NO! Don't do it. Go and wash your mouth out.

Rating: 2/10 (25 August 2012)

It's been a poor cinema month for me. Not that everything I've seen has been bad, more that I've seen very few films this August. And it pains me that one of those was The Expendables 2.
Oh, man. It's bad. Really bad. Not bad in an Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud kind of way, just in a Space Cowboys bunch-of-old-farts-acting-badly kind of way.
If you enjoyed First Blood, don't bother. It's not that good. If you thought Act of Valor was wonderful, then go and see The Expendables 2. You'll deserve everything you get.
So let's start with the good points (this is going to be quick):
1. Chuck Norris, despite being born in 1940 and the oldest on screen, looks younger and in considerably better shape than Schwarzenegger and Stallone. 2. Bruce Willis almost escapes with his dignity intact. 3. It eventually ends (after a long, painful 103 minutes).
And the pick of the bad points?
Oh, there are too many to mention. It's a black hole, into which reason, quality, acting ability, enjoyment, logic, and self-respect are sucked, never to return.
Mostly the actors, and once again this term must be used loosely, are unable to move and speak simultaneously and the vast majority of lines are caped at five words. I'm guessing brains are fried and most of those on the screen need idiot boards as well as reading glasses. It's hammed up pretty much all the time.
There isn't a single performance worthy of mention other than to say that Willis isn't as dreadful as the others. Usually in a macho gun-fest like this, one can rely on the 'intelligent girl' guest actor to provide something resembling a performance but in this instance Nan Yu falls some distance short of Jason Statham, the untrained, mono-expressive former cab driver.
Every possible 'in-joke' and reference to each star's signature roles is explored, repeated, repeated, repeated and nailed to the set for all to see, just in case they missed it the first few times. Exactly how many times can Arnie be back in one film? Yippee ki yay mother
For the first few scenes, any of the audience that isn't dribbling and looking for their other brain cell smiles and hopes that the appalling lack of cohesion and intelligible dialogue is the sly wink and a nudge from director Simon West before he takes the job seriously. It isn't, he doesn't and it doesn't look as though he's capable of doing so. The Expendables 2 is a very, very long and steep decline from the glory days of his first two outings, Con Air and The General's Daughter. What West has given the world in The Expendables 2 is a series of explosions, grunts, expletives and camera moves dressed up as scenes that frequently don't flow or link in any traditional way. It just doesn't make sense. At times, the vocal expression is at odds with the words spoken and completely off-kilter despite following on from another line by the same actor! Did they have month-long breaks between set-ups? Did somebody forget to employ continuity?
I'm in danger of ranting and it really isn't worth the effort but I do have one question: What the hell is Chuck Morris doing arriving on screen to Clint Eastwood's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly theme??? It couldn't be any more sacrilegious to dress a statue of Mother Theresa in a basque and suspenders. Well, maybe a little, but you get my drift.
If you see this, it serves you right.
Needless to say, it wasn't my choice to see The Expendables 2, and now I need to clean my brain with a good book.
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