UPDATE: We’ve also added some pictures of the new standee for Sylvester Stallone’s film, which should be showing up in theaters very soon.
Day 3 of the 2010 ShoWest ended with Lionsgate screening Matthew Vaughn’s movie based on the comic book Kick-Ass, but before it began, they presented a new trailer for Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables, which is literally a who’s who of action stars from the last thirty years. It’s quite a bit tighter than the promo trailer from last year, though it includes many of the same gags.
Admittedly, a lot happens in it and it goes by extremely fast, and we only got to see it once, but we’ll try to share some of the highlights:
It opens with five or six motorcycles riding in the dark, then we get a shorter version of the scene where the main group of guys rappel down and are surrounded by terrorist types, so Statham and Stallone decide which of them is going to take out which opponent and they start shooting.
The voiceover talks about how, “They are the world’s greatest mercenaries” and that the only thing they know is war, and their only loyalty being to each other.
We get a quick glimpse of Arnold Schwarzenegger which went over really well with the crowd, especially when we see that he’s talking to Bruce Willis (We missed what they said, but both of them are expected to appear in just one scene).
During this, there is a title scroll hyping up the story about how “The job’s real” and something about the money, then it goes onto say that “a job no one wanted is becoming a mission they never expected” and that “they must make the ultimate (something)” for “a chance to change history.” Of course, we were trying our best to scribble down notes as it all went flying by so fast, so we didn’t exactly catch what that mission was but the trailer makes it clear that whatever it is, it involves a lot of shooting and explosions.
“What’s the plan?” Statham asks at one point, to which Stallone responds, “There is no plan.” Terry Crews then makes a crack about how, “They’ve got an army, and what have we got? Four-and-a-half men” referring to Jet Li, who responds, “Not so funny.”
The trailer then shows the main guys getting into a lot of hand-to-hand combat against some of the baddies, who are mainly played by professional wrestlers and fighters like “Stone Cold” Steve Austen and Randy Couture. After one such fight, Stallone makes a crack like “I just got my ass kicked.”
After a few more action shots including a helicopter firing rockets and more explosions, it then lists the last names of the main stars including Statham, Li, Lundgren, Rourke, Austen, Couture and of course, Stallone, showing each of them in action, but it’s mostly a lot of quick-cut close-ups so we don’t really get much of a sense of what is going on, unlike the promo trailer which showed longer fight sequences.
It ends with a scene of Stallone shooting at something near Statham, who frantically ducks then, gets up hitting the top of his head yelling, “Are you crazy?” to which Stallone yells back, “You’re welcome!”
It’s hard to tell if the movie will be good or bad, because with that many people in the cast not exactly known for their quality acting, Rourke excepted, it could really go either way, but it certainly will play up to nostalgic moviegoers who love the action movies of the ’80s and ’90s and hopefully it will be the fun mindless action flick we haven’t seen in some time with a good amount of laughs. (We do wonder how it might play opening after both The Losers and The A-Team, both of which seem to have the same general premise and idea of a group of guys banded together to fight overwhelming odds.)
The Expendables is scheduled to open on August 13 and hopefully that trailer will hit the theaters and internet soon, so you can make up your own mind on it.
