Battle of the Sexes: "The Expendables" versus "Eat Pray Love"

Ladies and gentlemen, step right up and see the great, theatrical Battle of the Sexes. For your viewing pleasure, Hollywood releases two movies this week aimed at one gender and that don’t even pretend to attempt to attract the other gender. In one corner, weighing in at 10,000 pounds of explosives, a gaggle of aging action stars brings the testosterone in “The Expendables.” In the other corner, weighing in at 110 pounds of hormonal angst, Julia Roberts cranks up the estrogen in “Eat Pray Love.”

Round One: The Stories

Testosterone: Sylvester Stallone leads “The Expendables,” a team of bulky, motor-cycle riding, gun toting, tattooed mercenaries who can barely string complete sentences together but are the go-to team when you want someone blown to bits, or perhaps a small nation. Called to a job on the island nation of Vilena, they find a good-old fashioned, ‘80s style, banana republic dictator oppressing his people. Of course, this is the ‘10s and not the ‘80s despite the cast, and the US Constitution has been amended to stipulate that all villains must be American, so we find that a rouge CIA operative (Eric Roberts) is the power behind the Vilena throne. The daughter of the dictator, Sandra (Giselle Itie), wants only her peoples’ happiness and is spunky enough to fight for it. She’s young enough to be Stallone’s daughter - scratch that…granddaughter - but she brings out the chivalry in the band of toughies. She must be rescued, by sending Vilena back into the ocean if necessary.

Estrogen: Julia Roberts plays Liz Gilbert, the real life author of the memoir on which “Eat Pray Love” is based. Angsty as only a wealthy, white New York woman with no responsibilities or real problems can be, Gilbert just knows there’s more to life than her charming and adoring husband and her exciting job as a travel writer. She ditches the husband, much to his dismay (although it’s quite obvious he’s better off without her), but not the job. After an equally unsatisfying fling with a young actor, Gilbert decides to seek wisdom by eating her way through Italy, praying in India, and hanging with a toothless shaman in Bali. Only after plumbing the depths of her soul can she learn to love the sensitive hottie Felipe (Javier Bardem).

Round Two: The Cast

Testosterone: Stallone burned up the screen in the ‘80s in the Rambo and Rocky franchises. He’s joined by his Rocky IV rival, the giant Dolph Lungren, as well as by wrestler Steve “Stone Cold” Austin, and legendary martial arts star Jet Li. Tough guys Jason Statham, Terry Crews, and Randy Couture round out the team. The indescribable Mickey Rourke appears as a tattoo artist philosopher, and gives a shockingly affecting performance. The award “Best Cameo of the Year” goes to Arnold Schwarzenegger in a brief but memorable appearance as a rival mercenary. It’s a dream team of 80s and 90s stars and they put their everything into the roles. As a whole, they’ve had more plastic surgery and, um, enhancements than the women of “Desperate Housewives.” Some of them can’t seem to remember more than a few lines of dialog and a few of them can barely walk, but the old boys still have onscreen swagger. They can fight, or at least be made to appear to do so, and know their way around ridiculously big weapons.

Estrogen: Julia Roberts, the queen of the cinema throughout the 90s, still radiates with beauty and grace. She’s still our sweetheart, bringing to the screen what women feel. There is one problem, however. Part of the story is Liz allowing herself to enjoy Italian food and giving herself permission to gain weight. They try to imply Roberts gains weight by dressing her in baggy clothes, but if that girl is over a size 4, I’ll eat my own weight in lasagna. Oh, who am I kidding? I’d do that anyway.

Wildcard: Julia’s brother, Eric Roberts, plays the CIA villain in “The Expendables.” Will this bring family tension or will she learn to forgive herself for going up against him, as her character would advise?

Round Three: Watchability

Testosterone: Let’s get this straight. “The Expendables” is directed by Stallone and the story, such as it is, is merely an excuse to blow things up and fight a lot. It doesn’t make sense in parts. There is only one woman, and she spends most of the film being dragged around and having her blouse slip off her shoulder, old school style. None of this matters. The shooting, knife throwing, hand to hand combat, and explosions continue and continue and carry you away. Shots of bodies being blown in half or entire streets erupting in flames are shocking but not particularly gory. There are guns that, when described, go straight into the souls of male audience members and live there as a bright spark of hope that they, too, someday, may get to fire such a purely awesome gun. In defense of a helpless woman and oppressed nation, of course. The fighting is intense and completely staged. However, Steve Austin did famously break Stallone’s neck during filming. After having metal screws installed, Stallone recovered, but it does add a unique factor to the film as the audience tries to figure out what scene brought on the injury.

Estrogen: While “The Expendables” is 103 minutes of battles interspersed with a surprising amount of humor, “Eat Pray Love” is about 140 minutes of an inherently selfish woman examining her own soul. She dwells on relationships, focusing on how she “loses herself” in them. She dabbles in various religions but they feel the same to her because her focus is not God or others but herself. Religious practice is merely a means to figure out how to excuse her bad behavior, and it never quite works. A woman with the means and health to travel to beautiful (and yet remarkably disease-free) places for a year should be brimming with gratitude. Instead, she’s just whiny.

Round Four: Take Home Message

Testosterone:

On purpose of life: Big strong guys exist to rescue the weak and helpless. If they enjoy blowing things up, decapitating people, and beating people’s teeth in, that’s just a bonus. Plus, those four hundred guys obviously had it coming.

On love: Strong men’s only weakness is when they love a woman. Mickey Rourke’s character starts painting a guitar for a girlfriend. After she leaves, he decides to finish it and then “smash the &##@ out of it.” Men in the audience know exactly what he means.

Estrogen:

On purpose of life: The elusive feeling of happiness is the thing that matters (Funny...just what we've been discussing on the Raindrop blog!) and must be pursued to the ends of the earth. Oh, and….Italian food is really, really good.

On love: You can only love another if you love yourself and “come back into yourself.” Yielding, sacrificing, or submitting to the advancement of the well-being of another has no place in life and love as it might detract from that feeling of happiness.

After four rounds, the winner is….testosterone. They may be destructive, but at least their tough little hearts are in the right place.

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