Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson, Jason Statham
The hotly-anticipated third part in the Expendables franchise delivers more of the same explosions, quips and 80's action movie references but proves something you'd think wouldn't apply to films like this. Bigger isn't always better. The huge cast may make for one of the most awesome movie posters I've ever seen, but so many people means that the battle scenes, of which there are many, are messy and some of newer Expendables are pushed out of the way (save for a promising Ronda Rousey and Antonio Banderas who is hands down the best thing in the movie) and the usually very entertaining Terry Crews takes a backseat. There's still some of the, now slightly tempered, mania to be had though and Mel Gibson shows some great skills in playing the villain and reliving his Lethal Weapon days as an arms dealer and ex-Expendable the team are tasked with taking down.
Hector And The Search For Happiness (2014, Dir. Peter Chelsom, UK/Canada/Germany/South Africa) ***
On the one hand, Hector succeeds as being a piece of satisfying fluff on a purely emotional level but is, at the end of the day, one in this line of inconsequential "journey to find self" films that pop up every once in a while (it hasn't even been that long since The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty (2013), for example). Simon Pegg stars as an unsatisfied psychiatrist who travels the world to find out what makes someone happy. It's not really a question to be answered, the locales are at times a little too simplified (especially his trip to "Africa"...not a specific country, just "Africa") and you wonder why a man who derives some pleasure from his well-paying job and happens to be married to Rosamund Pike is so unsatisfied (not unhappy, per se, which is different) with his lot. Maybe he just needed a holiday, but it's a somewhat enjoyable trip. Emptier than it claims to be, but enjoyable. Appearances also from the likes of Toni Collette, Christopher Plummer, Jean Reno and Stellan Skarsgård.
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