A lack of budget for VFX and abrupt changes from practical to green screen effects contributed to the movie’s failure. While it was meant to be a hard-hitting action flick, The Expendables 4 disappointed a team of skilled VFX artists. As the first movie in the Expendables franchise since TheExpendables 3 was released in 2014, it was meant to revitalize the franchise. Jason Statham took the lead for the first time, with Sylvester Stallone rejoining the movies after seemingly quitting. Despite Statham’s hopes, the movie was a box office disappointment, earning just $51.1 million, thanks in part to releasing during the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes.
It earned little attention at the box office, but VFX artists are now drawing some notice to the poor visual effects. The Corridor Crew took to YouTube to share their perspective on the various effects during the latest “VFX Artists React” episode.
During the reflection, Niko, Jordan and Wren looked at a specific scene that featured a plane landing on a runway, two vehicles riding out, and then stunt jumps, and explosions. There were many harsh responses, ranging from “It could have been better” to “That’s rough, dude”. They found that the shots rarely matched together, and the actors never reflected how strong the recoil could be on their rifles. The trio eventually settled on the idea that all the problems stem back to a “lack of care”.
I struggled to get though the opening moments, Megan Fox is a terrible actor and I couldn’t believe that she was supposed to be Jason Stathams partner!
I turned off after the opening action set piece. As the Corridor Crew pointed out, the live action stunts are really good but when it’s intercut with blatantly obvious green screen work, it pulls me out of the movie hard! It took me back to the 90s and I thought I was watching some Command and Conquer cut scenes on my PC.