Film Review: The Expendables

Erin Albert

Media Writing

Review Assignment

Movie Review: The Expendables  

This film was action packed, but lacked everything else. Some of the main ‘stars’ of the film included Sylvester Stallone, Jason Stathum, Mickey Rourke, and Jet Li. I almost felt as if the true main idea of this movie was not to save another country under tyrant and drug rule, but to bring together action hero actors from the past and present and put them all in one film to make one major collection of action scenes. This film had no substance, lame meaningless dialogue, and no real great stunts, just some cool weapons and fancy explosions. I truly feel as if this film was smoke and mirrors. The explosions and fight scenes were to mask the nonsense. Sylvester Stallone is just too old (if you will) to be running around with enormous machine guns saving the damsel in distress while killing numerous men, he’s not ‘Rocky’ anymore it’s just not realistic. Even though there were some younger more popular action actors involved throughout, their roles were just as bland. This movie was almost comical to me. Only big action stars were the main characters, they didn’t have much to say to one another. When they did, it wasn’t clever, funny, romantic...you get the picture. Even with all the ‘action’ I was bored overall. The film took place in two countries and the main character’s were constantly jumping in their own personal plane to go back and forth from one to another. This would normally make sense to me, but from the beginning of the movie you don’t get any background information as the viewer, which would help you understand things more clearly. Ultimately, I will give this movie two out of five stars. Some movies don’t need much depth, but at least give me something to work with! All I saw was blood, fire, and too much Botox. I just couldn’t look past it. I think it’s time to retire some action stars from movies like this. I don’t want to completely diminish all acting abilities, just this movie was over done, it was right actor’s in the wrong place. This movie was a let-down, but I will anxiously be awaiting the next big action flick! 

TMI Article Response

Is the Internet Colorblind?

By: Courtney D. Marshall PH.D

This was a great article, I was extremely interested in just the first paragraph. This article raised  many questions in regards to race, gender, and cultural differences in our societies ‘cyberspace’. Author and professor Courtney Marshall writes, “Having a space where you can represent yourself as not dark, female, or Catholic does not make these categories less real. In fact, having the desire to leave these behind shows the power that they have in our culture,” (21). I believe what she is saying is completely true in how people try and shape their own culture over the web, even though you can’t ‘see it’. I don’t believe the internet is colorblind. Even though you can’t see or hear the other person, you can learn about someone through their writing. The article also talks about how one’s culture is brought into cyberspace even if people don’t necessarily try too. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. “Watkins theorizes that the students associate MySpace with uneducated and unemployed people who have the luxury of continually tweaking their profiles while Facebook’s uniformity connotes upward mobility and professionalism,” Marshall writes. S. Craig Watkins a media professor, found that teens and young adults do create their own ‘cultures’ via the internet. People are associating different social networks with different cultures and different stereotypes. By doing this, people are truly bringing realities to life online. Ultimately, this article opened my eyes to the fact that the world wide web is a cultural place, you just have to look a little deeper. Technology has such a large influence on society in today’s world. I would think it’s nearly impossible not to bring one’s beliefs and heritage through the internet. Technology is also constantly changing, so i’m not sure what the internet will bring in the future, but I do know that regardless of one’s culture, we are and will continue to be interconnected with one another.