Metacritic reviews

The movie is unsurprising and not especially ambitious, but it’s agile enough to vault over most of its flaws.

Expend4bles is an endless pyro/bang-bang show, with actors not mainly known for their acting (also including 50 Cent and UFC champion Randy Couture), sticking to the story as well as they can.

These days, it’s almost refreshing to see a big dumb garbage sequel that doesn’t have any other agend4.

The Expendables is far from high art, but it’s safe to say the saga has never hit a lower point than it has here, a crushing disappointment for anyone genuinely hoping for the return to form that was promised and demanded.

Jason Statham is the only bit of genuine oomph in a tired tale whose digital effects could have been shot on an iPhone.

Apologetic sequel brings back franchise veterans Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren and ups the violence from ‘Expendables 3’ – but that’s not enough.

Expend4bles — the number is in the middle of the word, get it? — represents a nadir for a series that began as an entertainingly nostalgic throwback to old-school action movies and the square-jawed muscle men who starred in them.

Expend4bles is a crushing disappointment that lacks any of the nostalgia, charisma, and charm that made the franchise appealing in the first place. Perhaps worst of all, this failed mission is boring. There is no pleasure taken in saying this once highly entertaining action franchise is well past its AARPrime. It would have been great to have rounded the series off with a fifth entry, but after this flat and uninspired effort, the franchise doesn’t deserve that last hoorah.

This is true 21st-century trash: a movie in which the action itself is expendable.

The idea behind the series has always had potential — round up some beloved action stars of yesteryear and give them one more chance to ply their trade — but the expected fun has never materialized, with this latest entry lacking any sense of urgency, wit, or grace.