The Expendables 2
Our favorite 80s action stars are back and, this time, they brought some friends along. If the first movie just wasn't enough awesomeness for you, this time their fighting is personal, so let's see if that helped any.
The movie begins with some terrorists trying to get information from a masked man. Eventually, Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), comes flying in with his crew, Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), and their newest member, Bill the Kid (Liam Hemsworth), to save the man. They drive through the village with their powerhouse of a tank shooting everything in their way. Soon, they rescue the masked man, who turns out to be Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who was trying to rescue a rich man. They continue to fight more and more until they make it to the plane where Barney destroys the bridge and leaves. Once they arrive in China, Yin leaves with the rich man and the rest go to a bar where they sit back and relax. After the bar, Barney is confronted by Church (Bruce Willis). Church wants Barney to get an item from a safe, which will require him to bring along a girl named Maggie (Nan Yu). Barney agrees and goes to meet Maggie. The next day, the whole crew goes out to get the item. Once it's retrived, Bill is taken hostage by our main villain of the movie (Jean-Claude Van Damme), who has no name. After a long conversation, the villain gets the item from Barney, which turns out to be blueprints for a mine containing plutonium, and kills Bill. This really pisses off Barney and vows to avenge Bill.
Now, being a big fan of the first movie, I was a little skeptical walking into this movie. However, it didn't disappoint at all. All of our favorite stars from the first make a return here, kicking even more ass than before. The new additions don't hinder the action either. In fact, Bill can fight just as well as the others. These make for some amazingly beautiful action sequences. Then there's the dialogue. Yes, it's even chessier than the last movie, but so what? The writers knew this movie was for fans of old 80s action movies, so they brought the cheesy lines from those movies back for this one. There's also a lot of lines that pay tribute to their old classic movies, like Terminator. For a movie like this, you need a simple plot, and that's exactly what you get. They kill people. Go home. Come back. Get one of their own killed, Want revenge. That's it. The plot is simple just to make way for all the amazing action sequences. A complex or complicated plot would just get in the way of what this movie needed to be and turned out being. As for our nameless villain, he's amazing. Van Damme does an amazing job and really comes off as threatening. He completely owns this role. Everything he does just makes you look forward to the climactic battle towards the end. Speaking of that particular fight, it's one of the best in action movie history. Bullets are flying everywhere. People are dropping dead every second. What's even better is that they don't hold anything back. The set for the battle is in an airport and they take full advantage of it. One of the best deaths has to be when a minion dies in the lugage scanner and you see each bullet pass through his skeleton before falling down dead. Finally, there's the hand-to-hand fight of Stallone vs. Van Damme. They don't hold back here. They let everything loose and Stallone tops it off in the best way possible.
Alright, enough fangasiming over this movie. Let's look at the cons. There weren't many, but I did find one thing that really bothered me. That would be the inclusion of Chuck Norris in this. Why was he here? It can't be to add more star power because the film has enough for people to see it just by saying that Bruce Willis and Schwarzenegger are actually going to do something here. When Chuck comes, he's there for a short period of time. If I counted, I could almost guarantee that all of his screen time adds up to about only 1 minute. The first time you see him, which is after a big battle in a deserted village, he's there for only around 30 seconds. Then leaves. He doesn't come back until the climactic battle, where he takes out one guy, waves, and leaves again. That's only about 3-5 seconds. Then he's not seen until after the big battle in a helicopter, which only lasts around 10 seconds. What makes it worse is that he's given the worst dialogue ever. The cheesy dialogue in the movie, for the most part, is what makes it work. However, when Chuck Norris starts making a Chuck Norris joke, it's not that funny. Chuck, you had an entire movie dedicated to praising you back in 1992, "Sidekicks". I'm pretty sure you don't need to keep going with these jokes. Also, you can tell that some of these people haven't acted in ages. The perfect example is Dolph Lundgren. His acting in this movie was terrible.
So would I recommend this film? Of course I would. If you love old 80s action fliks, then this film was made for you. If you loved the first film, there's no reason why you can't see this movie. If you go into this expecting Oscar worhy performances, you're going to be highly disappointed. Just walk in, turn your brain off, and enjoy the movie.
The movie begins with some terrorists trying to get information from a masked man. Eventually, Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), comes flying in with his crew, Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), and their newest member, Bill the Kid (Liam Hemsworth), to save the man. They drive through the village with their powerhouse of a tank shooting everything in their way. Soon, they rescue the masked man, who turns out to be Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who was trying to rescue a rich man. They continue to fight more and more until they make it to the plane where Barney destroys the bridge and leaves. Once they arrive in China, Yin leaves with the rich man and the rest go to a bar where they sit back and relax. After the bar, Barney is confronted by Church (Bruce Willis). Church wants Barney to get an item from a safe, which will require him to bring along a girl named Maggie (Nan Yu). Barney agrees and goes to meet Maggie. The next day, the whole crew goes out to get the item. Once it's retrived, Bill is taken hostage by our main villain of the movie (Jean-Claude Van Damme), who has no name. After a long conversation, the villain gets the item from Barney, which turns out to be blueprints for a mine containing plutonium, and kills Bill. This really pisses off Barney and vows to avenge Bill.
Now, being a big fan of the first movie, I was a little skeptical walking into this movie. However, it didn't disappoint at all. All of our favorite stars from the first make a return here, kicking even more ass than before. The new additions don't hinder the action either. In fact, Bill can fight just as well as the others. These make for some amazingly beautiful action sequences. Then there's the dialogue. Yes, it's even chessier than the last movie, but so what? The writers knew this movie was for fans of old 80s action movies, so they brought the cheesy lines from those movies back for this one. There's also a lot of lines that pay tribute to their old classic movies, like Terminator. For a movie like this, you need a simple plot, and that's exactly what you get. They kill people. Go home. Come back. Get one of their own killed, Want revenge. That's it. The plot is simple just to make way for all the amazing action sequences. A complex or complicated plot would just get in the way of what this movie needed to be and turned out being. As for our nameless villain, he's amazing. Van Damme does an amazing job and really comes off as threatening. He completely owns this role. Everything he does just makes you look forward to the climactic battle towards the end. Speaking of that particular fight, it's one of the best in action movie history. Bullets are flying everywhere. People are dropping dead every second. What's even better is that they don't hold anything back. The set for the battle is in an airport and they take full advantage of it. One of the best deaths has to be when a minion dies in the lugage scanner and you see each bullet pass through his skeleton before falling down dead. Finally, there's the hand-to-hand fight of Stallone vs. Van Damme. They don't hold back here. They let everything loose and Stallone tops it off in the best way possible.
Alright, enough fangasiming over this movie. Let's look at the cons. There weren't many, but I did find one thing that really bothered me. That would be the inclusion of Chuck Norris in this. Why was he here? It can't be to add more star power because the film has enough for people to see it just by saying that Bruce Willis and Schwarzenegger are actually going to do something here. When Chuck comes, he's there for a short period of time. If I counted, I could almost guarantee that all of his screen time adds up to about only 1 minute. The first time you see him, which is after a big battle in a deserted village, he's there for only around 30 seconds. Then leaves. He doesn't come back until the climactic battle, where he takes out one guy, waves, and leaves again. That's only about 3-5 seconds. Then he's not seen until after the big battle in a helicopter, which only lasts around 10 seconds. What makes it worse is that he's given the worst dialogue ever. The cheesy dialogue in the movie, for the most part, is what makes it work. However, when Chuck Norris starts making a Chuck Norris joke, it's not that funny. Chuck, you had an entire movie dedicated to praising you back in 1992, "Sidekicks". I'm pretty sure you don't need to keep going with these jokes. Also, you can tell that some of these people haven't acted in ages. The perfect example is Dolph Lundgren. His acting in this movie was terrible.
So would I recommend this film? Of course I would. If you love old 80s action fliks, then this film was made for you. If you loved the first film, there's no reason why you can't see this movie. If you go into this expecting Oscar worhy performances, you're going to be highly disappointed. Just walk in, turn your brain off, and enjoy the movie.