Jason Statham has starred in more major movies than any other actor in 2023, but his year also represents one of the worst Rotten Tomatoes streaks for an action star, a trend that could be broken with Expend4bles. Statham has made a name for himself as a rugged actor who rarely breaks his gruff exterior, but he still has charisma, which is what has made him so bankable. As a result, Statham has become a dependable action hero in the 21st century, and he has already starred in three action movies in 2023 alone, with the latest being the critically panned Meg 2: The Trench.
Meg 2: The Trench had a strong opening weekend, as it grossed $142 million, and while the movie still couldn’t dethrone Barbie from the top spot, the shark flick will likely become a big earner for Warner Bros. The sequel is a fun popcorn flick that knows its audience, but it wasn’t successful with critics. Meg 2: The Trench has a score of 28% on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning that fewer than three in 10 critics enjoyed the film. While that might be standard for an action movie of this nature, it continues a bad trend for Statham’s 2023 movies, and his next action flick this year needs to change that.
All Of Jason Statham’s 2023 Movies So Far Have Been Rotten On Rotten Tomatoes
Jason Statham has starred in three movies in 2023 so far, and they’ve all been rated “rotten.” His year began with Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, which reunited him with filmmaker Guy Ritchie again. While this actor-director duo isn’t on the same level as Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese, Jason Statham and Guy Ritchie’s movies together always bring out the best in both. They even have each other to thank for their successful careers following Ritchie’s directorial debut, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. However, Operation Fortune totally missed the mark, and with a 51% score on Rotten Tomatoes, the action movie was criticized for being hollow and lackluster.
Following the star-studded but narratively empty Guy Ritchie movie, Statham reprised his role as Deckard Shaw in Fast X. By now, audiences don’t even expect a compelling and coherent story from the Fast & Furious franchise, as it’s almost a certainty that the movie will defy both logic and physics to the extreme. That’s no different with Fast X, which even pointed out its own flaws before critics had the chance — though the critics still did, as the movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score is 57%. Statham’s role in the movie is relatively small, though; if he’d had more screen time, Fast X might have gotten a better reception.
Can Expendables 4 Break Jason Statham’s 2023 Rotten Tomatoes Streak?
Jason Statham’s next 2023 movie is Expend4bles, which is scheduled for release on September 22, and it could end the actor’s bad Rotten Tomatoes streak — though it’s unlikely. There’s no knowing how good or bad the fourquel will be, but there are several factors that hint at reviews skewing either way. Firstly, Expend4bles doesn’t have great odds, as only the second installment of the franchise has a “fresh” score of 67%, whereas 2010’s The Expendables and 2014’s The Expendables 3 are at 42% and 31%, respectively. Expend4bles director Scott Waugh also doesn’t have a great track record, as his most notable movie is the “rotten” Need for Speed.
However, the cast of the fourth Expendables movie hints at its making a significant change to the series for the better. The Expendables franchise has always been about bringing the most famous action heroes together, but the fourquel’s most notable additions to the roster are martial arts actors, such as Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais. The two actors are known for doing their own stunts, including hugely ambitious fight sequences, which means that Expend4bles could feature better action and fight choreography than any of the previous movies. If that’s not the case, the casting of Jaa and Uwais will have been totally wasted.
Why Jason Statham Has So Many Rotten Movies
This isn’t just an unlucky year for Statham, as the actor has starred in plenty of movies with low critic scores on Rotten Tomatoes. However, that doesn’t mean they’re bad movies. Statham often stars in audience-pleasing popcorn flicks that aren’t generally to critics’ tastes, with Expend4bles likely following suit. While critics typically dislike his movies, audiences love them, and that’s obvious based on the wildly imbalanced difference between the critic-driven Tomatometer and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes. For example, Meg 2: The Trench might only have a 28% critic score, but 72% of audiences like it. Jason Statham clearly isn’t making movies for critics so much as for his fans.