The New 'Expendables' Movie Adds Megan Fox and Tony Jaa to Its Action-Packed Team

"The Expendables" franchise brought together everything action-movie fans love: gratuitous violence, silly one-liners and an ensemble cast that was a virtual "who's who" of action stars of all genres, including Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jason Statham, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, just to name a few.

After almost a decade, a new trailer for "Expend4bles" reveals Stallone, Statham and Lundgren are returning in a fourth installment of the series, which also brings in some "new blood," including Megan Fox ("Transformers"), 50 Cent ("Get Rich or Die Tryin'") and Andy Garcia ("Ocean's Eleven").

In the new movie, Stallone's Barney Ross has to lead his team of mercenaries in preventing World War III by capturing nuclear weapons that have been taken by terrorists. The weapons are being held on a cargo ship off a coastline somewhere.

Returning along with series regulars Stallone, Statham and Lundgren is Army veteran and UFC champion Randy Couture. Besides Fox, Garcia and 50 Cent, newcomers include actors Jacob Scipio ("The Outpost") and Levy Tran ("MacGyver").

Most exciting for the action are the additions of Iko Uwais ("Mile 22") and Tony Jaa ("Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior"). Uwais is a master and national champion of silat, an Indonesian martial art; he ran his own silat studio in Jakarta. Jaa is an expert in Muay Thai and its predecessor art, Muay Boran, and has always tried to elevate his work to the levels of his lifelong heroes, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li.

If that's not exciting enough for the average reader, here's 15 minutes of Tony Jaa throwing knees and breaking limbs:

OK, so real talk: Anyone sitting down to watch an "Expendables" movie and expecting high-quality, thought-provoking cinema is probably going to be disappointed. No one should expect a really good film from the people who bring us this series. What they will likely get is a movie filled with nonstop action, featuring some of their favorite performers, old and new.

The only difference between "Expend4bles" and the series' previous three movies is that this is the first time Stallone didn't have a hand in writing the screenplay. It could be a major factor in the quality of the movie, considering Stallone wrote the 1977 Academy Award winner for Best Picture, "Rocky."

Stallone also co-wrote the screenplay for 1982's "First Blood" and the first two installments of the award-winning "Creed" series, which even the Razzies (the annual awards for the worst movies made) had to admit was really good.

Even though "Expendables" alumni like Antonio Banderas, Chuck Norris, Wesley Snipes, Jet Li, Harrison Ford and others (the list is really long) won't be returning, there will still be plenty of action to keep viewers shoveling popcorn. There's a reason these movies drew $800 million at the box office (so far).

“Expend4bles” is expected in theaters on Sept. 22, 2023.

-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on LinkedIn.

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