"The Expendables"

"The Expendables" is an exercise in nostalgia for the bygone era of muscly, macho action films. It is wilfully out of date, like ageing hair rockers who cannot pack away the spandex.

Sylvester Stallone, the director, co-writer and star, has said he set out to make a movie "with brains and brawn, not modern technology". Stallone thus comes across as a kind of Rip Van Winkle, had Van Winkle only been a die-hard Guns 'N Roses fan. "The Expendables" is awash in motorcycles, tattoos, black leather, glistening biceps and big guns. Though the "Rambo" star's suggestion that contemporary movies have lost something of their masculinity and authenticity bears some truth, surely pretending the past two decades never happened is not the answer. Here we are with "The Expendables", which immediately, and without irony, announces its defence of such kitsch with, yes, a fade to a full moon.

Stallone is Barney Ross, the leader of a group of mercenaries who are played by most of the remaining defenders of high body count, testosterone-filled action: the British action star Jason Statham (blade expert Lee Christmas), the Chinese martial artist Jet Li (as Yin Yang), WWE wrestler Steve Austin (Paine), ultimate fighter Randy Couture (Toll Road), former professional American football player and Old Spice commercial actor Terry Crews (as the absurdly named Hale Caesar) and Dolph Lundgren, famously the Russian boxer Ivan Drago from the "Rocky" films (as the loose cannon Gunner Jensen). The "all-star" action line-up also includes cameos from Bruce Willis (as a contractor) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (as a rival mercenary).

"The Expendables" is rated R for strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language. 103 minutes. Now showing at Liberty Theatre and Neptune Theatre.