Metacritic reviews

It is forgettable fluff, but well-delivered, and it suggests that they'll be able to keep making these as long as they can prop up the cast, and with the younger generation making a decent showing this time out, they may even be able to hand it off when the time comes.

The Expendables 3 marks a sizeable improvement on the first two outings.

Hughes and cinematographer Peter Menzies Jr. handle the assignment skillfully enough, but without much imagination, sticking to a conventional action style that is more about the quantity of explosions than nuances of execution.

You can’t help but wonder if some important people in boardrooms watched the last two Expendables films and, between sips of mineral water, diligently noted all the ways in which the third might be made slicker and more polished, without realising the franchise’s doughy unslickness was the wellspring of its charm.

[A] blundering jackhammer of a film.

The Expendables 3 is silly and overblown, yes, and it could definitely do without Antonio Banderas‘ motor-mouth routine (not to mention an out-of-nowhere reference to Benghazi), but it's less silly and overblown than “The Expendables 2,” for whatever that's worth.

Thank the gods of war for Antonio Banderas, who single-handedly steals (and almost saves) the show as a loquacious assassin.

What the movie ultimately demonstrates is that the sum total is less than the individual parts when you add together Rocky, the Terminator, Indiana Jones, Mad Max, Blade, Zorro, Hercules, and the Transporter.

For all the brawn on display, the film never slows down to take in the thrill and talent of hand-to-hand combat.

This is the sort of numbskull non-entertainment that considers it worthwhile to fly in a martial-arts superstar like Jet Li and have him sit around firing a machine gun, pausing every so often to deliver the most awkward line readings of his career.