great nostalgic fun

Rating: 9/10 (18 September 2012)

this film is a lot of fun. a hell of a lot of fun. its a great nod to the old 80s and 90s action films and i loved it. i swear to god, this film has a bigger body count in the first 10 minutes than the whole of the first film. every person that pops his head out has his head popped off (literally, the amount of exploding heads is slightly dizzying)
the characters are good, each with their own personalities, some more fleshed out than others. with the returning cast it also features some more expanded roles from the first film, like Trench (arnie) and Mr. Chruch (Bruce Willis) and new people. Chris Hemsworth is OK, but his entire set up as a character is just simply to die. hes got it all on the plate, the beautiful girlfriend, hes going to quit from the team and he's new. Van Damme was great fun as the villain, but out of all the characters,my favourite was Chuck Norris, the mighty god himself. no really,the portray him as some sort of god like being, he saves everyone there from a lump of bad guys and a tank, and just walks on cool as the breeze. they even slide in a Chuck Norris fact, but part of what sold it for me was every time he made an appearance shooting people at the end, there was just this weird sound that accompanied him, making him all the more mythical.
the story is a standard one, a mixture of revenge and stopping the villains from taking over the world and blow everything else to f*cking smithereens. the end fight between sly n van Damme could have been a bit longer, but it was still brutal fun none the less.
there is small issue i have tho. in the beginning its said that Lee Christmas' woman is cheating on him. i expected some sort of part towards the end where he dumps her in an amusing way. i didn't even get that. as a matter of fact, we didn't get anything, they mention once more somewhere further in and thats it. seriously? thats an issue that did kind of need to be addressed in a better fashion.
apart from that (and a wall thats invincible against tank shells) its a damn good movie. damn, damn good for a tribute to old action films. the cast is part of what holds this together. some are more recent, but most are the classic people you want to see. its giant eye candy, its great to watch, but shut your brain down for a while. just enjoy the roller-coaster and you'll want to ride it again