Distracting excess but mostly lacks actual excitement or reasons to be engaged

Rating: Null/10 (3 December 2012)

I do enjoy a good action movie – indeed if I'm honest I also enjoy an average action movie as long as there is lots of noise and action throughout. This was the reason i came back for the Expendables movie even though I had no real expectations of it being any good – at very least I knew that things would explode and that the film would exist in the fantasy world of macho 80's style action movies. The opening scene of the film does leave you in no doubt as to what you are getting, as the team rescue someone from the heart of a fortified town, killing probably hundreds in the first 15 minutes alone. It isn't thrilling but it is very loud and enjoyable for what it is.
Sadly it cannot just keep doing this and at some point the characters need to talk and a rough plot needs to come out. At this point the film really grinds to a halt because none of the dialogue actually works particularly well. It tends to come in one of two forms, the most painful of which is the vague attempts at depth or character. These lines tend to be said by a grave-side, in the quiet moments when the odds look bad or in other reflective moments; I think one line actually worked but generally they are corny as hell and clunk across the screen – at best some of them are just misjudged for the tone of the film or the scene. The other dialogue tends to be jokey banter but, although it is occasionally amusing in its obviousness, this doesn't work either because it always feels scripted right down to the letter. The delivery doesn't help but the writing seems to be all about making as many references to the star's other films as possible – not making them clever references, but just making them out loud. Even when it is just banter without the references, it doesn't feel natural and it doesn't have much spark to it. Fortunately this does still leave the action sequences.
The action is mostly noisy, OTT and silly but it works as such, causing mayhem and having large action stars being indestructible in the way that they used to in the 80's. Problem is that there is a reason why those films had to change over time, because it is hard to really build tension and excitement when your stars are unstoppable and the action is very much "A-Team with blood". As seen here, the action doesn't thrill because it doesn't change too much and doesn't provide much in the way of creativity or actual danger being posed to the characters. There are some exceptions but these are few and far between – Jet Li's group fight early on was enjoyable for him being given the space to work, while Stallone and Van Damme's head-to-head is fun even if it isn't as good as it could have been and doesn't do quite as much as I would have liked.
Just as he helps that final fight though, Van Damme does help the cast and makes a great villain. I am not sure why the film gave him so little to do but he makes an impact with little time as he is colourful and crazy. Of the rest it is variable but generally tends towards the obvious. Stallone is fairly hard to understand and has no range here – not sure what he is trying to do but he can't find a character of interest and he doesn't do much for the fun aspect. Statham on the other side does a great job again by playing to his strengths of humour and physical ability – like Li in that regard, he gets to do what works for him. Crews, Lundgren and Couture are so-so while Norris, Schwarzenegger and Willis are there for their names more than anything else. The addition of Yu could have made some difference but mainly she is given terrible "fawning" material with Stallone which is badly done.
Expendables 2 is not an awful film if you come to it to get the thing it offers – mindless OTT action in a very basic mould. As such I quite enjoyed it but it would have been much better to actually care about it or be thrilled by it – as such it is a real basic action movie that only stands out from the straight-to-video market by virtue of the stars involved.