Both prior Expendables movies were coincidentally 103 minutes in length, which is about the perfect run-time for a movie like this: it's enough time to set everything up and have a hefty pay-off, but not enough that it gets bogged down in prolonged, snoozy dialogues. EX3 meanwhile runs in at a whopping 126 minutes, which sounds great on paper because it allows for more awesome gun-totting action, right? In the words of Arnie himself, "Wrong!" This is an incredibly bloated movie, which rather than use those extra 25 minutes for another few set-pieces, devotes them to dialogue-centric scenes and one excessively long scenario in which Barney Ross (Stallone) recruits Dr. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) to help him amass the team of young Expendables. This near-15-minute portion of the film completely kills the momentum stone dead, when it could easily have been packed into a snappily-paced montage sequence. Distended scenes such as this are why the movie allows itself to go so long between action sequences, and why audiences are likely to find themselves becoming angrily impatient with the wait for the next one.
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.
