An $800 million franchise that almost destroyed itself returns with the 3 words everyone wants to hear: ‘Strong bloody violence’

When it comes to the worst decisions in the history of blockbuster cinema, the boneheaded call to rebrand a franchise that existed entirely for the purposes of watching a cabal of action stars bludgeon a faceless raft of henchmen into a PG-13 caper definitely ranks among the upper tiers, but we can sleep soundly knowing EXPEND4BLES won’t be making that mistake.

Sylvester Stallone was open in admitting the ball was dropped spectacularly on the last installment when it released a decade ago, and it’s not a coincidence that the threequel is the worst-reviewed and lowest-grossing entry in the entire Expendables saga.

Mercifully, the blood and guts are back in a big way for the latest outing for Barney Ross and his gang of aging mercenaries, with EXPEND4BLES officially rated R for the glorious reasons of “strong/bloody violence throughout, language, and sexual material,” just the way the man upstairs had always intended when it came to bald, burly, and broken old men kicking ass, taking names, and dropping cringeworthy one-liners.

Of course, there’s no guarantees the latest Expendables offering will even be any good, with director Scott Waugh coming off the back of the widely-derided but ridiculously popular Hidden Strike, the Netflix sensation that’s struggling desperately to find anyone willing to give it a good review.

The nostalgia factor, the promise of a return to R-rated form, and Stallone’s swansong could launch it to decent heights at the box office, but we’ll just need to wait until next month to find out.