Tuesday 7th December

K and I thought this evening might be well-spent inside the house - we've got a very busy couple of weeks in the run-up to Christmas and every chance to save a bit of cash in the week needs to be taken. In this spirit, I cook up a tasty dinner of chilli con carne before K gets home and we tuck in heartily. Another idea for spending this evening wisely is also concocted, though somehow this involves watching Sylvester Stallone's 80s action-movie homage The Expendables.

Now I like a good action movie - but the key word there is "good"; the vast majority of them are trashy violence porn made for males with far more testosterone flying around their agitated bodies than I can ever really muster away from a football match. I have no patience for long gunfights, endless explosions and the crushing tedium of car chases. This is why I don't generally watch war movies ("oh look, another guy got shot. This is how many hours long?") and why I lose interest in FPS games very quickly. However, I do like GOOD action movies - I'll happily watch the entire Die Hard trilogy of a Christmas Eve and I'm adamant that The Rock is Sean Connery's best film.

So I suppose it's mainly novelty value that's led me to The Expendables - the USP seems to me to be the fact that it boasts a scene shared by Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Willis (I think) for the first ever time.

And the film's not too bad. The dialogue stinks and yes, yes, I know it's all homage and pastiche and so on and it's supposed to be a bit tongue-in-cheek and it's all about the EXPLOSIONS, man - but it's not too hard to find an actual screenwriter, is it? Most of the rest is tedious punching (Jason Statham is good at punching) and shooting and exploding and dying - broken up only by Mickey Rourke giving a performance that is far too accomplished for the general silliness around him. Good old Mickey.

Either way, I probably take the film too seriously and when it's over I'm glad - and, relieved, spend the rest of the night flicking through the telly.