There are so many things the first starter villain of a franchise ended up becoming one of the biggest lacklusters in terms of heinousness.
Okay so, this is kind of a throwback to when most films upon becoming franchises started off with the typical starter villain who, at first, had enough to stand out before being completely bulldozed by other baddies similarly, twice, but if anything, thrice as worse than the starter. I'm not talking about Pokemon-related stuff, now that would be silly, and if I have to input a word for it; let's just call it the "Starter Pack Syndrome" (Also, yes but don't not at me, I just came up with it).
May it be a thing or not, these types of things do tend to exist in most frequent cases and I think we have examples from past experiences saying otherwise to how SPS (for short) could be a thing; Obadiah Stane of the MCU (the novel's an exception), Gato from Naruto (obviously cuz adoy), and the most recent being the very first starter villain of The Equalizer, Nicolai Itchenko. This here is a certain someone from one of those "Oh hey, my dad is old school about them typical action movie genres, so I decided to take a good look at it" action films. Y'know, Mission Impossible, Top Gun, Rush Hour... maybe even, admittedly, Harry Potter. But that could be my eldest sister's interests... but yes, I never grew up and even to this day, give any of this a chance but unless one of you can convince me, I believe Harry Potter is f-cking overrated.
Enough chitchat, the point is we're talking about James Munroe, the Expendables' very first enemy. Special thanks to The Pro-Wrestler for the permish.
What's the Work?[]
The Expendables is the 2010 blockbuster action film directed by none other than Sylvester Stallone himself in this franchise's very first film installment, who also played the leader of the Expendables, Barney Ross. This whole agenda starred numerous action film-related actors like the iconic Jason Statham (best known for Lee Christmas, Deckard Shaw from the Fast and Furious franchise, and Frank Martin of the Transporter trilogy), Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Steve Austin, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, etc etc cuz the damn list goes on by other installments.
In the first installment, we're introduced to a completely badass team of elite mercenaries, strong, tough, and, well, badass to the core, who are tasked with the hefty mission of taking down a former corrupt CIA operative hiding behind the shadows of an overly vicious Latin American dictator in the country of Vilena (in actuality, mostly about Guanabara Bay in Brazilian coast).
Who is He? What has He Done?[]
James Munroe is the corrupt (former) CIA agent gone rogue and the one responsible for the drug dealing operations settled on the island of Vilena, where he had General Garza act as the front man behind these schemes when it was actually Munroe's doing.
At one point he dropped from the CIA, he started working with Garza where he made plans for profiteering operations that centered on drug dealing within Vilena. From there, he had the whole island into a police state where he's gotten likely dozens to a hundred residents into slave labor, forcing them into his drug-dealing operations, making the drugs from the coca fields, and having them sold globally. There were also times the slaves would be deemed "traitors" if they stole from him and Garza, being executed as a result. This caught the attention of Mr. Church who hired the Expendables to stop and kill both him and Garza.
Munroe properly debuted killing one of the traitors Garza was about to execute before shooting two more. As the Expendables arrived, Munroe and his men later abducted and enslaved several more residents to work in the fields and got into an argument with Garza about the fields as he left. He later chases after Expendable members, Barney Ross and Lee Christmas, when the duo killed several of Garza's men who threatened Sandra, the latter's daughter. During the chase, he recklessly drives by innocent civilians, endangering them before getting aid from a platoon squad to shoot down the plane meant for Sandra but refuses, leaving only Ross and Lee to escape. However, motives change when the duo goes back to start an airstrike attack and set an explosion on Garza's forces. Munroe, however, survived the assault.
Suspecting Sandra had helped the Expendables, he hires Gunnar Jensen, recently kicked out, to take out the Expendables for him, which later fails in the climax. Later on, Munroe, Garza, and their forces terrorize and attack the residents in search of Sandra's whereabouts. Ultimately, he gets hold of Sandra and has her interrogated by Dan Paine, his right-hand man, through torturous waterboarding to get the Expendables' motives and whereabouts. He later confronts Garza, who calls him out for everything and demands to see his daughter again, however, the Expendables rescue her while offing some of Munroe and Garza's men but is re-captured again. Around that time, Munroe was offered a handsome amount of dough from Garza who demanded he leave but smugly refused, taunting him before Sandra stopped Garza from doing so.
When he was about to leave he took Sandra hostage and killed Garza in front of her, along with three other soldiers which provoked conflict between the Expendables and Garza's forces. He runs away from the scenery with Sandra at hand before Paine is engulfed in flames and his copper is destroyed. He is then confronted by Barney Ross, who proceeds to shoot him after he disarmed himself and threatens Sandra's life, unfortunately, he is later killed by the combined efforts of Ross and Lee.
Why He Doesn't Qualify?[]
Munroe is a greedy scumbag and any claim saying he doesn't hit women is clear BS, so screw the guy. Unfortunately, as the franchise grew more into its standards now that we have many viler baddies, Munroe failed the heinous standards big time. Not to mention even by the action film baseline.
First off, the dude has Fridge Horror written all over his rapsheet. It was never delved into too much detail regarding the whole mass slavery schtick, especially with the drug-making process from farming the coca fields and the drug dealing operations. The slavery was barely explored to see just how bad it was besides kidnapping the island's residents and later attacking them, there's no cruel brutality nor signs of violence against them, also sure, we see the executions in the opening scene but we don't know if there's more pattern into this and Munroe only got one kill out of it. Plus, not even his reckless driving that endangered numerous residents nor the waterboarding on Sandra helps his case, especially the latter since Paine was doing all the heavy work, even then, the torture wouldn't push boundaries and sorts.
Second, he perhaps has overall one of the biggest resources at his grasp. Mind you again, he literally has an entire island and the backing of General Garza's power and status at his hands but even with what was mentioned above, besides the FH, Munroe has never had the ounce to fully use them properly. All he does in his spare time is stay behind the shadows for too long and doesn't do much besides letting Garza and his forces do all the dirty work for him. Yes, we have a buck ton of cases where the usual bad boss has everything done through his minions but unless there's more involvement from the former or had ordered something more drastic than sit back and relax it would've been proper, take Don Eladio for example. I mean, Munroe could've gone through drastic measures like having the forces massacre the residents for refusal but nah.
And lastly, he ultimately fails to meet the usual action film baseline and its criteria, if anything, the whole franchise's standards. In a case similar to Itchenko from The Equalizer, all Munroe has is a total of 4-5 kills, personally shooting Garza, waterboarding Sandra, and the whole drug-dealing operation and coca-field slave labor shenanigans. However, the other villains from future installments proven to be helluva thrice as heinous, more so than Munroe:
- Jean Vilain, similar to Munroe, has villages raided to capture hundreds of men for his mining operation and does have them killed as a warning, he's even more than willing to bring women and children involved from another village and tries to have the same enslaved men killed in the caverns to tie up loose ends. Therefore, Jean is the first to have a very high body count attempt equal to Marsh and Rahmat's WWIII plot, and there's personal villainy for being the only one to have successfully killed an Expendable member, Billy the Kid.
- Marsh/Ocelot is the one who truly sets the franchise's heinous standard. He was the personal cause of Barney Ross' team's deaths in a mission he sabotaged, killed his former partner, Phen Lyong Bai, killed 2 soldiers, one of his own for questioning him, and of course, the biggest pusher in his rapsheet is literally trying to kickstart World War III. By using the stolen detonators with Rahmat's help, he planned to have it set off by the Russian coast of Vladivostok, which would likely result in millions of deaths on the way and throwing the kill switch for the bomb into the ocean was the near curtain call.
- Suarto Rahmat, Marsh's hired gun, is just as vile as him. He has plenty of involvement with Marsh's WWIII scheme by doing all the heavy work, which he has raided a Libyan compound, killing dozens of soldiers, even through brutal methods, and has the cruel niche of killing the wife and son of a Libyan general for no other reason than to just be a sadistic prick about it. Other than Vilain, Rahmat's the only one guilty of child murder, and combined with all his other actions and trying to have the bomb nuke Vladivostok via a false flag operation, makes him the worst right-hand man than Dan Paine.
Also, you might be wondering why I left out Conrad Stonebanks, it's mainly because he is as lackluster as Munroe but he does come to breach even if it's not enough. He had a history of selling dangerous weapons and bombs to warlords globally, wounding one of the Expendable members, killing two of his men, and kidnapped most of the Expendable rookies to spite Barney Ross. That said, likewise, Munroe fails to meet not just the baseline for action films due to his actions being Fridge Horror and lacking enough of a bodycount, but the overall franchise's standards too.
It's no surprise, really, but if The Expendables just remained a singular film that a franchise, I'd still doubt Munroe would do enough even for the baseline. Just to state my point about it.
Final Verdict[]
Snip, snip Action-movie lovers. You know what time it is ✂️