The Expendables - Script review for Stallone's action movie

Vern over at AICN has had a chance to look at Sylvester Stallone's script for The Expendables and it sounds like it could be a good old fashioned action movie. As Vern says, "This is a movie where a team of 5 can take on an army of 100, where armed men still sometimes engage in martial arts and fisticuffs, where many, many things blow up, where occasionally a character might have something sarcastic to say during combat. In other words, a good old fashioned action movie. An endangered species."

There is nothing definite as to who is playing what character in the film but is possible, and highly likely that Stallone may play the leader of the group called Barney.

"Barney is a very different character from Rambo. For one thing, his name is Barney. For another he talks in more than one sentence sometimes. He's almost a father figure to the team and finds himself always listening to other people's problems and trying to be supportive. The other character who gets the most screen time is the lovelorn Lee Christmas. He's supposed to be American but calls a guy "mate" at one point, which means he's played by Jason Statham. There's also Kong Kao, who will be played by Jet Li. He does a lot of kicking, but is much more of a supporting character than Li usually plays. I do think it's a pretty good character for Li, though, because he gets some funny lines. He's an unhappy smartass, not the usual Li type of character."

As well as those three we all know now that Dolph Lundgren is going to be in the action epic. Unfortunately he may only be in the film for a couple of scenes which is a shame. It's a small but crucial role as an Expendable named Gunnar who comes into conflict with Kong.

Vern also goes onto explain the roles that Forest Whitaker and Sandra Bullock may be playing and he has this to say about some roles that have yet to be cast.

"There's Richard, who is the gay Expendable. It's a plot point that he's gay, but they don't make any dumb jokes about it, he's just a member of the team. I'm proud of Stallone for that one. On the other hand, the black Expendable isn't much more than a benign Black Dude stereotype. He doesn't get enough characterization, but on the positive side he owns a restaurant, is zealous about tacos and has a name even more cartoonish than Lee Christmas: his name is Hale Caesar. I approve of that."
It's not clear if this is going to be the final script as many of the fight scenes and characters are a bit sketchy at the moment especially the last big battle that Stallone describes as

"THE BATTLE IS ON!! WHAT ENSUES IS A REMARKABLY SAVAGE EBB AND FLOW BATTLE. TO DESCRIBE THE ACTION DESIGNED FOR THIS SCENE WOULD TAKE MANY PAGES, SO TRUST ME, IT'LL BE LIKE NOTHING SEEN BEFORE."

I have got a good feeling about this film though. Make sure you have a read of the rest of the script review. Will this be a great action movie or should it be a direct to DVD one?
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