All 'Expendables' Movies In Order
Sometimes a person wants to watch a smartly written drama featuring Oscar-winning actors acting their hearts out, and other times, you want to watch a man throw knives into people’s eyes. Since its initial release, The Expendables franchise has catered to the latter category, excelling at dumb action that leaves the audience howling with laughter and clapping for more. But what separates The Expendables from every other action movie series? Well, as an elevator pitch, it would basically go something like this: “What if we put all of the greatest action movie stars together in a movie and let them go wild?”
And with that, The Expendables was born. There’s hardly any logic to the series, but that’s the beauty of it. It’s a callback to action movies of the ’80s, where the entire point was excessive and ludicrous action. At times, it’s a perfect replication of the period, starring some of the best action movie stars of the ‘80s and ‘90s, all the way up to the modern era. The Expendables is just plain fun, and a large number of people are rediscovering it since the franchise just celebrated its 15th anniversary. With most of the series available on Peacock, here’s how to watch The Expendables movies in order and what makes each entry stand out.
The Expendables follows the aforementioned team, consisting of several Hollywood action legends, like Jason Statham, Jet Li, and Terry Crews, and led by Sylvester Stallone’s Barney Ross, a no-nonsense tough guy. Together, the group hatches a secret mission to overthrow a tyrannical dictator on an island nation in the Gulf of Mexico.
For an action movie, that’s really all you need. The charm of The Expendables isn’t the complex character drama, though there is some thanks to Jason Statham and the relationship he has with his girlfriend, which will be a subplot for the rest of the series. Instead, the charm lies in watching Sylvester Stallone blow things up and get into fights with other action stars like Dolph Lundgren and Stone Cold Steve Austin. This first film didn’t really lean into over-the-top fight scenes like the later films, but it channels some of the best ‘80s action movies, making it a worthy spiritual successor to violent masterpieces like Rambo: First Blood Part II and Red Scorpion.
If The Expendables was about trying to find a balance between drama and action, The Expendables 2 goes all in on action and never looks back. This time, the team goes to Albania to retrieve a lost item. Upon finding it, they’re ambushed by the international arms dealer Jean Vilain, played by Jean-Claude Van Damme, who steals the item from them, kills one of their members, and runs away, forcing the team to hunt him down not only for the mysterious item, but also for vengeance.
Yes, The Expendables 2 is stupid. Its main antagonist is literally one letter away from being named “villain,” but it is single-minded in its pursuit of violence, and I love it so much. For many fans, The Expendables 2 is the best film in the series, thanks to the focus on action and how tongue-in-cheek a lot of the fight scenes and characters have become. Why else would you cast Chuck Norris and have him literally recite memes about himself? Also, thanks to Van Damme’s inclusion, there’s a lot more hand-to-hand combat than in the previous film, though it doesn’t ever reach the peak of kung-fu action movies like Police Story. This is the kind of kickass action movie, like Commando and Sisu, where you turn your brain off and just watch the fireworks go off.
While earlier Expendables movies had a large cast of action stars, The Expendables 3 goes above and beyond in adding new characters to the team. The third entry in the series offers a shift in style and tone, like being rated PG-13 while the first two films were rated R, and focusing on younger aspiring action movie stars, like Ronda Rousey, Victor Ortiz, and Glen Powell. Some veteran actors appear, including Wesley Snipes, Harrison Ford, and Mel Gibson, but it’s clear that The Expendables 3 wants to appeal to younger audiences for franchise sustainability.
The setup is relatively similar to the second film, and it captures a lot of the same beats, which works at times, but more often than not, it makes the third film feel like an unnecessary step backward. It can’t have as much violent action as the earlier films due to its PG-13 rating, making it reminiscent of how movies like Terminator: Salvation and Live Free or Die Hard were limited when compared to the earlier entries in their series, all of which sported R-ratings. It’s also the longest Expendables movie, clocking in at just over two hours, while all of the earlier films hovered around 100 minutes, which leads to a bit of fatigue. Make no mistake, the action is still fine, and if you’re looking for action movies stuffed to the brim with big-name stars all showing off their eclectic skills, then The Expendables 3 will still satisfy you.
Released nine years after the last Expendables movie, Expend4bles sees a big shift in the team dynamic. Sylvester Stallone’s Barney Ross is killed in a plane crash during a mission that went south, and now Jason Statham’s Lee Christmas is in charge of the team, consisting of new members played by Tony Jaa, Megan Fox, and 50 Cent, to avenge Barney’s death and avert World War III.
The film returns the series to an R-rating and features plenty of R-rated action scenes, making this a return to form compared to the third movie. However, the film lacks the spark that the earlier entries had. A lot of the original trilogy’s appeal was watching veteran action movie stars prove that they still have their stuff, but Expend4bles feels more like a Jason Statham vehicle than anything else. If you’re a fan of Statham and enjoyed seeing him in movies like The Beekeeper, A Working Man, and Wrath of Man, then there’s some merit to watching Expend4bles, but if not, then it’s honestly an Expendables movie in name only.
