TheRetroCritic

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After finally joining forces on The Expendables and its sequels, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger collaborated again on Escape Plan . Originally titled "The Tomb", this prison escape actioner from 2013 failed to wow critics and audiences alike upon its release. The concept is very much a Tango & Cash meets Escape From Alcatraz meets Fortress type of deal as Ray Breslin (Stallone), an expert who can break out of any prison, is dragged to a state-of-the-art facility that's seemingly unescapable where he befriends fellow inmate Emil Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger). Of course, they decide to help each other out and plan an elaborate escape. The film's concept is instantly ridiculous as the first time we meet Breslin, he breaks out of a jail in the least convincing way possible: think MacGuyver meets Keyser Söze. That said, it's a solid setup for a good old-fashioned, tongue-in-cheek action movie the likes of which both leads would have no doubt bee

With a unashamedly silly title like  Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and a premise this corny, it's no wonder this Sylvester Stallone-starring comedy from 1992 was badly received by pretty much every critic. This looked like an obvious turkey and it's still seen as a complete joke by most. The film sees cop Joe Bomowski (Stallone) get an impromptu visit from his overbearing, if well-meaning, mother (Estelle Getty). She quickly gets on his nerves as she gets involved in every aspect of his life, embarrassing him every step of the way. When Joe's mother becomes a witness to a murder, Joe is soon forced to allow her to be a part of the investigation. This is one of those broad comedies that's predictable from the very first minute: right off the bat, you know that, by the end, Joe will learn a valuable lesson from his initially irritating mother and you know his shaky relationship with JoBeth Williams' Lieutenant will be fixed. On the surface, this is every bit the aw

It's Sly time again as I put myself through The Expendables 3 . Had to be done.

What is The Expendables about, really? As a franchise, I mean. It's about a bunch of old badass dudes doing badass stuff, killing bad guys in ridiculous ways, overkills aplenty, the whole thing peppered with bad one-liners and people overcompensating for several things with oversized weapons. It's not exactly rocket science, but it doesn't need to be: it works. And yet... Somehow, in between the actually not too bad The Expendables 2 and this one, it seems that the franchise's maestro, Sylvester Stallone, has forgotten what the hell this whole thing was about in the first place. After a silly opening action sequence, we find ourselves in yet another silly action sequence except that, at the end of that one, a member of the "crew" is badly injured by Mel Gibson's villain. Something for which I blame Stallone's Barney Ross entirely, by the way, since he completely ruined the entire mission and put everyone at risk by yelling the bad guy

Well, The Expendables 3 finally has a trailer. Of sorts. Ok, it's kinda lame but at least we learn two things: 1/ It's the third film. 2/ All these peeps are in it: Shame you can't really see any of them properly and that one of them is missing (probably Kelsey Grammer?) but here's hoping that the next trailer gives us a little more than an awkward mass catwalk and some whistling. To be continued...