Sit down, strap in and get ready for two hours of incredible action.

Rating: 9/10 (31 August 2012)

One thing is to be understood about The Expendables. Is it a perfect movie? NO. Does it have plot holes? YES. Do you have to shut your brain off nearly completely to let loose and have fun with it? ABSOLUTELY. But once you do that you will find yourself knee deep in the greatest homage to action fans ever. And you will also find the sort of action adult action entertainment that we haven't seen in years. This is the sort of R Rated fodder that made action movies quintessential in the eighties. Expendables 2 is probably even more of all that and is probably closer to the original idea Stallone had for this series. It is more of everything, better everything, non-stop blood guts and explosive action. The nods and outright fourth-wall breaking jokes are just fun and hilarious with direct mention of Rambo, Die Hard, Terminator, and Chuck Norris telling a Chuck Norris joke?!?! Pure awesome. Any red blooded male (or female) who loved action movies in the eighties and of the eighties will just scream with glee over this sequel. The first film laid the ground work and the second just nails it out of the park. That being said I think the first film had a stronger story, and strong actual character development and the sequel just went for pure nostalgia in a lot of ways.
Sylvester Stallone steps out of the director's chair but stays lead in the cast. I can't help but love this guy and whether its special effects and stunt doubles or not he commands action movies even at almost 70. He looks great and kicks butt like it was 1985. The actual Expendables team sort of took a back seat in this film. They were there but not at the forefront. Jason Statham who is still a very current action star is great with Stallone. They have the perfect "buddy-cop" type repertoire and good chemistry with each other. Statham's moment in this movie comes dressed as a priest before seriously cutting through a group of bad guys in hand to hand combat. Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews and Randy Couture all take back seats in this outing. In fact Jet Li leaves the group in the first twenty minutes of the film and never comes back without any real explanation. Lundgren has a lot of MIT jokes in the film (a school he actually attended in real life) but he doesn't get quite as much screen time. Crews and Couture I can't stand anyways...I still don't understand why they're even in this series. Jean-Claude Van Damme is a evil as hell villain and a great adversary for Stallone. His only downfall is that he isn't given enough screen time to really establish a truly outstanding villain. Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger appear again in significantly bigger roles. The absolute highlight of the film is the shootout near the end featuring Willis, Schwarzenegger and Stallone. Seeing these three guys together, in full on action mode is just action hero nirvana. Schwarzenegger's Trench is a one lining killing machine and Willis is as suave and bad-ass as always. The one guy I thought who would ruin the movie was Liam Hemsworth as the new young kid of the group. I firmly eat my shirt because Hemsworth was fantastic and gave Stallone some heart and direction and he did a great job. Nan Yu is the new female addition to the team. She does a good job and they sort of weave in a potential romance with Stallone without forcing down your throat but she definitely holds her own. And finally B-Movie master Scott Adkins (I didn't even realize it was him) plays Van Damme's right hand man. He is okay and certainly cold blooded but he doesn't get a lot of time to establish a character. He gets even less than Steve Austin did in the first one playing the same role.
Wow...what a list a main characters. So mix all of these people up, add in buckets of flying blood, debris, explosions, gunfire, hand to hand combat, knife battles, emotion a good story and you're just riveted to your chair for two hours. I mean this is the sort of nonsensical brain numbing action that you literally cannot get anymore period. And I mean that as the utmost compliment. Director Simon West isn't the type of director who has made dozens and dozens of movies but when I said action movies like Con Air and The Mechanic you know immediately these were first class action flicks. He knows how to tell a story and that indeed matters. Whether this sequel is 10 million behind the original or not...this improves on every single aspect of the first film. This is a rare breed of better sequel. Go see it right now and just let it blow you away. 9/10