The Avengers of action hero movies

Rating: 7/10 (18 August 2012)

The Expendables are back and in action working another job for Mr. Church (Willis) when something goes wrong on the job and the crew vows revenge. (No real plot necessary) This is one of those few exceptions in the world of movies where the sequel is actually better than the original. The Expendables was quite serviceable in my opinion, but it never really lived up to the potential of what could have been with the dream team cast it touted. This time however The Expendables take on a whole new attitude.
By embracing the films true nature The Expendables 2 makes a love letter to the action movies that bred it as well as the fans that grew up watching. You spend just as much time laughing as you spend in awe of the films face offs and graphic action sequences. Everybody is ragging on one another in such a self aware way that you feel like you are in on the joke too, especially if you were a fan of the genre in its hay-day. Gunner (Lundgren), playing the half drunk badass is intentionally funnier than I ever could have imagined. There was one hilarious line by Chuck Norris that actually brought the theater into all out applause. I've never seen that before.
Although the movie had a few short "Where did the action go?" moments to instead hone in on a pointless character called Maggie who needs her action fix and is forced on the guys by Mr. Church, the action sequences were over the top and just as much fun as one would hope. There were some Rambo-like graphic gun shots putting gigantic holes in bad guys, sometimes knocking their entire heads off. The hand to hand combat was creating lots of ooh's and ahhs from our theater (rightfully so), and the dream one on one matchups reach a new high as two of the biggest names in ass kicking face off at one point. Van Damme as Villain is sinister enough to be a believable bad guy and fits the role quite well, although I'd rather have seen a bit more of him. (He's JCVD for crying out loud)
Whether fighting, shooting, or talking The Expendables 2 works for the same reason The Avengers did. Watching The Avengers I thought "This is what it would really be like if these epic Superheroes fought together ".The same goes for The Expendables 2. I just watched John McClane, The Terminator, Ivan Drago, Frank Duux, and Rambo either work together to blow stuff up or even face off against one another. In the first film that's what I expected but The Expendables was trying to be its own movie. The Expendables 2 however, was every 80's and 90's action film we have ever enjoyed wrapped into one and a reminder that having a good time at the movies is what it's all about.