The Expendables 2 (2012)

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  Movie Info
  • Director:Simon West
  • Genres:Action
  • Rating:R
  • Release Date:17 August 2012
  • Screenwriter:Richard Wenk, Sylvester Stallone
  • Starring:Arnold Schwarzeneggar, bruce willis, Chuck Norris, Dolph Lundgren, Jason Statham, Jean Claude Van Damme, Jet Li, Liam Hemsworth, Nan Yu, Scott Adkins, Sylvester Stallone, Terry Crews
• 

  The Expendables 2 (2012)

What Worked?

The Expendables 2 brings back the team of old-school action flick legends from the first installment and kicks  it up a notch by making a few more all-star additions. Where are they this time? Here and there, mostly they’re on a plane revving up to kick the behinds of baddies. After quite a few bad guys are plugged with bullets, they run into Jean split-kicks Van Damme, appropriately named Vilain (yeah, they did that) and Barney Ross (Stallone) and the expendables plan to mow him down before he gets a lot of plutonium. Guns. Testosterone. Explosions. Action Legends. This film is a buffet of all that.

Simon West, known for amazing guilty pleasure action flicks like Con Air, takes the role of director from Stallone, and he delivers an action-packed, attractive mess of a film. The script has plenty of cheesy references to the action stars’ past films, and they’re so cheesy that they work. When Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis swap their iconic lines, the 10 year old me got pumped. The action in this film is better, in that you can actually see what’s going on. It’s not meant to be taken seriously, as the bad guys miss and it seems as if the good guys have special heat-seeking ammo. All in all, the action is creative 80s/90s style goodness, and the explosive cherry on top is the showdown between Van Damme and Stallone.

There are quite a few characters in this film, many of them familiar. Stallone reprises his role as the leader, Barney Ross, and he does a solid job being the badass boy-scout. Dolph Lundgren is also back as Gunner, and he turns in another entertaining performance as the psychotic soldier, as he draws most of the laughs. The standout of the film has got to be Van Damme as Vilain. Van Damme plays the sinister baddie very well, and he has a charisma that makes his scenes interesting. Overall, much of the cast poke fun of themselves and are just having a blast. It’s quite a treat to see the likes of Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Willis and Chuck Norris in a guns blazing shootout.

The Expendables 2 is a step ahead of it’s predecessor, bringing more action, more one-liners, an actual worthy villain, and a little more fun. If you’re an action junkie that needs a fix the way the used ta make em’ than this film will get the job done with a boom.

Potential Drawbacks:

No MickeyRourke, aka Tool, this time around.

The ladies will want to stay away, for the most part. The movie is so ridiculous that the females may either get bored or go crazy. This is definitely a guy flick through and through.

Also, many have said this before, but this film sometimes feels like a parody of the guilty-pleasure action films of the past (which could be a good or bad thing). Some want a more serious action film with realistic fight scenes and shootouts, starring their favorite action legends, instead of a ridiculous action film that’s done old school. Some may find the one-liners and dialogue a little too cheesy with too many references to these stars’ more memorable films.

The Expendables

Predator

Con Air