Utter rubbish, but good fun

Rating: 7/10 (17 August 2012)

The all-star action hero fest that was The Expendables returns for another go on the merry-go-round. No Micky Rourke this time, but Chuck Norris turns up, Jean-Claude Van Damme serves nicely as the baddie, and there is decent second fiddle support from Liam Hemsworth and Nan Yu.
The plot is barely worth mentioning - some nonsense about plutonium in a disused mine being stolen for sale to terrorists - because this is all about muscles, fighting, explosions, and vast amounts of ammunition being expended (and, of course, it is all magic ammunition: the goodies' ammo all strikes baddies with splashes of very obviously CGI blood, and none of the baddies' ammo goes anywhere near a goodie).
It is interesting to note that, thanks to Chuck Norris I believe, the unnecessary foul language which littered the first movie is conspicuous by its absence: this film is the better for that.
The action is done well, and some of the interplay is fun: Willis and Schwarzenegger get more to do this time, and clearly enjoy doing it (and Schwarzenegger's final comment is telling).
It's tosh, of course - when the opening action sequence finds the heroes ziplining from a shell-ravaged town into the jungle, well....