The Expendables 2 is awesome to the power of kick to your balls. Honestly I could stop the review here, but what’s the fun in that? So you’re going to read it, or else I’ll send Jean-Claude Van Damme to your house to do splits on your face, which depending on who is reading this, might be a good thing…
Short nitty-gritty plot description from IMDb is as follows: Mr. Church reunites the Expendables for what should be an easy paycheck,
but when one of their men is murdered on the job, their quest for
revenge puts them deep in enemy territory and up against an unexpected
threat.
If your still reading this review, good. You’ve chosen wisely, but you also know exactly what to expect out of a movie like this. A movie that contains an overload of past and present action stars. A movie whose plot is paper thin and dialogue borders on offensive. What’s not to love! The humor is in full force and the action is over the top, way, way, WAY over the top. The first 15 minutes of the film has more action in it than the entire first movie (which rocked by the way). The one liners and throwbacks to the films of old are groan inducing (I loved it!) The fight scenes are all top of the line and seeing Stallone and Van Damme duke it out, made my Past Michael scream like a little school girl. Speaking of the Muscles from Brussels himself, Van Damme did an amazing job as Jean Vilain (yes that’s his name). I thoroughly enjoyed his cliché and crazy trip as a euro terrorist, who just wants to make some money and doesn’t mind killing everyone in his way to do just that.
As for everyone else in the film (there is a lot), they worked wonderfully together. Stallone once again plays the tough as nails Barney Ross, who will do anything for his team members and tries to hide his emotional feelings as much as possible. Jason Statham works brilliantly with Stallone and their little bickering back and forth is pretty funny. I’m glad Dolph Lundgren got a more developed role in this one, compared to the previous. He’s hilarious in his role and brutal in his fighting skills. Terry Crews and Randy Couture’s roles have also been beefed up a little and their characters fleshed out (not a lot though). Crews was another character with some great comedy relief. This review wouldn’t be complete without mentioning one of the obvious ploys to this see this film: Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger (both returning from the first with a beefier role) and Chuck Norris. Bruce Willis manages to rein in a better performance than last time, which is understandable seeing how he didn’t have much to work with previously. Here he is able to get in on the action and interact with several other characters and his scenes with Schwarzenegger are a treat. As for Arnold, coming back from a long break from acting, he does an okay job. He’s a little stiff in his delivery and you can see that he wasn’t completely back in the game. I’m sure though, given a little more time, he’ll be back to the man we love. Now one scene I truly thought was amazing, was Chuck Norris’ intro in the film. It’s so random and bizarre, but absolutely hilarious. I wish that was the only scene he was in. However, we do get to see more of the Lone Wolf later on and it was still pretty bad ass, just not as randomly cool as before (although the airport X-Ray kill was brilliant). Rounding out the cast was Nan Yu as Maggie, a tag along who is really only replacing Jet Li (who unfortunately only has a small role at the beginning of the film); Liam Hemsworth (the other Hemsworth and a crack shot sniper) and finally Scott Adkins (a fight scene between him and Statham was exhilarating). See, a lot of people in this film and you know what, I still probably left out some.
Now what about some cons to the film. First the obvious, the CGI in certain scenes is laughable. The helicopter at the beginning was so awful looking and a tank bit later one was almost as bad, but hey, let’s just pretend it’s a throwback to the good ol’ crappy computer effect days. Finally, with all the controversy on the web about how Chuck Norris demanded this film be PG-13, I can’t honestly see how it would’ve worked with the violence we did get. Yes, the blood work is CGI (FYI, practical effects beat CGI any day) and the movie is void of any real swearing, which honestly I didn’t really care to be bothered with, but I can see how some people will see this as a complaint, so I’m listing them as one. By the way, where was Mickey Rourke? He’s not mentioned at all and it just seemed so weird.
Conclusion time! Did you at anytime in your life enjoy a Van Damme, Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Willis, Statham, Norris, Li or Lundgren film? If so, this film is a big no brainer. If you said no, go answer the door, that’s Van Damme knocking. The Expendables 2 is funny, violent, humorous and filled with so much cheese you’ll be blocked up for a week. A definite recommend from yours truly. Go, go now! Get to da tee-a-derr!!
Rating:
