Arts view: Tony Earnshaw: Stallone back with a bang to prove that age is no barrier

There were high expectations of the movie, a sequel to 1982's First Blood and the latest epic from reigning action king Sylvester Stallone.

Of course, the sequel turned out to be a dumb follow-up to a far superior (and intelligent) original film. But, more than that, it propelled Stallone into a pantheon of heavyweight, muscle-bound tough guys that immediately drew comparisons with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was also bound for box office glory.

Flash forward eight years and I'm with Stallone for what emerges as his comeback vehicle, the testosterone-laced mountain-top thriller, Cliffhanger. That was in 1993 and by then Stallone's career had endured more than its fair share of ups and downs.

He enjoyed a brief renaissance during the '90s but the dawn of the new millennium saw this most macho of stars heading straight down a blind alley. And starring in dross like D-Tox, Driven, Avenging Angelo, Shade and an unforgivable remake of Get Carter meant such a calamitous fall was only right and correct.

Sylvester Stallone is a far better actor than the vast majority of punters give him credit for. But Stallone is also the victim of his own very carefully moulded image. For 15 years, between First Blood, in 1982 and Cop Land, in 1997, he rarely attempted a performance of character. Instead, he played himself in a succession of increasingly banal and tedious flicks.

Now, after more than a decade in the wilderness, he's back. And how. The Expendables marks Stallone's eighth film as director and may well be his most successful enterprise yet. It comes after two hugely popular (and long-overdue) nostalgia trips courtesy of Rocky Balboa and John Rambo. Stallone waited a long time before resurrecting his best-loved heroes; now he's having to author new roles as he heads toward 70.

Stallone became a prisoner of his own persona. More than that, he became trapped within a genre he helped to create but one with an extremely short shelf life. Funny, then, that audiences are embracing the monumental dumbness of The Expendables and seeing it for what it is: a glorious, self-deprecating retro throwback to the movies that infested our cinema chains in the 1980s. And Stallone, more than anyone, was responsible for their creation.

I would suggest he's ripe for revival and renewal. If The Expendables has a fault it is in the utter waste of guest stars Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The time to co-star all three action icons has been and gone; after all, their combined ages total 182 years.

Still, everyone is surfing the nostalgia wave, and no-one can blame Stallone for taking a huge leap back to the time when he was on top and at his biggest and best. In truth, when it comes to big, noisy panoramas on a grand scale, nobody does it better.

There are already whispers of Expendables II. Call it a retread. Call it a redux. Call it what you like. My message to Stallone: do it now – do it before you really get too old...