The Expendables 3 (Movie Review)

*Updated December 2025

The Expendables 3 is a good old-fashioned action film that delivers some fun, but its welcome is quickly waning. It is time to refresh and reboot. Directed by Patrick Hughes, the film follows Sylvester Stallone and his veteran troops as they are given the ax for younger blood. However, when the new recruits cannot come through, the vets return to help defeat the madness of a villain played by Mel Gibson.

As an action movie, The Expendables 3 delivers some fun sequences and executes them competently. The jokes play well, and the new cast members Wesley Snipes, Antonio Banderas, Mel Gibson, Kelsey Grammer, and Harrison Ford are a dream come true to see in one movie. Ford, in particular, displayed the most star power. Arnold Schwarzenegger is still loved by the audience.

In one scene, he said the word “chopper” in his heavy Austrian accent, and the crowd lost it. It was very funny. Banderas was also a scene stealer, delivering a charming and humorous character.

Usually, when a film has so many star actors fighting for screen time, there is a clear loss in story substance and character development. The end result is an apathy that permeates the production. Once that happens, a disconnection occurs between the audience and the film that is very hard to reclaim. The Expendables 3 is culpable of this to varying effect.

Stallone, who is excellent at creating action movies that are character-driven pieces like Rocky and Rambo, seemed more concerned with taking care of superstar egos than connecting with the audience. The end product is a movie that will be forgotten as soon as you take the first step out of the theater.

In his defense, I thought director Patrick Hughes did a good job giving every single actor their due screen time. Yet, Stallone, who wrote and produced the movie, should have had fewer characters and more time to flesh out the real stars like Wesley Snipes, whose role was the least explored.

Regarding Mel Gibson, though he gave a convincing performance, his final battle versus Stallone was a yawner. Whether it was the PG-13 rating or just time, Stallone did not design a villain that we as an audience thought could really vanquish him. This was no Ivan Drago.

Overall, this is not a horrible movie. It mildly entertains and the laughs work. However, for almost $20 per ticket, I want more than mediocrity, and that is exactly what I got. For fans of the franchise, it might be worth comparing to the original film to see how the series has evolved.