I find it difficult to properly review a movie like this.  For one thing, this is a movie rather than a film.  Its artistic intentions are minimal and are almost all of a technical nature, concerning stunt work, martial arts and close quarters combat and, of course, explosions.  It is a story about kinship and honor and cherishing those people closest to you . . . while butchering just about everybody else.  And to top it off, this one is PG-13, following the two others which were hard Rs for their quotients of violence.

The PG-13 rating may be appropriate because there are no exploding heads, geysers of blood or decapitations, as the first two adventures so gleefully provided.  And yet I think more people die in this one than in the others; an entire army is decimated in the climax.  How a dozen trained commandos can wipe out hundreds of trained military professionals without losing life or limbs is pure Hollywood hokum.  They’re the Expendables, of course, but the fact that any of them walk away from the big battle at the end without any casualties at all is ridiculous.

What Patrick Hughes’ film does in terms of social service, however, is admirable. Its story centers on the need to bring new blood into the Expendables crew, but it is the old standbys, the reliable veterans, some of whom are now senior citizens, who save the day.  Hughes and Stallone (whose series this really is) are providing jobs for a wide array of over-the-hill Hollywood action heroes whose best days are long behind them.  The roster includes Stallone himself, Schwarzenegger, Harrison Ford, Kelsey Grammer (Kelsey Grammer???), Dolph Lundgren and Mel Gibson.  Only Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme (all of whom were in # 2) and Eric Roberts and Mickey Rourke (who were in # 1) are missing.  Someone needs to employ these old actors and former wrestlers, and this series is providing them with paychecks.

What makes this task difficult is that the film itself isn’t junk, despite its plethora of punishment and knee-jerk jingoism.  The cast is talented and does bond together; the script is witty and even funny; the action is well-staged and even exciting.  I actually enjoyed watching the thing even though I deplored its mindless violence.  And that is the dilemma.  Intellectually movies like this are indefensible, yet they appeal to human faculties other than the intellect.  So if your thing is to watch a bunch of old guys and a bunch of young guys, plus Ronda Rousey, kill a bunch of foreigners in various ways, this is the movie for you.  ☆ ☆.  23 August 2014.