It's a mercenary kind of summer, with The Losers, The Expendables, and The A-Team all ripsnorting out of the studio gates with soldiers of fortune in the saddle. But of those three, there is a certain fraternal bond shared between The Expendables and The A-Team in particular -- the kind of weird emotional ping that twins experience when something happens to one or the other, even miles away. Here, in Sylvester Stallone's paramilitary adventure and Joe Carnahan's pop-culture recycling binge, we have a perfect storm of '80s recidivism and '10s accessibility. And it's worth studying the DNA samples handed over (via this week's A-Team and Expendables trailers) to determine which film promises the purer thrill. Your results may vary -- read on to find out.
[All measures gauged on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being mercenary-flick nirvana.]
· Nostalgia Quotient
The combined genre experience of the Expendables trailer's cast is 158 years, spanning such franchises as Rocky, Rambo, Die Hard, The Terminator, The Transporter, and Crank. The A-Team's quartet has nothing like that, though one look at those characters' names falling into place onscreen (not unlike the actors' surnames in Expendables) -- not to mention the look at B.A. Baracus's van (which is soon totaled in a nicely ironic touch) -- goes a long way for the 30-something crowd that will jump even higher at the nostalgic implications.
The Expendables: 7
The A-Team: 8
· Sex Quotient
The A-Team has the starlet in Jessica Biel, who gets the earlier screen glimpse and the way higher-profile kiss (with Bradley Cooper). But Expendables actress Giselle Itié gets the dangerous circumstances as the gang's "contact": She's been kidnapped (and look how she glistens in her dungeon) by insurgents who want to "keel thees Amereecan diseeeeease!" Plus she gets more lines than Biel, and one can only imagine what ludicrous plot device enables the kiss Itié shares with Jason Statham while a country's political future teeters in the explodey balance. That's hot.
The Expendables: 6
The A-Team: 5
· Testosterone Quotient
This one's not even close: The Expendables has biceps, The A-Team has wiles. The Expendables has sneers and grunts, The A-Team has smirks and zingers. The Expendables has masculine American duty, The A-Team has a gang of war veterans skedaddling off the reservation. The Expendables has hand-to-hand combat. The A-Team has Murdoch trying to jump-start an ambulance with a defibrillator. Even the body art is a wash: A heavily inked Stallone gets his orders from Mickey Rourke in a tattoo studio; the best B.A. Baracus can do are a couple knuckle stamps. Pathetic.
The Expendables: 9
The A-Team: 5
· Mission Quotient
Another wash. What's harder: Penetrating a South American military cabal or outmaneuvering Patrick Wilson? Come to think of it, what the hell is the A-Team's mission? (Apart from making show creator Steven J. Cannell even wealthier, that is.)
The Expendables: 7
The A-Team: 4
· Metrosexuality Quotient
If you want to build longevity in 2010, you've got to look beyond the quadrants and make a crossover impression. And when it comes to stylish, well-coiffed and dignified gentlemen who can break a mercenary wankfest out of its genre trap, no one has a better shot than Bradley Cooper as Face. Bruce Willis does clean up all right in his Expendables cameo, but can he rock a robe this smoothly while being wrapped in tractor tires and punched in the face? Or make such shirtless philosophical entreaties with this kind of ease? That would be a "No."
The Expendables: 4
The A-Team: 7
· Explosion Quotient
The A-Team was far and away the explosion leader before the Expendables trailer even arrived on the scene. But now it's got a challenger, with six fiery booms to The Expendables' five. Extra points for The Expendables' seemingly arbitrary placement of explosions in its trailer, which beats The A-Team's more absurdly story-driven set-piece conflagrations. Screw nuance.
The Expendables: 8
The A-Team: 9
· Cast Quotient
Again, for sheer nostalgic, multi-generational, inspired tough-guy casting, you've got to give it up to Stallone for packing in more bruisers per square inch than any film ever attempted. Ambitious! NB: "Rampage" Jackson? Really? He looks like he's going to a freaking Halloween party.
The Expendables: 9
The A-Team: 6
· Filmmaking Quotient
Stallone has more than two decades of action films on A-Team director Joe Carnahan, and the Expendables trailer along demonstrates his alacrity with kinetics on the ground, in the air or wherever else bone-crushing mercenary violence is served. Carnahan's got the far keener eye for character -- the gleam in Liam Neeson's eye, the gravity of the guys getting sent up the river -- that I have no doubt will technically surpass some of the "what just happened" sequences teased here. Never underestimate the veteran, though.
The Expendables: 7
The A-Team: 7
· Eyerolling Quotient
Well, they both break even on their hideous nu-metal montages, and when one of Stallone's counterparts notes that their small, ragtag team has no chance against a ruthless army, don't expect the appropriate answer of, "God, you're right. I'm staying home. Want a beer?" But these actors have spent years immunizing audiences against their textbook absurdity -- you expect it, embrace it, even crave it. The A-Team was playing catch-up from the moment it tried to make Liam Neeson look like George Peppard. And how about that bit featuring Cooper shooting a gun from a tank plunging through the greenscreeniest sky in the history of movies? My seventh-grade yearbook photo background looked better. Please tell me they're fixing that.
The Expendables: -5
The A-Team: -7
TOTALS:
The Expendables: 54
The A-Team: 43
Congratulations to The Expendables! When Jason Statham says you're not going to believe what will happen in the next 10 seconds, it's a metaphor: "You're not going to believe it's not 1988." Believe him.
And the trailers, for reference: