Expend4bles
Lionsgate | Release Date: September 22, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
30
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
11
Negative:
19
Watch Now
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSep 21, 2023
It took the franchise four tries, but with Expend4bles, they’ve finally made a solid and consistently effective action movie. Read full review
63
Washington PostMark JenkinsSep 21, 2023
The movie is unsurprising and not especially ambitious, but it’s agile enough to vault over most of its flaws. Read full review
61
Paste MagazineJesse HassengerSep 26, 2023
If Stallone has gone through long stretches of unrelatability in his worst movies, The Expendables 4 does bring him back him down to the common man with its flashes of dorky buddy-movie glee: Hey, I like Jason Statham too! Read full review
58
Original-CinJim SlotekSep 21, 2023
Expend4bles is an endless pyro/bang-bang show, with actors not mainly known for their acting (also including 50 Cent and UFC champion Randy Couture), sticking to the story as well as they can. Read full review
50
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenSep 25, 2023
The gunplay is primary though there are some obligatory scenes of martial arts fights. Read full review
50
PolygonJoshua RiveraSep 21, 2023
The Expendables movies had one trick, and that trick has been played out. Director Scott Waugh has to resort to something else with Expend4bles: finally trying to turn one of these projects into a good action movie. Read full review
50
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 21, 2023
These days, it’s almost refreshing to see a big dumb garbage sequel that doesn’t have any other agend4. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMatthew MonagleSep 26, 2023
We may live in a golden era of action steamers and stunt choreographers-turned-filmmakers, but Expend4bles never learns to embrace its own limitations. It strains for spectacle and only intermittently delivers on its actual strengths. Read full review
40
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeSep 25, 2023
Watching the cast of Expend4bles, the latest instalment of the thunderously dumb veteran mercenary franchise, sweating and straining their way through the “casual banter” section of the screenplay is like watching contestants on The World’s Strongest Man attempting to climb a ladder while carrying a tractor tyre. It’s painful. Read full review
40
The New York TimesAmy NicholsonSep 21, 2023
This all-star mercenary squadron composed of ’80s-to-aughts brutes is the cinematic equivalent to Slash’s Snakepit, a supergroup throwback to an era when men were meatheads and we in the audience merrily cheered them on. Read full review
40
EmpireIan FreerSep 21, 2023
A slight improvement on Expendables 3, Expend4bles still works better as character posters than a movie you have to actually sit through. To paraphrase the tag line, old blood meets new blood equals tired blood. Read full review
40
The IndependentClarisse LoughreySep 21, 2023
Apologetic sequel brings back franchise veterans Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren and ups the violence from ‘Expendables 3’ – but that’s not enough. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 21, 2023
Jason Statham is the only bit of genuine oomph in a tired tale whose digital effects could have been shot on an iPhone. Read full review
40
We Got This CoveredScott CampbellSep 21, 2023
The Expendables is far from high art, but it’s safe to say the saga has never hit a lower point than it has here, a crushing disappointment for anyone genuinely hoping for the return to form that was promised and demanded. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshSep 21, 2023
The action is messy, the geography indiscernible, and a few shots seem stitched together with but a single pixel and a prayer. Read full review
35
CNNBrian LowrySep 22, 2023
Again rated R after softening the rougher edges the last time, the body count is certainly off-the-charts high, but the action – under the guidance of stunt coordinator-turned-director Scott Waugh (“Need for Speed”) – is about as generic as these things get. Read full review
35
The Daily BeastNick SchagerSep 21, 2023
Merely more of the same gung-ho corniness, delivered with a chintziness and wink-wink self-consciousness that undercuts its aggro appeal. Read full review
30
SlashfilmWitney SeiboldSep 21, 2023
Expend4bles may be the best of the series. This is not a compliment to Waugh's film, but a mere note on how badly this series of films has fared over the last 13 years. These are useless, badly written gimmick films whose gimmicks never bore fruit. As the title implies, the flick is expendable. Or perhaps expend4ble. Read More: https://www.slashfilm.com/1399641/expendables-4-review/ Read full review
30
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 21, 2023
This is true 21st-century trash: a movie in which the action itself is expendable. Read full review
30
IGNSimon ThompsonSep 21, 2023
Expend4bles is a crushing disappointment that lacks any of the nostalgia, charisma, and charm that made the franchise appealing in the first place. Perhaps worst of all, this failed mission is boring. There is no pleasure taken in saying this once highly entertaining action franchise is well past its AARPrime. It would have been great to have rounded the series off with a fifth entry, but after this flat and uninspired effort, the franchise doesn’t deserve that last hoorah. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckSep 21, 2023
Expend4bles — the number is in the middle of the word, get it? — represents a nadir for a series that began as an entertainingly nostalgic throwback to old-school action movies and the square-jawed muscle men who starred in them. Read full review
25
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 26, 2023
Expend4bles feels like a movie that never should have been made for a franchise that, having lain dormant for nine years, didn’t deserve a resurrection. Read full review
25
RogerEbert.comPeter SobczynskiSep 22, 2023
There are many points where Expend4bles feels less like a legitimate continuation to a franchise that has been quite profitable to many involved and more like a cheapo television pilot that was mercifully scuttled before it could air. Read full review
25
Movie NationRoger MooreSep 21, 2023
The action beats have a nonsensical excitement to them. The chases are competently shot and edited and the fight scenes still play. But it’s all so weary and overfamiliar, giving one the sense that many involved stopped trying on the first take or third rewrite. It’s just gassed. Read full review
25
ColliderChase HutchinsonSep 21, 2023
The occasional moment of machine gun motorcycle jousting aside, it is a largely dull and dreary experience that never feels like it is ever anything more than a hollow mimicry of far better action works of the past. Read full review
25
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckSep 21, 2023
The dialogue is head-spinningly mundane. The flow of testosterone is, well, head-spinning. Read full review
20
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsSep 22, 2023
You watch this film not so much in anger, but with the shrugging, pitiful sense that each of its stars will be able to buy a new saloon car, or have their pool retiled. Read full review
20
TheWrapTomris LafflySep 22, 2023
The first thing you need to know about Expendables 4 is that its studio somehow made the grating decision to fashion its title as Expend4ble. It’s a needless spelling challenge for a dull and vulgar flick with a lot of empty-calories muscle, but little-to-no skill or fun to spare. Read full review
20
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 21, 2023
How can it be possible that nine years have passed since the previous instalment, yet every facet of this one feels so woefully first-draft? Expend4bles: wh4t a lo4d of cr4p. Read full review
20
Total FilmJames MottramSep 21, 2023
Sly and Statham are always watchable – not least when the latter takes a job as security for an odious social media influencer. But they can’t save this mission from going painfully pear-shaped. Read full review
16
The A.V. ClubCourtney HowardSep 21, 2023
For a property that not only held unlimited potential for sequels galore, but also spin-offs (an all-female Expendables was briefly bandied about), it’s disheartening to see it face such creative bankruptcy. That’s not to say that, in the future, the right marriage of innovative directors and screenwriters can’t revive this flailing corpse and return it to its former glory. Unfortunately, recruiting those miracle workers seems more difficult than any mission any Expendable ever faced. Read full review
15
The Film VerdictAlonso DuraldeSep 21, 2023
The idea behind the series has always had potential — round up some beloved action stars of yesteryear and give them one more chance to ply their trade — but the expected fun has never materialized, with this latest entry lacking any sense of urgency, wit, or grace. Read full review
13
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzSep 21, 2023
The problem is that for all its R-rated ambitions, none of the kills in Expend4bles is particularly inventive, memorable, or even base-level fun. For a movie centred on the cathartic pleasures of mercenary murder, the only death wish that audiences will walk away muttering is one directed straight at the screen. Read full review
More From This Movie

30 Critic Reviews

tbd User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL