Top Five: Men needed for The Expendables 3

You want ‘Young Blood’, Sly?  Here’s your man.  If for some reason you haven’t seen this guy’s movies, and that’s understandable since he hasn’t filmed a Western movie yet, stop reading.  Go watch Ong Bak immediately.  Or Tom Yum Goong.  Having done that, recognise the foundations of a true superstar well within league of Bruce Lee and Jean Claude Van Damme.  He has no doubt considered the big move West, because he has supposedly been brushing up on his English.  All he needs is the opportunity.  When you watch Tony Jaa fight, you buy wholeheartedly the idea of him beating the absolute shit out of 50 men at once.  No wires (Jet Li), no floormops (Jackie Chan).  Just plain charismatic brutal skill.  This guy was doing ‘The Raid’ fight scenes years before that movie was conceived.

Stripes Earned: Ong Bak series, The Protector, Best screen fighter since Jean Claude Van Damme

Stallone said the following in 2011, when he hinted that he wanted Biehn in The Expendables 2: “I like using people that had a moment and then maybe have fallen on some hard times and give them another shot. So we’re always looking for actors like Michael Biehn and Michael Pare. I like those kinds of guys. Someone did it for me and I like to see if I can do it for them.”.  A cool and considerate gesture from Sly, sincere.  Biehn replied with a blunt: “I don’t need Sylvester Stallone to revive my career”.  Well, Michael, I beg to differ.  Because whether or not you want to admit it, you’re in Seagal territory, your recent movies have been shit.  The Divide being a particularly rancid turd.  And for a guy as cool as Hicks, that just ain’t right.  Come on, this is Kyle Reese we’re talking about.  A guy who was denied a rightful position in Hollywood in the 90’s while airheads like Keanu Reeves and Ben Affleck tortured us.

Stripes Earned:  The Terminator, Aliens, The Rock, Tombstone, Navy Seals

You want ‘more humor’, Sly?  Well here’s your man!  Eddie is, as of typing this, currently suffering through the shooting of the TV pilot for Beverly Hills Cop.  Poor guy.  He deserves better.  He needs a comeback to where he started – violent, darkly comedic action.  Make no mistake, Murphy absolutely belongs in this sub-genre.  48 Hrs, Beverly Hills Cop?  Straight to the front (almost) of the fucking line.  Like I said in an earlier entry, I don’t agree with the intention of making the third movie ‘funnier’, because the humor in the second was the weakest part of it.  If they’re not going to do it properly, don’t do it at all.  Eddie Murphy can certainly do it properly.  Can you imagine Eddie Murphy giving Gunner Jensen a verbal dressing down?  I dunno, that would require a lot of ‘FUCK’s’, and we didn’t hear too many of those in the last movie now, did we? (Did we hear any?!).

Now if this doesn’t happen, you can probably write the film off.  It probably means Lerner, greedy fuck, has opted to cast a bunch of fags and shoot a PG-13 mess.  Anyway, Simon says he’s in the joint, and won’t be released ’till the 19th of July.  The movie begins shooting in August.  It’s going to be tight.  They better get him, even if it means busting him out, EX2 style.  For The Expendables 2, I really hoped we’d see a return of the super villain, the bad guy martial artist who’d take on all the good guys at once at the end, it kinda happened in the first movie when Li/Statham had to double-team Daniels to take him out.  I’d hoped that would happen with JCVD.  It didn’t.  I want to see it happen with Snipes in the third movie.  Obviously, that means making him the villain.  It’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone effectively direct Wesley in a fight scene.  Now is the time, with this opportunity.  We need some Simon Phoenix.  Or… how about an opening scene with The Expendables busting Snipes out of a jail?  Wink, nudge?

And now, it’s time to pipe-dream and talk about God himself.  Mel Gibson is, quite frankly, the greatest man who ever lived.  Greater than Schwarzenegger.  Greater than Stallone.  Greater than them all.  His is learned, wise, charismatic, genuine and skilled.  His cockroach haters are the opposite.  In fact, I think that Mel might even be too good for this franchise.  It’s quite possible that ‘GOD’ gets asked and turns it down.  If he does, I respect his decision, because other humans cannot think on the same level as Mel Gibson.  It would be like ants trying to rationalise the actions of a man.  Mind you, he signed up to one of those Machete movies…  But you want to talk about deserving a role?  If Martin Riggs or Mad fucking Max himself can’t get into an oldschool action movie, something is seriously fucked up.  Probably Avi Lerner.  And if not to act, then have Mel Direct.  Apocalypto and Braveheart are shit-your-seat exercises of unfathomable awesomeness.  I was actually going to list Mel 5 times, just for fun.