The fourth entry in the starry action series is about to arrive in UK cinemas. <\/p>
Rewinding back to the halcyon days of 2010, action cinema was not in the healthy place it is now.<\/p>\n
Tony Scott was about to release his final film before his death, Michael Bay had become a full-time Transformer<\/a> and John Wick<\/a> was still four long years away.<\/p>\n Tom Cruise<\/a> wasn\u2019t yet quite the all-conquering stunt supremo he would soon become and Arnold Schwarzenegger<\/a> was busy being the Governator rather than the Terminator. Then The Expendables were born.<\/p>\n Sylvester Stallone<\/a> was enjoying something of a career renaissance after the best part of a decade spent in the commercial wilderness following a number of flops such as D-Tox and Driven.<\/p>\n But after revisiting his iconic characters Rocky and Rambo, Sly was experiencing a late noughties revival. Enough time had also passed since the \u201980s and early \u201990s glory days that maybe the world was ready for unapologetic machismo, baby-oiled biceps and mugging one-liners.<\/p>\n For the first film, Stallone lined up a team of A-listers, D-listers, professional wrestlers and Hollywood leftovers with himself leading the ensemble.<\/p>\n He was joined by two bonafide stars in Jason Statham (as a character called Lee Christmas) and Jet Li, one-time star Dolph Lundgren, UFC legend Randy Couture, former wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin, comic actor and physical behemoth Terry Crews and Hollywood outcasts Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts. It wasn\u2019t exactly a who\u2019s who of action legends, but it was enough.<\/p>