Movie Review: Expendables 3
It's rare that I go to see a movie in the theaters these days, let alone on opening night! Nevertheless The Expendables in its original form is a special favorite of Mr. Wolf, and has therefore gained a certain following around here. Thus some of us went to see the third (and last) in the series last night.
The movie has a tone that is more than a little sad. A lot of these actors are doing their swan song and they know it, so they're taking a moment with it and trying to introduce the next generation. There's a very melancholy feel to it almost throughout.
It's also sad, in another way, that none of the new generation actors being introduced have anything like the style or presence that these guys had back in 1985. You think of the 'handshake' scene in Predator, and compare it to what you're seeing now. There's nothing wrong with these kids, not obviously, but they aren't any of them what Arnold was. Nor is it just muscles -- some have muscles -- because they aren't what John Wayne was, either. There's an absence of confidence, maybe even of an idea of what confidence would look like.
On the other hand, the action sequences were an improvement over the last rendition, though they lacked the relative realism of the first movie. There were, blessedly, fewer referential jokes -- Arnold got in a couple, towards the end, but they didn't present the awkward distraction of Chuck Norris reading out his own "facts" in Expendables 2.
Smuggle some beer into the theater, sit back, and enjoy watching the last parade of a generation that set the standard for Reaganite confidence during the end stage of the Cold War. These aren't the actual guys who won the war, but they're the guys those guys cheered on screen. They're the guys who spurred some of those guys to enlist. That's not nothing.
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A friend and I were discussing recently why none of the current crop of male stars seem to command the screen the way older ones did (often regardless of serious acting ability). I think perhaps the newer actors are suffering from an excess of irony in this sense (from Wikipedia):
The '90s saw an expansion of the definition of irony from "saying what one doesn't mean" into a "general stance of detachment from life in general”. This detachment served as a shield against the awkwardness of everyday life. Humor from that era (most notably Seinfield) relies on the audience watching the show with some detachment from the show's typical signature awkward situations.
The generation of people in the United States who grew up in the 90s (Millennials) are seen as having this same sort of detachment from serious or awkward situations in life as well. Hipsters are thought of as using irony as a shield against those same serious or genuine confrontations.
The older actors didn't always take themselves seriously (thank goodness) but they did always seem to be fully engaged and never seemed to be in need of "a shield" against seriousness, genuineness, or life.
This is an excellent point. On reflection, that does sound like what is going on with a lot of it. I won't give examples in case any of you want to see the movie, but all the youngsters are made ironic in some way -- three of them ridiculously so, and the fourth darkly so.
There's nothing ironic about John Wayne even in his gentler roles. When he says something, you know he means it. When people become aware that he has entered a room, the whole room changes because everyone knows there are serious consequences to him being there. Sometimes those consequences are good -- the scene in The Quiet Man when he enters the pub for the first time, and they learn he is the grandson of 'Old Sean Thornton' -- and sometimes they are serious in other ways. But he is a man, and his presence means something.
And people wonder why I only watch Japanese entertainment these days.
The 'feminists' attacks on masculinity have had their effects, and continue to do so. Besides their relatives, what 'men' do young males today have to look up to as models of what a masculine man looks and acts like? Boys today have so much trouble managing their masculinity because the only examples they see of it are caricatures, and the 'normal' examples of men they see, well, aren't.
Honestly, even though I spend a fair amount of time around college kids since I teach, I couldn't tell you who the straight and gay students are among the males in college anymore, because many of the indicators for masculinity have moved so much.
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