Sylvester Stallone, back in action. Dolph Lundgren and Sylvester Stallone in “The Expendables” Photo: Millennium Films “The Expendables” isn’t a parody of an ’80s action movie, you’ll be relieved to hear. No, “The Expendables” actually is an ’80s action movie, its cast groaning with back-in-the-day authenticity. Sylvester Stallone, who also directed, leads a team of mercenaries that includes such vintage marquee names as Dolph Lundgren and Jet Li, with Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger passing through in don’t-blink cameos, Jason Statham adding whippersnapper appeal, and a real-life action man — ex-wrestler Steve Austin — playing a stone-cold character called (inevitably) Paine. The picture opens with an appetizer of modern-day-pirate carnage in the Gulf of Aden before zipping back to the States for a quick breather at the team’s headquarters, a seedy tattoo shop run by retired teammate Mickey Rourke (peekabooing beneath stringy streaked hair, as usual, but also smoking a thoughtful pipe). After receiving a new assignment from a tight-lipped CIA agent (Willis), the boys relocate to Vilena, an island country so remote we never quite figure out where it’s supposed to be. (The sequences were shot in Brazil.) Here we meet the plot: A corrupt general (David Zayas) is oppressing his people at the behest of a rogue, coke-dealing CIA agent (Eric Roberts, heavily armed with smirks and snarls), and their only opposition is the general’s rebellious daughter (Giselle Iti
