(The Expendables 3; USA 2014; Thriller d'azione; 127'; Produz.: Nu Image/Millennium Films/Nu Image Films; Distribuz.: Universal Pictures International Italy)
Barney (Sylvester Stallone), Christmas (Jason Statham) e il resto della squadra si trovano faccia a faccia con Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson), che anni fa aveva co-fondato i Mercenari con Barney. Stonebanks in seguito è diventato uno spietato commerciante d'armi e qualcuno che Barney è stato costretto a uccidere... o almeno cosÏ pensava. Stonebanks, che ha eluso la morte una volta, ora ha intenzione di mettere fine ai Mercenari - ma Barney ha altri piani. Barney decide che deve combattere il vecchio sangue con del nuovo sangue, e porta una nuova era di Mercenari tra i membri della squadra, reclutando individui che sono piÚ giovani, piÚ veloci e piÚ tecnologici. L'ultima missione diventa uno scontro tra lo stile classico della vecchia scuola contro la perizia tecnologica in quella che diventa la battaglia piÚ personale dei Mercenari.
SYNOPSIS:
The third installment of the action-adventure franchise that follows the exploits of Barney Ross, Lee Christmas, and their associates.
Barney (Stallone), Christmas (Statham) and the rest of the team comes face-to-face with Conrad Stonebanks (Gibson), who years ago co-founded The Expendables with Barney. Stonebanks subsequently became a ruthless arms trader and someone who Barney was forced to kill... or so he thought. Stonebanks, who eluded death once before, now is making it his mission to end The Expendables -- but Barney has other plans. Barney decides that he has to fight old blood with new blood, and brings in a new era of Expendables team members, recruiting individuals who are younger, faster and more tech-savvy. The latest mission becomes a clash of classic old-school style versus high-tech expertise in the Expendables' most personal battle yet.
Commento critico (a cura di LUCA BOCCACINI)
In un 2014 che ha visto scorrere di tutto un po', dalle pellicole futuristiche, iper tecnologiche e fantascentifiche, a quelle drammatiche o ancora, talvolta, trasgressive, Mercenari parte terza ci riporta di prepotenza in quel ruvido mondo del film di pura azione e guerra âveraâ, un genere che pare proprio non tramontare e che si fa eco di un grido ormai discretamente datato ma che ancora non ha smesso di apportare le sue cospicue dosi di adrenalina e azione - della serie âarrivano i nostriâ.
Sulla locomotiva di questo action-movie naturalmente ritroviamo i mostri sacri della cinematografia americana da combattimento, e non solo: un instancabile Sylvester Stallone guida quella che ormai potremo definire come una sfida tra âcattiviâ e âresto del mondoâ, senza respiro, senza pietĂ e con poche possibilitĂ di errore. Un videogioco in cui sparare ad ogni cosa che si muove, senza esclusione di colpi, acrobazie ai limiti della fisica
di fronte a battaglie numericamente e sproporzionatamente impari.
La, o le missioni, come sempre si presentano toste e serie; la storia mette nel piatto i sentimenti piĂš classici che possano esserci, derivanti dalla perdita di un caro amico, dalla voglia di vendetta, il nemico numero uno che una volta era il socio perfetto e l'eterno dilemma: meglio la vecchia guardia oppure i giovani emergenti...?
Anche stavolta Berney Ross (Stallone) è il nostro capo-banda che si trova ad affrontare tutto questo: pronto ad abbandonare lo storico gruppo ed affidarsi al nuovo che avanza, dovrĂ fare presto i conti con un passato che, da complice che fu, ora non perdona, non fa sconti e si prepara a muovere eserciti interi pur di averla vinta sui ânostriâ.
In questo film, vecchio e nuovo stile hanno modo di confrontarsi e offrire ognuno le proprie specialitĂ basate sulla forza e sulla grinta per i primi
e sulla tecnologia e sofisticazione per i secondi; a fare da sottofondo rimane ben accesa quella buona ironia che mai ha abbandonato la saga.
Naturalmente i buoni hanno sempre la meglio: come hanno ben insegnato gli anni Ottanta; il lieto fine saprà trovare lo spunto vincente per portare alti i valori della giustizia morale, quella giustizia che magari qualcuno vorrebbe anche nella realtà a scuotere quel bel po' di marcio che logora e rovina il mondo. Non c'è nulla di nuovo nelle battaglie del film, escludendo l'utilizzo di alcuni apparecchi all'avanguardia, perchè forza bruta e spari a raffica, che ai piÚ potranno ricordare quel che i vari Schwarzenegger, Harrison Ford e Stallone stesso qualche decennio fa portarono alle stelle nei cinema di tutto il mondo.
Pochi e semplici spunti per uno show che ad ogni fermata fa scendere e salire vecchie glorie di altissimo calibro, senza le quali lo spettatore potrebbe anche
chiudere gli occhi; ma la rimpatriata alla fine vale - e come! - la pena, perchè tutto sommato, nell'oceano di nonsense che vanno in onda puntualmente ogni settimana, il vecchio âsciroppoâ della nonna non si smentisce mai, dolce o amaro che sia: non ci si tira indietro d'innanzi ai punti fermi del film d'azione.
Secondo commento critico (a cura di JUSTIN CHANG, www.variety.com)
THE LATEST, LONGEST AND LEAST NECESSARY ENTRY IN THIS INCREASINGLY EXPENDABLE ACTION FRANCHISE.
In the moviegoerâs hierarchy of needs, a PG-13 âExpendablesâ is about as essential as a Joel Schumacher remake of âTokyo Story.â Or, to put it in terms more appropriate to its target audience: You need âThe Expendables 3â like you need a kick in the crotch, and while this running-on-fumes sequel may not be quite as painful a thing to experience, it will waste considerably more of your time. From train-crashing start to back-slapping finish, Lionsgateâs latest and longest showcase for Sylvester Stallone and other aging slabs of B-movie beef â the marquee names this time around include Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford â smacks of desperation and teen-audience pandering, from the literally bloodless action to the introduction of a younger, hotter backup team of fighters (call them the Hip Replacements). Itâs an obvious, half-hearted ploy to
keep the beleaguered series going, when it would be far wiser to heed one characterâs advice: âYou know, Iâm getting out of this business and so should you.â
The Stallone-directed first âExpendablesâ (2010) grossed an impressive $103 million in the U.S. en route to a total worldwide haul of $274 million; its 2012 follow-up, helmed by Simon West, took a hit domestically ($85 million) but more than made up the difference internationally, for a global cume of $305 million. But even without factoring in franchise fatigue and the law of diminishing returns, itâs hard to see the new movie, from Australian helmer-for-hire Patrick Hughes, extending the seriesâ winning streak â due in part to an online leak that has already resulted in more than 2 million illegal downloads, a number that will only continue to rise between now and Lionsgateâs Aug. 15 Stateside rollout. Not to condone piracy or anything, but
emerging from âThe Expendables 3â (which, at 127 minutes, runs considerably longer than its predecessors), you canât help but envy those streamers for experiencing the picture under optimal circumstances, with volume controls and fast-forward buttons at the ready.
Credited to three writers, which is at least two-and-a-half too many, the script kicks off with a foolhardy mission involving a helicopter, a speeding locomotive and the first of many outsourced-vfx explosions. Once more weâre tagging along with gang leader Barney Ross (Stallone), second-in-command Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), and their ragtag team of battle-scarred fighters, who are regularly hired to do the governmentâs dirty work in faraway places. The Expendablesâ ranks have taken a major beating of late, and so Barney decides to stage a prison break and bring back one of the gangâs founding members, Doctor Death (Wesley Snipes), whoâs so competitive and lethal with a blade that he refers to himself
early on as âthe knife before Christmas.â Zing!
Doctor Death isnât the only original Expendable dragged in from some previously unknown and thoroughly uncompelling backstory. Surfacing in time for a chaotic setpiece in Somalia is Barneyâs old frenemy Conrad Stonebanks (Gibson), a hard-to-kill supervillain who manages to slip through their clutches, gravely wounding weapons specialist Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) in the process. Realizing that his trusty teammates â who include Swedish sniper Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) and demolitions expert Toll Road (Randy Couture) â are getting too old to keep risking their lives like this, Barney ditches them and, at the behest of CIA officer Max Drummer (Ford), recruits a brand-new crew of younger, fresher Expendables. Theyâre played, pretty unmemorably, by Kellan Lutz, Glen Powell, boxing champion Victor Ortiz and, in the token-female role, mixed martial artist Ronda Rousey â all of whom face the unenviable task of establishing a secondary
rooting interest in a movie where even the leads have trouble holding attention.
Naturally, Christmas and company are none too thrilled to find their makeshift family so unceremoniously disbanded for this bunch of newbies. And so âThe Expendables 3â tries to mix in a few tears with all the testosterone, honoring the depth and resilience of male friendships forged in combat (at one point, you may wonder if youâve wandered into âFist Bump: The Movieâ), while acknowledging the looming specter of the menâs mortality. Itâs a theme that would seem to blend well with the seriesâ main objective, which is to pay loving, somewhat valedictory tribute to as many fading â80s and â90s action heroes in the same movie as possible. As an actor proudly notes in the press materials: âWe have Rocky, the Terminator, Indiana Jones, the Transporter, Mad Max, Desperado and Blade.â He seems to have left out the
follow-up caveat: âAnd we gave them virtually nothing of interest to do or say for two hours!â
The previous two movies, although barely defensible, were at least enlivened by a sly awareness of their own awfulness, and got by on the strength of their no-nonsense, R-rated brutality. But that grisly sense of purpose is nowhere to be found in âThe Expendables 3,â which, for clearly commercial reasons, has opted for a more audience-friendly PG-13 rating â a gutless decision that drains the action of its excitement, its visceral impact and its glorious disreputability. By the time the movie finally arrives at an incoherent endgame set in some fictional Middle Eastern hellhole, where editors Sean Albertson and Paul Harb try their damnedest to make sense of a whirlwind of action involving rolling tanks, speeding motorcycles and dive-bombing helicopters, itâs at once impossible to follow whatâs going on and impossible to care in
any event.
Stallone asserts his position as the master of this flailing circus by giving himself the filmâs one genuinely funny line, while Kelsey Grammer adds a touch of class to the proceedings as a mercenary who helps Barney with his new recruits. He doesnât see much action (Dr. Frasier Crane isnât one of our most enduring meathead icons), but following his roles in âTransformers: Age of Extinctionâ and the Starz series âBoss,â itâs fun to see Grammer extending his reach into tough-guy territory. But perhaps to no oneâs surprise, itâs Gibson who comes the closest to creating a pocket of viewer interest whenever heâs onscreen. As he did in last yearâs âMachete Kills,â the Australian star seems to relish the opportunity to slyly riff on his troubled real-life persona with a derivative but effective portrait of villainy, and to remind us of what how much charisma he still exudes in
front of the camera.
Watching Gibson snarl sure beats watching Ford grimace â or, for that matter, watching Arnold Schwarzenegger pop into the frame every few scenes or so like a 250-pound jack-in-the-box. This is the sort of numbskull non-entertainment that considers it worthwhile to fly in a martial-arts superstar like Jet Li and have him sit around firing a machine gun, pausing every so often to deliver the most awkward line readings of his career. Still, maybe better to be marginalized than overexposed: One of the castâs highest-profile additions is Antonio Banderas as Galgo, an ingratiating, over-eager assassin whose habit of sharing personal anecdotes nonstop is meant to provide long-winded comic relief (although listen closely for a tragic, potentially loaded reference to Benghazi). Banderas is trying way too hard, but thatâs borderline refreshing in a movie where too many people seem to be doing the opposite.
Perle di sceneggiatura
Bibliografia:
Nota: Si ringraziano Universal Pictures International Italy e Silvia Saba (SwService)