Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of other people have written a whole bunch of stuff about this  movie, so what else do I think I have to offer? Have to admit I was looking forward to this movie a lot. I really enjoy Jason Statham movies for a start: The Transporter and Crank franchises may be cheesy but they’re superbly cheesy. When Statham attaches high voltage current to his nipples to keep him going you can’t keep a straight face. And he delivers the one-liners perfectly.

And he’s not even the best thing about the movie. There’s Terry Crews from Everybody Hates Chris and the Old Spice spoof ads, another big guy who knows how to handle the laughs. Plus the big hitters: Sly, Dolph, Rourke, Jet Li, Eric Roberts and cameo roles for Bruce Willis and Arnie.

So this was going to be a ‘one-to-watch’ for action fans, whatever the reviews said. And the fact it was written-directed by Stallone added just a little bit of auteur quality to the whole project. But the fact that this is Stallone’s baby is also its downfall. If it had been handled by the Neveldine/Taylor director package responsible for the Crank flicks it might have played to its laughs a little bit better.

Because, despite all the necessarily clichéd elements, Sly’s turgid script lets it down. If you managed to sit through last year’s Rambo 4 you’ll be well acquainted with Sly’s wordbook. Or lack thereof. Hardmen in killing films have come a long way since John Rambo first monosyllabled his way into the jungle. Now the wisecracks are supposed to zing like the bullets. But Sly’s don’t seem to be subtle enough – even with the help of co-script-writer David Callahan.

The elements are there – the ridiculous character names like Lee Christmas (Statham), Yin Yang (Li) and Hale Caesar (Crews) gift plenty of lines, but Sly doesn’t seem to know how to deliver them. Even Rourke’s “There goes Christmas” fails to ignite. The big onscreen showdown between Bruce, Sly and Arnie also fails to deliver as Sly uses it as a ham-fisted attempt to satirize Arnie’s political career.

And these days the post-heart attack Schwarzenegger looks considerably less buff than Stallone, who seems to have ingested a vat of human growth hormone over the last few years and looks not unlike a prehistoric tree trunk. And Dolph, who, even in this company, and despite the fact he must be at least 80 years old, still looks like a colossus.

Quite a few cast members are wasted. There’s ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, who, for some reason, is the only character not to swear. Ultimate Fighting champ Randy Couture could have stayed at home, so little is done with his character. But by far the worst waste is Mickey Rourke, as Tool, is a biker-tatooist who used to be a part of the crew but no longer comes with them on missions. This is shame as Rourke is pretty much the only proper actor in the cast, unless you count Eric Roberts as the rogue American agent whose rise to power goes largely unexplained.

And so, we come to the plot. Here again, it’s ridiculous enough to beg a cracker of a script. Bruce asks Sly and his band of mercenaries to invade Vilena, an island country of 6,000 people, and kill its tin pot leader, General Graza, played with less than his usual swagger by Dexter and Oz (you get evxtra kulturpop points for being an Oz fan, readers) veteran David Zayas. That’s it, really.Forgetting the fact that we’re supposed to believe in a country the size of your average village, add a treacherous Dolph, a suitably slimy Eric Roberts (another actor really crying out for a hammier script), and a seaplane and it’s pretty much down to the firepower from then on.

Fortunately, the big bangs don’t disappoint. From the opening of the movie where Dolph vaporizes a gaggle of Somali pirates with some kind of rocket-propelled rifle, you know that The Expendables is going to deliver on the gore. And they’re not quiet about it. The biggest laugh in the film comes when Terry Crews opens up on the General’s men with a high velocity shotgun that pretty much splatters them across the screen.

And there’s plenty of neck breaking and limb dislocating. There’s a fun scene where Jet Li takes on Dolph, besting him when he forces him into a ‘maximum headroom’ enclosure and forcing the Swedish Goliath to bend down. And Li manages to look suitably grumpy throughout, delivering his lines no worse than Dolph or Sly.

Statham powers through the film as a manic knife expert, and, although a lot of people seem to loathe him, The Expendables would be pretty flat without his presence. Even Eric Roberts isn’t given the space needed to deliver the cartoon evil he excels at.

It probably sounds like I disliked the movie: I didn’t. It’s very watchable, the action sequences are superb and the spluts are amazing and inventive. Rarely have people exploded in such continuously amusing fashion. But it could have been so much more, given its ingredients. This was an opportunity to define the action genre with an ensemble cast that might not be matched for a decade. But the plodding dialogue holds it back where it could have soared.