sure, Patrick Hughes directs the carnage with a nice visual style, and the climactic assault on Stonebanks' compound is actually fun enough to make us temporarily forget about the PG-13 rating, but for the most part the action just blurs together in a mess of crappy CGI (something we'll expand upon later) and awkward cutting. For a movie running over 2 hours in length, there's also nowhere near enough action, and audiences may find themselves switching off during the near-half-hour gaps between some of the action sequences, which in a movie like this is nothing short of criminal.