The “aging action hero” trend that is all the rage today is a blessing and a curse for me. I grew up watching most of these guys in the ’80s, so it’s great to see the action stars of my youth still going strong today. That said, many of the films they make today leave much to be desired in terms overall quality, often heavily relying on the name recognition of the star as a strategy for success. Coming into my screening of Skin Trade, I had concerns. A good action film is challenging to make under the best of circumstances, but with an independent budget, that challenge is exponentially greater. Plus, the film’s star, Dolph Lundgren, might have his roots in old school action films (The Punisher, Universal Soldier), but he has neither the name recognition nor the resume to carry a film like Stallone or Schwarzenegger.

In Skin Trade, Lundgren plays Nick Cassidy, a New Jersey detective on the hunt for Serbian crime lord Viktor Dragovic (Ron Perlman). Dragovic and his four sons run a massive human trafficking ring out of Bangkok. When Nick kills one of Dragovic’s sons, the mobster retaliates by killing Nick’s wife and daughter. With nothing left to live for and nothing to lose, Nick travels to Thailand to seek revenge.

It’s there Nick meets Tony Vitayakul (Tony Jaa), a Bangkok cop looking to bust up the same ring. Nick and Tony’s early encounters aren’t very friendly, though, and making matters more difficult for them is FBI Agent Eddie Reed (Michael Jai White). Reed is sent to Thailand to retrieve the vengeful Nick, but the agent might have ulterior motives of his own.

My concerns, for the most part, were unfounded. Skin Trade, from director Ekachai Uekrongtham, is a solid action flick that does a good job blending old and new styles of action while sticking to the fundamentals of the genre.

From the (old) West comes that ’80s style of shoot ’em up/run ’em down/beat ’em up action, including an obligatory (yet still effective) scene in a shipyard at nighttime. Lundgren, no less barrel-chested at 57 than he was at 27, is in his element here. He’s a cop with a singular focus who can run, fight, and shoot. Once his family is killed he becomes the vengeful anti-hero, a construct that is the stuff of ’80s classics. Top it off with a gruff police captain played by action veteran Peter “Robocop” Weller and it’s a fine homage.

From the (new) East comes Jaa and that modern style of fast-paced, up-close martial arts combat. Jaa’s opening gambit is a great one-against-many fight sequence in one room that ends the way most American action films won’t but many Asian ones do. Satisfying to watch, particularly early in the film, though I won’t spoil it with specifics. Also keeping with Asian action themes is a grittier, more exploitative tale than many western counterparts would tell.

On their own, these two heroes are entertaining. Once they get together—deep into the film and in no way via an action equivalent of a meet-cute—they are terrific. They have a chemistry between them that works, their styles complement each other without trying too hard, and, with nearly a foot difference in height between them, they’re an amusing duo.

From a technical perspective, director Uekrongtham and editor Victor Du Bois do a very good job staging, framing, shooting, and cutting the film to maximize their leads’ strengths while minimizing the effects of the stars’ ages.

That aside, two things greatly hinder the film from being the next great action find (a la last year’s John Wick). The first is the script. Lundgren co-wrote the screenplay with Gabriel Dowrick and Steven Elder, neither of whom have a feature screenwriting credit to their name prior to this. It shows. While the trio understand how to properly construct and combine the contrasting action styles, the weak plot and clunky dialogue suggest they all watched a lot of action movies and simply mimicked.

The film’s other hinderance is its villain. He’s straight out of central casting with no injection of originality whatsoever. Perlman—who got his start in the ’80s—does the best he can with the character (and his kind of Slavic accent), but the veteran actor has very little to work with.

I had a lot of fun watching Skin Trade, and if they make a sequel where Lundgren and Jaa are in the film together from the beginning, I’m buying tickets.

Sylvester Stallone and his band of aging muscle-buddies probably had a blast making The Expendables 3, the latest by-product of Sly trying to help his pals out with a nice little payday in the twilight of their careers. Audiences get the wrong end of the deal, however, as the film is a messy action schlock that symbolizes the death knell for a franchise that’s worn out its welcome. The shameless appeal of the first Expendables–old action stars from the ’80s and ’90s teaming up to form a middle-aged super team–has long-since lost its sizzle, and Sly knows it: Here, he’s brought in a group of hot young actors into the fold to give the franchise a much-needed shot of vigor, but to no avail. Cursed by its PG-13 rating, The Expendables has lost too much blood (literally) and liveliness.

The film opens with Stallone’s Barney Ross leading his team of globe-trotting, government employed mercenaries (including series vets Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, and Jason Statham) on a rescue mission. Doctor Death (Wesley Snipes), a long lost teammate and friend of Barney’s, is being transported on a maximum security locomotive and, using a helicopter, big guns, and bigger balls, the Expendables manage to free the knife-savvy, old-school killer. The sequence pales in comparison to the train action scenes in Skyfall and Fast Five. Hell, even Toy Story 3 puts it to shame. But sadly, despite its mediocrity, the explosive train sequence winds up being the most entertaining set piece in the film. In other words, it’s all downhill from here.

Doctor Death, who’s been imprisoned for 8 years, has a little trouble integrating himself into the group, as all his old teammates (save for Barney) have been replaced. He trades barbs with Statham’s Lee Christmas, boastfully referring to himself as “the knife before Christmas” (hardy-har-har). Snipes’ snappy braggadocio wears thin quickly. No matter, though, because his storyline gets booted to the background for the remainder of the film. Let’s be honest; the writers just needed to get Snipes into the fray somehow so that he could kick and punch and jump off of high things.

Following Doctor Death’s recruitment, the Expendables carry out a routine mission that goes South when Barney spots Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson), an old nemesis he thought dead. Deeming his team too old and beat-up to continue doing the government’s dirty work, Barney disbands them and subs in a younger team of tech-savvy killers played by UFC champ Ronda Rousey, boxing champ Victor Ortiz, and handsome newbies Glen Powell and Kellan Lutz. Call them “Team Viagra”. When the new team flubs their mission and are apprehended by Stonebanks, Barney and the old-fart-ables band together to rescue the young blood.

The film upholds the franchise tradition of delivering a ridiculously beefy cast: series mainstays Terry Crews and Jet Li return; Antonio Banderas pops up in an unintentionally grating role as a chatty, wannabe Expendable; Kelsey Grammar plays a gruff old-timer who helps Barney recruit the kids; Harrison Ford plays Barney’s government boss; and, of course, good ol’ Arnold makes an inexplicable appearance. Grammar brings the film down to earth (in a good way) in his brief appearance, and Gibson exhibits the same entertaining mega-villain gusto he brought to the table in Machete Kills, but no one else impresses.

The series is desperate to create snappy new one-liners like Sly and Ah-nold’s greatest hits (“Get to de choppa!” gets a shout-out), but they’re all duds. What’s worse, each new, lame catchphrase gets repeated for no reason at all. For instance, in an early scene, real-life badass Rousey beats up some D-bags in a club. Upon disposing of the jerks, she looks down and growls “Men” in a faux-feminist scoff. Later in the film, she beats up another jerk, looks down at him, and growls, “MEN”. It’s the same exact joke, repeated in the same context, for no reason. These demonstrations of the law of diminishing returns are actually a good metaphor for the Expendables franchise as a whole.

The charm of the first Expendables was its transparency; the first film was a blatant invitation to indulge in famous tough guys kicking ass and making things go boom. It was uninhibited fun, and the fact that the script was poorly written meant little in the grand scheme of things. It was fetishistic, kill-’em-all ecstasy. Expendables 3 is no fun, with its muted colors and piles of grey rubble adding to the numbing effect of the nonsensical action. Director Patrick Hughes shot most of the film in Bulgaria, and you can tell; the film is meant to take place in several locations across the globe, but none of them look authentic. The locales all sort of mush together, much like how the myriad stars mush together and the endless, forgettable kills mush together. 126 minutes of action movie mush is hard to keep down. More like, “The Indedibles”.

The Expedables 3 trailer