You might not get it unless you grew up in the 70's or 80's

Rating: 8/10 (10 October 2012)

The Expendables 2 is a mindless, kill a minute ride that begins with death, goes on with more deaths, continues on with killings, and ends pretty much with yet more additions to the body count. But hey, the film is a mindless kill a minute tribute to a forgotten or more precisely, abandoned genre. Just like movie junkies of the fifties and sixties like to say 'They just don't make'em like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.' So can action movie lovers of the seventies and eighties mourn the death of the Schwarzenegger/Seagal/Van Damm/Russel/Lungdren/Norris/Daniels/Lee/Hauser(Wings, not Cole)/Grunner/etc. era of sometimes cheesy, always over the top, always awesome, action movies. I suppose Sly's goal here, and with the first film, was to celebrate that bygone age of action flick by assembling some of his eighties competition stars, and supplementing them with a few contemporary shoot'em up guys. Personally, I loved the movie, but I don't get the casting of Crews, Couture and Hemsworth. No dice, Sly--those guys haven't earned spots beside the likes of yourself and the others we all know and love. And you forgot to include some of the best and brightest of that golden age of blood and guts. Where was Olivier Grunner? How about Rutger Hauer for goodness sake? Kurt Russel? Steven-I am God-Seagal? A travesty, Sly. A travesty. Anyway, the movie was good, was worth the ticket price, and after all is said and done, was really just a spoof, an excuse to get all these guys together on screen at once. Gets an 8/10 for leaving out some of the best eighties action stars, while including wannabe modern actors without a clue of which way to point their barrels. Go see it--if you're a child of said era of action flicks.