Running 11 minutes longer, it's superior, Sly says, to what we saw in theaters.
I've gotta be honest: This is my third viewing of "The Expendables," and other than the awful power ballad that now hangs atop the opening credits, I can't say I noticed marked differences. (Then again, I'm not a movie memorizer. I see way too many movies nowadays to do that.)
But I do know that whether regular or extra-crispy, "The Expendables" is still a rock-solid, rock-stupid celebration of '80s action overload, draping nearly every hulking VHS idol of the era (Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke) with a couple from the DVD revolution (Jason Statham, Jet Li) and the WWE (Steve Austin, Randy Couture), plus cameos from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis as icing on the (beef)cake.
New to this edition is "Baywatch" refugee David Chokachi hosting a fluffy-as-cotton-candy Spike TV special, where he asks the stars such deep, probing questions as, "What does it mean to be expendable?" You also get a music video of the aforementioned awful power ballad, exhibiting a strange, world-music veneer.
The best extra of all is ported over from the original Blu-ray release: "Inferno," a feature-length documentary of the making of "The Expendables." No studio-forced bit of PR puffery, this is an honest-to-God great doc that shows Stallone is a much smarter man than he allows himself to be onscreen. —Rod Lott
