With the old accounts of Columbia and Samsung in hand, it is difficult for Sony today to make a satisfactory resurrection. "Total Recall" and "Robocop", Paul Verhoeven's rough arrogance has been polished by modern CG, not to mention the "Starship Fleet" that is about to move in a few years. Apparently, despite its successive failures, Sony is still trying to climb out of the pit of the 80s. But this time, "The Expendables" climbed out of one pit, but fell into another pit.
Just as today's SNL is no better than the old SNL, the personality charm and humorous cells of the two "Ghostbusters" have made it a timeless classic, while "The Expendables" is just an ordinary woman who has no new ideas. Just comedy. Paul Feig's prowess as the new king of female comedy is undeniable, but in such an adaptation rather than an original, there is a clear sense of discomfort. The bad taste of the B-level cult brought by the original version because of the cost limit has completely disappeared, and the overall atmosphere is completely wrong, and it has become a normal women's buddy comedy.
'Ghostbusters' isn't just green slime and marshmallows, even if it pulls in the original quartet: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and the late Harold Raimi Silai's endorsement, even if the original heroine Sigourney Weaver is brought to the platform, will not be able to clean up this disappointing remake.
2016's "The Expendables" has fallen victim to the two mountains behind it: the PC political correctness and the PG-13 rating that guarantees that the box office will not dare to fail. Under the interference of these new ideologies, Sony's speculative mentality and excessive pursuit of youth in "Spider-Man" once again caused "The Expendables" to lose the essence and soul of the original work, and only the remaining The glossy skin is far from the height of "Jurassic World" or "The Force Awakens".
Bringing new characters and a familiar feeling to the movie universe that fans are familiar with is the core attraction and vitality of the rebooted movies this year, but the full-staff transformation of "The Expendables" is just the result of blindly following the trend. Indeed, we cannot deny that as the base of comedy movies, Sony still attaches great importance to the development of comedy. But when this emphasis and fans' expectations deviate, it must be one of the other. "The Expendables" will be a very interesting female comedy film if it is freed from the IP constraints of "Ghostbusters", and it is a good platform for SNL's new generation of comedy actresses to jump on the big screen. But since it wants to be a qualified successor to "Ghostbusters" in people's hearts, it must first be a good GhostBuster (GB) movie, and then it must be a female movie. The order can never be wrong.
But fans are fans after all, and big bosses are big bosses after all. Where the capital comes from, there is the right to speak. Respect fans? That's something only fans can do. If you ask one of the six major studios with a few viable IPs to talk to fans about their feelings, that is a fool's dream.
Bill Murray's cameo in "The Expendables" reveals such an intense sense of pain that you can almost see the Sony executive standing behind him with a gun to his head.
I love GB, but this is not GB.
As a "Ghostbusters" movie, the death of "The Expendables" is not wrong at all; but similarly, as a medium-cost comedy movie starring a female, the existence of "The Expendables" itself is very important It is worthy of respect, and the box office performance is completely worthy of the production level.
"The Expendables" is basically a standard Paul Feig production, and the tried-and-true signature routines in "Bridesmaids", "The Expendables" and "Spy" have been completely moved to "The Expendables". But as an unoriginal work, Paul Feig adds a plethora of pointless jokes to the film. Occasionally it is acceptable to see Brother Hammer committing a second idiot and an old woman selling a second spring, but if it is to support a boring script, it will be tedious.
Equally meaningless are the upside-down pseudo-professional terms, completely nobody cares, but if you have to say it over and over again, it's quite noisy, until it's too long-winded to make people feel strange "You can't even afford to rent a big house, where did you get it from?" The key issue of "money to buy equipment to build equipment" is that I finally shut my mouth and just do it.
With all this mess mixed in, "The Expendables" almost fell into the same path of last year's "Pixel Wars" -- not sure if it should be a special effects action movie or a comedy full of internal organs. The type is uncertain, which makes the intro part and the first act of "The Expendables" extraordinarily confusing, and the final ending is also a bit boring. Only the second and third acts are of higher quality.
Leaving aside the pure male vase hammer brother, the four heroines have suffered a strong stereotype attack in character design. First of all, the famous two people are quite invigorating - Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig have no motivation, the characters are completely fished out from previous films, and there is a serious lack of freshness Sense, also very boring. The problem with Leslie Jones is big, the character has the potential to be a street smart and not just a rude black woman who is yelling, but the movie is going to go the second way Die begging for bailai. It's true that Leslie Jones's representative image on SNL is such a self-deprecating ruffian, but in such a sex-turned feminist comedy film, this stereotype should be avoided the most.
Was Ernie Hudson's character a typical '80s black figure in '84 Ghostbusters? No. Instead, he's just an ordinary American man looking for a job. This is equality. On the other hand, in "The Expendables" under the banner of feminism, Leslie Jones still needs to play a typical black woman in an almost offensive way, which is a considerable harm to the character itself and the actor himself. and step back.
Since you want to express something, you should make a gesture and means of expressing something, instead of shouting slogans and pretending, otherwise it is tantamount to humiliating yourself.
On the other hand, the role of Kate McKinnon, who is also the main force of SNL, can be regarded as the most prominent image in this movie-if you ignore the small but more eye-catching Xi Zhuangzhuang, Sisi Leah Strong's cameo words - the image of a female geek is quite in line with Sister K. As the main role for the first time, although she exerts too much force in the performance, it is not fun with Leslie Jones who deprives her of fun and a boring look on her face. Compared with the other two, it is a big bright spot. But just like the problems revealed by the previous works of electrocution on the big screen, Bill Hader is faced with the dilemma of image building: to learn who is like who, who is who is good at imitating Sister K and another master of imitating Shi Xiaofang who can't receive gigs. It is difficult to find a suitable personal positioning, and it is difficult for the audience to recognize and solidify the amorphous personal image, and naturally it is difficult to identify with it.
In short, the performance of "The Expendables" itself is not bad, just a very mediocre bowl of water.
In contrast to the counterproductive comedy, "The Expendables" is rather surprising in its action sequences in Acts 2 and 3. The rough special effects production in "Ghostbusters" earlier has been reproduced in high-definition, and the quality is quite high, more sincere than "Pixel Wars" and "Goosebumps". If you just look at the special effects, it is a very interesting and can get a good experience - after all, the original work is hard to understand if you can't see it, but the scum that you can see is clear at a glance.
But in the end, The Expendables offered another lesson in a way: The big studios haven't learned how to reboot, and still need to learn how to do it.
The story of "The Expendables" is as thin as paper, and at the same time it is damaged by editing, making it incomplete. There is a lack of chemistry between the actors, and the villain's presence is even weaker. In contrast to the original, the original "Ghostbusters" can be regarded as a movie worth remembering, comedy, thriller, action, and troika go hand in hand. But "The Expendables" failed in any of these three areas. Thriller is almost non-existent, individual scenes may be there, but are heavily diluted; comedy parts are overpowered and misdirected, lacking in wit, too routine and lacking suspense; action, if at all designed, is not at all obvious.
Unless you count Hammer dancing.
The plot is weak and the special effects are strong, sexy men are bombed, men are cute and women are rotten. If the movies of this year are all this trend, it is really eating jujube pills.
Do not believe? Just wait and see.
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