"By the powers vested in me, I now pronounce you man and knife."

Rating: 6/10 (6 January 2013)

I loved it. I absolutely loved this movie, which was both funnier and better plotted than the first. The little digs the characters make at each other are hilarious and make the movie for me - where else do you see all the "old" stars of Hollywood take cracks at each other like that? It breaks the movie up from something serious, sombre and sad, to something that has surprising moments of laugh-out-loud humour and nearly childish delight. Some movies break up the shooting (be warned - the sound of shooting never ends in this movie) with girls and sex, but The Expendables does it with laughs and petty jabs, and it fits perfectly with the older actors.
Sylvester Stallone and Statham seem to play the same characters in every single movie they're in, but in this, they fit perfectly. Hell, all the actors are so clichéd that they're perfect for the roles, and they're also able to do the serious stuff with decency. I am a huge Jet Li fan, and was sad that he was only briefly in it, but I was also actually quite surprised by the appearance of Chuck Norris - I read nothing about the movie before watching it - I didn't want to ruin it.
I cannot wait until 3 comes out - I'll be seeing it at the cinema for sure - who could pass up seeing Jackie Chan on the big screen?
So, because I watched the entire thing and it passed my expectations magnificently (and I was expecting it to be half decent), had a hearty laugh every half an hour, and because it was better written and seemed to be going somewhere (and even promising a sequel!), I gave it 9 stars. It's not something that will go down in history, but it's going on my "Personal Favourites" list, that's for sure.