I Know What Boys Like

My gal pal Tara needed some over the top cheese to make her day, so we went to see The Expendables, starring just about every man movie icon you can think of: Stallone? Check. Jet Li? Check. Bruce Willis? Check. Ahhhhnold? Check. And check out these character names: Christmas, Hale Caesar, Ying Yang.

Stallone penned the screenplay, which explains why he gets most of the best lines and best scenes. I mean, what’s the point of writing an action vehicle for yourself if you don’t get the best one-liners, right? He gave the rest of them to Jason Statham’s character Lee Christmas, who gets some pretty awesomely manly scenes and dialog, too.

But the action stars aren’t the only man-friendly things this movie has. In fact, Tara and I decided that Stallone probably sat himself down and made a list of Shit Dudes Love and then wrote it all into a script:

• Explosions
• Car chases
• Loud motorcycles
• Explosions
• Loud truck (that sounds like a Harley)
• James Bond gadgets on vehicles (truck and seaplane)
• Hot chicks with jiggly boobs
• Explosions
• Knife experts
• Man-acceptable emotional beats (ex-girlfriend abused by new boyfriend, beat down of old friend, heart-wrenching war stories)
• All-out ass kickings
• Grimacing
• Tattoos
• Explosions
• Women as motivation (“I came for the girl!”)
• Diving away from explosions in slo-mo.
• Snappy one-liners
• Shooting bad guys in half
• Blood spatter
• Explosions (did I mention?)

Tara and I aren’t dudes, but by the end of this movie we suspected our estrogen levels had taken a hit. I worried that I might have started growing a penis. We both had an uncontrollable urge to get tattoos, drive trucks, and blow shit up. Now, we could have remedied this problem by shopping for make up or feminine products, but no. We ended up in a hippie shop. Tie-died clothes, incense, jewelry with pot leaves and peace signs, and bongs. That’s right: Bongs. Being sold right there in the mall in the heart of suburbia. Brightly-colored bongs–or as Tara calls them, fancy vases.

At least now I know where to get my charcoal disks.

For incense.

So, did I like The Expendables? Well, I liked doing instant message “rifftrax” to it with Tara. “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You waterboarded my girlfriend. Prepare to die.” That’s right, they waterboarded a chick in this movie. How…topical.

I think the one thing I can honestly say I loved about this movie, was the lengths it went to to make it clear that the heroes of this story–real men–respect women. In their world, women are not to be abused or put down, to their faces or behind their backs. The misogynists in this movie were clearly the bad guys. They were depicted as being despicable and NOT MEN. In fact, Stallone’s character even hangs a lampshade on it at one point. This kind of movie is the last place I would have expected to find a “respect women” message, so kudos to Stallone.

But there were some averted man movie tropes, too. Most notably, Our Hero (Stallone’s character) did not, at anytime, attempt to put the moves on the hot chick he overthrew a government to rescue. He hugged her. That’s right, hugged her. Like he was her dad, or something. OK, he’s old enough to be her dad, but still: He’s the hero, and the hero snoggs the girl. Also, there were no naked chicks or sex. None. Nada. I don’t think there was even any kissing at all. But it was made clear that these guys are ladies’ men, because the heterosexuality of the men in man movies must never be in question. Nevertheless, I have to say it was at once disorienting and refreshing to have an absence of naked chicks in a movie targeted at the testosterone crowd. So, I wasn’t always able to predict exactly what would happen in this movie–and that was refreshing, too. Otherwise, it really was pretty predictable.

This must be how guys feel watching a chick flick.

I’d give The Expendables three stars out of five, and that third star is for the anti-misogyny message. Ladies, take your boyfriends/husbands to this one and score yourselves a few points.