The Expendables 3 (12A) **
The first time out, the idea of pitting together some of cinema’s most-loved - and ageing - action heroes seemed like an inspired one. And the blend of kick-ass sequences and wisecracks pleased audiences.
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The group of mercenaries’ third outing certainly gives action fans their hit - but given the cast they’ve assembled and the big budgets involved, this should be a lot more fun.
Instead we get a turgid, overlong flick that aims for a “so bad it’s good” vibe but ends up being so bad it’s just bad.
Even the arrival of Mel Gibson, in what must have been a huge stretch of a performance as a maniacal, wide-eyed oddball, is not enough to add life to proceedings.
Sylvester Stallone returns as the badass Barney, whose team of mercenaries for hire face a new rival in the form of Conrad Stonebanks (Gibson).
Stonebanks, we learn, originally founded The Expendables with his old pal Barney - but went on follow the money as a nasty arms dealer.
Nobody is more surprised than Barney when Stonebanks arrives early in this movie, brandishing a helicopter and an enormous bomb, because Barney was hired to kill him years earlier and thought he’d completed the job.
So the guys embark on a mission to stop him, this time enlisting the help of a younger and more tech-savvy team of warriors to, I assume, attract a younger and more tech-savvy team of movie goers.
“What ya gonna do? Reload!” grunts Sly as he prepares for battle.
The first two Expendables movies were hardly classics, but they delivered decent action sequences with a fair smattering of knowing humour.
But this is too long and silly and lacking in personality. What of it? Expendables 4 and 5 are already in the works.
Hector and the Search for Happiness (15A) ***
SIMON PEGG stretches beyond his usual light-hearted roles in this uneven drama.
He’s very good in this movie about a psychiatrist who’s struggling with his own quest for fulfilment in life - but the movie wobbles in moving from quirky to serious throughout. And even a decent supporting cast struggles to keep this watchable.
Based on Francois Lelord’s novel of the same name, Pegg plays Hector, a privileged psychiatrist who has become disillusioned with his well-ordered but humdrum life.
No longer able to empathise with his patients and at a crossroads in his relationship with girlfriend Clara (Rosemund Pike), he decides to embark on an ambitious trip around the world in the hope of discovering the secret to true happiness.
Cue a visit to Shanghai where he hangs out with a wealthy businessman (Stellan Skarsgard) a trip to Africa, a trek with Buddhist monks in the Himalayas, and a visit to Los Angeles to reconnect with an ex-girlfriend (Toni Colette).
Pegg tries his best to turn on the charm and shows considerably more range than we’ve seen from him in previous roles. But even he struggles in transforming the self-indulged character of Hector into a romantic hero you can root for.
