By Jason Apuzzo. Someone needs to get to Sly Stallone and tell him to stop digging.
On Sly’s Twitter account from three days ago, he indicated that he wants Bruce Willis playing a “super villain” in Expendables 2.
Problem: In The Expendables Willis played a CIA front man who goes by the name ‘Mr. Church.’ [By the way, isn’t the name a little interesting there?] So it’s apparently the CIA guy again who gets to become the “super villain” in Sly’s next Expendables film.
Memo to Sly: since you’re such a patriotic guy, who believes that “America apologizes too much,” maybe the “super villain” in your next film could be … a terrorist? Or Kim Jong Il? Or one of Castro’s thugs? Or Chinese communists? Instead of the American CIA operative, again. Just a thought.
Regular Libertas readers know I haven’t been falling for this ‘Stallone has wrapped himself in a flag of patriotism’ nonsense that’s been coming from certain quarters of the media recently. The Expendables is a nasty hit-job on the CIA, pure and simple. Now we’re getting a sense of just how committed Stallone is to this anti-CIA plotline as a cornerstone for his new, mini-franchise – despite his unconvincing denials to that effect.
On the box office front, by the way, Stallone’s film slipped to third place over the weekend, against weak competition. Oh, and three weeks in Expendables still isn’t performing as well as Salt (compare the two films here and here), as Salt had made about $9 million more by its third week.
I promise to stop posting on this Salt-Expendables comparison, because it’s becoming quite obvious who’s coming out on top here.
Posted on August 30th, 2010 at 11:52am.
The cynic in me wonders if Stallone is playing us all for fools. Liberals aren’t going to go see a movie with a bunch of tough guys that go around blowing up “black and brown people,” as Roger Moore from Frankly My Dear stated, so maybe to sell the movie to someone, Stallone is portraying it as a return to the great American tough guy. I bought into that somewhat and said so in my review (http://mondaymorningmovies.wordpress.com/) but it’s impossible not to realize that the CIA is the real villain in the movie and that he is taking a shot at the intelligence agency. The insult is certainly harsher than, say, the CIA in the Bourne trilogy. Combined with the little “shot” Stallone took at illegal immigration foes in Rocky Balboa and you have to start wondering what exactly he does like about America. I’m not questioning his patriotism, just his truthfulness. Can’t claim America apologizes too much and then portray a reason they should apologize.
Still, I think the movie worked marginally well, despite the shot it took at the CIA, largely because it didn’t become preachy. I can stand other points of views, even make believe reality, so long as it doesn’t become a sidebar about the “American disease.” But I agree that it didn’t surpass Salt in quality or likability.
I appreciate your thoughts on this, Shin. I’m basically in agreement with you here. Personally I’d just like Stallone to do a little bit more to earn this ‘patriot’ treatment he’s getting, when other people do more pro-American films and get ignored.
Haven’t seen The Expendables yet, but watched his behind the scenes documentary on TV. While I can’t comment on your problems with the script, Stallone sure seems to come across as the Rocky-like, rugged individual, take personal responsibility type of guy I, as a Libertarian, admires.
Thanks for commenting, Vindex. Please do, though, go back a bit and follow the controversy on this film on our site – because we’ve dedicated a lot of time to it here. The issue I have is not with Stallone personally, but with what’s depicted in his film.
Having just watched ‘The Expendables’, what disappointed me most greatly was that Stallone did in this movie what he vowed never to do in ‘John Rambo’. Read his own words below. It truly pains me to know that the man behind ‘Rocky Balboa’, a movie I loved, which changed my life in some ways, is a hypocrite.
>> The original premise (for Rambo) was met with objections by certain powerful personalities in the studio because of the inherent violence. I told them to water this down to make a sugar free war movie, something that is diluted would be a true disservice to the millions of slaughtered Burmese. Then it was suggested that the tone of the film should be more about corruption within the system. For example, the ubiquitous corrupt CIA official or a film that deals with a “caper”, such as Rambo goes to Burma and finds Americans selling plutonium rods to the enemy or some other viral horse crap. I truly hate “caper” movies. I think if I ever developed a cancer, it’ll be a caper tumor lodged at the back of my brain. So, I said to the studio, “What’s wrong with doing a film about man’s inhumanity to man and sometimes God’s indifference to his loyal followers?” To their credit, they said, “Go for it.”
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/35286
Thank you for pointing this out, VW. I might bring this up in a future post. He’s really being quite hypocritical, then, isn’t he?
In fact, the more I think about this, I may make a full post out of this, VW – and I’ll make sure to credit you with pointing this out. Nice work.
I was quite willing to extend him the benefit of a doubt, too, until I saw his twitter post on this site, which destroyed whatever remaining goodwill and respect I had for him. Fact is, very few movie stars of his caliber is willing to interact with fans to the degree seen in his interview series for Ain’t It Cool News. His answers to fan questions seemed sincere and humble. And then he pulls a bait and switch like this…..
Yeah, it’s really a disappointment. Let me tell you: Hollywood corrupts people. I don’t care whether they call themselves ‘conservatives,’ ‘liberals,’ whatever. When people feel their careers slipping away, and the attention fading from them, you’d be amazed what they’ll do. Stallone isn’t the first to succumb to this, and he won’t be the last. This is one of the reasons we focus so much on independent film on our site. I never quite trust the Hollywood people, frankly.