Once upon a time, movies like The Expendables could guarantee box-office success by simply listing its stars, and that’s just what I’m going to do here.  It’s the first teaming of Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Eric Roberts, and several others all packed into one shirt-ripping, testosterone-laden action-fest of explosive possibilities.  Of course, some roles in Stallone’s latest effort are more pronounced (and pronounceable) than others, but that doesn't mean there's a drop of estrogen in the bunch.  It harkens back to a time when men were men, and men had muscles, and when such men would - nay, were morally and contractually obligated - to blow up other (evil) men.  There are no wimps allowed in this dojo.

As its name implies, The Expendables is an elite group of mercenaries-for-hire that specializes in getting the job done right the first time, and doing it with style.  They’re a group so badass and awesome they work out of a chop-shop bar and even have their own logo.  Better yet, they come pre-packed with names like Lee Christmas (Statham), Toll Road (Randy Couture), and - no joke - Ying Yang (Li).  They race in vintage Ford F100s and fly around the world in machinegun-equipped aircraft, not once worrying what their carbon footprint might be doing to the planet.  They’re pretty much the greatest live-action version of a cartoon team that never (but should have) existed, and these boys are enough to make GI Joe wet his cold, plastic pants.

When Barney (Stallone) is made an offer he couldn’t refuse by Mr. Church (Willis) and his longest-ever rival Trench (Schwarzenegger) to overthrow a dictator (Dexter’s David Zayas) in the small (and totally fake) South American country of Vilena, he and Christmas (Statham) stage a fact-finding mission to see just what the hell they might be up against.  It turns out the dictator is now under the control of ex-CIA agent James Monroe (played with zeal by Eric Roberts), who apparently doesn’t understand the concept of delegation all that well.  But the general’s beautiful daughter Sandra (Gisele Itié) manages to soften Barney’s weathered heart, and it isn’t long before the whole team decides to storm the fortress, kill the evil drug dealers, all while saving the girl and (if receipts are good) room for a sequel or two.

Fans of the super-action genre have no doubt seen this plot a thousand times, and possibly more if they wore out their original VHS tapes.  Hell, it’s basically a re-working of Stallone’s last movie, the great and extraordinarily violent Rambo, only modified for maximum macho mayhem.  As a writer/director/star, Stallone’s recent career resurrection rivals that of fellow cinematic legend Clint Eastwood (who’s absent here, surprisingly), delivering near-career best productions that rival anything from their heydays, never settling on their considerable reputations to simply rubber-stamp their way back on the scene.  Unlike Clint, however, Stallone is clearly engaged in the genre he helped create and perfect, perhaps more so at age 64 than he was in his 30s.  And frankly, that's terribly exciting, because we would have killed to have this sort of thing exist when I was younger.  They might be a little bit older, but they geezers can still kick ass take names (as well as your money).

Less than five minutes into the movie, a Somali pirate is exploded (note the grammatical conjugation) into chunks of pulpy goodness, and while the gore never reaches the unapologetic madness that was the last Rambo, the action stays relatively CG-free, although a few unfortunate splotches of fake blood effects do show up now and again.  His direction gets the job done better than most, and it’s not likely to win any Academy Awards (that ship left port a long time ago), unless of course they’re handing out Oscars for aggressive, steroidal manliness.  This isn’t exactly high-art we’re talking about, and thank God for that, and while you’ll find more cheese than a dairy farm, there’s not a shred of pretentious preening or politically-correct nonsense to be found anywhere in its perfectly short 100+ minutes.  It’s Descartes as filtered through Popeye the Sailor - it is what it is; therefore it is.

For a movie that’s essentially a collection of action stars, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that it’s best seen more as a collection of moments than a plot-driven and cogent narrative masterpiece.  Part of the fun is the mix-matching of pop-culture icons in what - in another time and place - might have been logistically improbable, if not downright impossible.  Stallone understands the mythologies behind the genre heroes he’s collected and does his best to accommodate decades-long fantasies of possible match-ups and ‘what if’ moments.  Characters like Stallone's wild western Barney (watch for the guns) and Crews' boom-boom bullets are fun by themselves, but the movie works best as a team effort.

Of course, the most anticipated and (pop) culturally significant is the first-ever pairing of Stallone, Willis, and Schwarzenegger into the same action movie, cramming this holy trinity of superstars together inside - where else - a church.  Those expecting anything more than a Planet Hollywood-style cameo from this trio are in for a big disappointment, but at least we get some nice ribbing between Stallone and Schwarzenegger (“he wants to be president”), and Willis’ expertise with the “rhymes-with-cluck” word is fully restored.  It's not quite the earth-shattering moment I would have liked, but it's a great start and I'd love to see their roles expanded in a potential sequel.

Apart from Stallone, the biggest ‘employed’ action names here are Jason Statham and Jet Li, and while those two have been paired before (in a movie so bad I won’t bother mentioning it here), they manage to get the job done admirably here with their expanded roles.  Statham proves he’s this generation’s most bankable 80s-style action-star for a reason and is great fun to watch, as is the apparently unretired Li in some of his most impressive work in years.  Stallone and Statham make a great on-screen pair that we want to see more of, and matching Li with Lundren (one’s small and one’s tall, get it?) is so ridiculously obvious it’s perfect.

Another gem for fighting fans is the logical bout of UFC's Randy Couture versus the WWF/WCE's Stone Cold Steve Austin, which should hardcore zealots into wild frenzies.  Truthfully, Austin doesn’t really do it for me, and can only imagine how much cooler it would have been to have former governor Jesse “ain’t got time to bleed” Ventura in the role instead.  Terry Crews gets a scene-stealing (and scene-exploding) moment with his beloved ‘big gun’, a MPS AA-12 Sledgehammer outfitted with special ammunition that turns nameless baddies to mush.  Keep your genre-loving eyes peeled for the awesome Gary Daniels (Fist of the North Star, City Hunter) as the near-unstoppable Brit.

Perhaps the closest the film ever gets to genuine emotion is Rourke's tearful soliloquy on lives unsaved, unfortunately filmed with the biggest nasal close-up since The Blair Witch Project.  Like Stallone, he’s just here enjoying his recent career revival and just living, brother.

Sexist all the way, the movie’s two lone females (Gisele Itié and Charisma Carpenter) exist, for the most part, to inspire our rugged heroes to be the manliest men they can be.  Statham’s character does come perilously close to showing his sympathetic side, but it’s nothing a little aggressive-release (against an entire basketball court filled with domestic violence-endorsing thugs) can’t solve.  But then, she really should have waited; he was worth it.  Now get on the damn bike and let’s ride, baby.

Stallone’s action-star ensemble nearly delivers on its ambition to resurrect 80s-style action cheese, and while it’s not quite the genre’s ultimate mix, it’s easily the least pretentious and best action movie of the year.  Hardcore cinema nerds will breathlessly tell you that the cast was originally supposed to include Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Wesley Snipes, and even Kurt Russell in roles that eventually went to other actors.  No bother, as there's (at least) two sequels already in the works, and if the locale switches to Asia that could mean adding Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Donny Yen, Michelle Yeoh…the possibilities are practically endless.  Hell, throw Cynthia Rothrock and Michael Dudikoff in there while you’re at it.  Just don’t have anyone tell Kurt Thomas and his Gymkata and we’ll be all set.