REVIEW: The Expendables 2

Courtesy of Lionsgate

The Expendables was a pretty terrible movie. The only bright spot was seeing Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis – the biggest action stars of the ’80s – onscreen together for the first time. Sadly, that only lasted a couple of minutes. The rest of the flick’s 100-minute running time consisted of a bunch of other nameless, interchangeable characters running through the jungle and obliterating enemies, complete with awful, cartoonish CGI blood spatters.

I wasn’t exactly holding my breath for the inevitable The Expendables 2, yet something strange happened while I was watching it: I realized I was having a blast. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a bad movie. But it’s the fun, watchable version of bad that the first film wasn’t.

The action sequences are ridiculously implausible, the performances are wooden, and there are tons of cheesy quips and winking references. I was rolling my eyes and laughing the entire time. Kudos to the filmmakers for realizing their mistakes and striving to improve on the justifiably appealing concept; it pays off here.

There’s still not much of a plot, but screenwriters Stallone and Richard Wenk, along with veteran director Simon West (who also helmed the gloriously stupid Con Air, one of my guilty pleasures) keep it simple. Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) gets a threatening visit from his contact, Mr. Church (Willis), who “persuades” Ross and his team (including Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, and newcomers Liam Hemsworth and Nan Yu) to locate a plane that crashed with some classified cargo on board.

It’s supposed to be a routine mission, but when one of the team is murdered by an evil terrorist (Jean-Claude Van Damme, playing the creatively-named Vilain), they all swear revenge and send the body count skyrocketing. They get some help along the way from some familiar faces like Chuck Norris, who actually recites a Chuck Norris fact, and Schwarzenegger, clearly happy for the chance to hang around longer than last time.

The Expendables 2 still uses lame CGI blood in the action scenes (how expensive can those old-school squibs be?), but that’s my biggest gripe. Background players like Crews and Lundgren wisely get more screen time, and I liked the blatantly obvious references to the actors’ past work and real lives (making Lundgren’s character a Fulbright Scholar, poking fun at how much Schwarzenegger says “I’ll be back,” etc.).

As long as you don’t take The Expendables 2 seriously, you’ll probably enjoy yourself. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a Big Mac – perfectly fine to eat every now and then. Just don’t have one for every meal.

The Expendables 2 is rated R for strong bloody violence throughout.

Grade: B-