Things explodeagain.

Rating: 8/10 (21 August 2012)

"The Expendables 2" gives fans exactly what they came to see, more cartoonish, exploitive, action movie fluff (by means of explosions and guns) more laughable (but utterly ridiculous) one-liners, and overall one of the most immensely entertaining action movies of the year. Directed by Simon West (Con Air, The Mechanic) and written by Richard Wenk and Sylvester Stallone (who also stars in the film) "The Expendables 2" is a much better version of its predecessor, simply because this time around the filmmakers are even more aware of the campy atmosphere which surrounds this (soon to be) franchise; and so they lay everything (the gunfire, the bombs, the kills) on thick (metaphorically winking after every bad pun or post-kill one-liner). And the fact that they took the camera out of Sylvester Stallone's hands and let West (a director who knows his way around an action movie) run the show only helps makes "The Expendables 2" that much more enjoyable.
Plot: The usual suspects are all back, including the likes of Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stallone (who officially looks like a bulldog) as Barney Ross. And this time, this rag tag group of senior citizens (The Expendables) find themselves going head to head with a villain, comically named Villain, who is played by Jean-Claude Van Damme. Oh, and to make things even better, there's also a cameo from the one and only Chuck Norris. Anyway, in this sequel The Expendables mission iswell, who really cares. All one really needs to know is wherein "The Expendables" things blew up, in "The Expendables 2" things continue to blow up plus heads blow off. Actually the male-centric, "things blow up" perception a film like this reeks of may be the most interesting misconception at work here. From the trailers (and "The Expendables") one would think a movie which sees a seemingly never-ending barrage of constant explosions would become rather boring or mind numbing (as with any Michael Bay film) West, Went and Stallone have succeeded in consistently keeping its audience on their toes by not relying on explosions alone to entertain. When the explosions become too repetitive in a finite period of time, a few laughable one-liners are thrown in, and when the one-liners get old, there is a cameo thrown in, and so on and so forth until the film's climactic and testosterone infused battle.
Yes, most of the special effects used here are ridiculously bad, the film is filled with moments of very dry exposition which slow it to a halt and the melodramatic bromance banter delivered from the plastic surgically enhanced lips of Stallone are cringe inducing at best. But in saying that, there are more than enough well inserted cameos (Chuck Norris tells a Chuck Norris joke!) very entertaining, over-the-top/explosive scenarios and tons of "it's so bad that it's good" laugh out loud moments, that if you don't find yourself smiling throughout at least 80% of "The Expendables 2", then my consensuses (as a self-anointed critic) would have to be that: YOU HATE FUN! The Dialogue: When I made mention that there is laughable dialogue throughout this film (no matter how self-aware it may be) I may have been selling "The Expendables 2" short. This film is built on a foundation of constant, laughable and very cliché zingers (maybe breaking the record for the amount of one-liners used in a single film) which in any other film would have had any normal person's eyes rolling so much so, they could be mistaken for someone in the middle of a seizure, but this dialogue works because it was tailor-made for this film. I would go so far as to say that amidst the overly campy tone, the dialogue itself is so perfectly self-aware of its own mockery of bad 80's action films, that in the confines of an exploitation film such as this, the Wenk and Stallone script can be seen as a very well written satirical piece.
Final Thought: I can see how some people can hate the "my gun is bigger than yours" mentality that a film like "The Expendables 2" brings to the table, but on the other hand, this is not a movie that tries to mask what it is. It is an exploitive action throwback on steroids, and proud of it. Again, it's that self-awareness which in and of itself allows this film to maintain its high entertainment value against a seemingly predictable plot. So now, the only question that remains is: Who will be the next aging action star to make a cameo in "The Expendables 3"?
Written by Markus Robinson, Edited by Nicole I. Ashland
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