THE EXPENDABLES 2 (2012)
Grade: B-
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Yu Nan, Bruce Willis, Arnold
Premise: Barney Ross and his group of mercenaries travel to Albania
Rated R for strong bloody violence and language
Is it possible for more people to bite the dust in a movie than in The Expendables 2? The movie is 102 minutes long and, I would guess, some 500 people meet their maker during the running time. Admittedly, they’re mostly faceless minions who are supporting a crime lord who’s hurting innocent people, but, still—death is not beautiful in this sequel to the 2010 shoot-em-up blockbuster The Expendables. Like the prequel, this movie is about the All-Star action heroes cast assembled to save the world (or at least small-to-medium-sized third world communities), but they wouldn’t be able to do the awesome things they do without some extras to kick, punch, shoot, stab, skewer, or otherwise maim. If the last decade’s Hostel and Saw franchises qualified as “torture porn”, than these two Expendables flicks unquestionably qualify as “action porn”. These movies are for dudes who wanna watch movies that feature a couple of one-liners, some manly camaraderie, and lots and lots of shooting. In fact, the bare bones script concocted (by star Sylvester Stallone and assistant Richard Wenk) for this movie barely qualifies as a “story”; it’s mostly an itinerary drawn up to get our team of recognizable over-the-hill heroes from one shootout to another, with big and bigger weaponry designed to help them out of “tight corners”.
But, still, as a guy, I love it. It’s fun stuff. (Is it bad to say I giggled to myself as various Asian/Eastern European militia were blown to bits by .50 cal bullets and pistol rounds, because I did)
Plot
I use that word “plot” loosely, but there you go. Most of the guys in this movie aren’t “acting”, they’re just “being”, because this movie cares less about their characterizations than the body counts they stack up. But for formality’s sake, I’ll do a brief roll call. Stallone is Barney Ross, the stacked and goateed manly-man who leads “The Expendables” mercenary team, which includes knife-happy sidekick Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), martial arts master Yin Yang (Jet Li), erratic Swede Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), hulking gun lover Hail Caesar (Terry Crews, and I’m not kidding about his name), and wrestling stylist Toll Road (MMA star Randy Couture, ditto about the name). Barney’s some-time ally/rival is called only Mr. Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and his occasional employer is a humorless man named Mr. Church (Bruce Willis). At the beginning of this movie, the Expendables rescue Mr. Trench from some nasty Nepali militia with the help of their newest and (by far) youngest member, Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth). The mission goes well (well, for them—scores of random guys get blown to smithereens before these guys lift off in their ancient seaplane), but they barely get to enjoy the comforts of home before Mr. Church comes to them with another mission. Now the guys need to help a smart superspy (Yu Nang) find a secret cargo plane that crashed in the Chinese mountains carrying, among other things, a transponder designed to track plutonium deposits found in an Albanian mine.
Unfortunately, there’s someone waiting for them at the site, the transponder is lost, and one of the Expendables ends up cold and still. Enraged, the Expendables mark the killer, Villaine (Jean-Claude Van Damme) as their next target and hurry after him, to get revenge—and to stop him from harvesting the discovered five tons of weapons-grade plutonium. But Villaine commands vast numbers, and the Expendables may actually be out-gunned without the help of trigger-happy bounty hunter Booker (THE Chuck Norris).
What Doesn’t Work?
Well, okay, character development is mostly nil, and the dialogue consists mostly of mingled oaths and meaty attempts at humor, not to mention the more popular guys’ recycling of each other’s old catchphrases (“I’ll be back”, “Yippie ki yay”). There’s plenty for an even halfway-serious moviegoer to sigh and roll their eyes at, and I did both. A lot of the tension is also distilled by that old fallacy of a villain stopping to chuckle and then ramble after backing our heroes into a corner, giving them time to think up a plan/recover from injuries. And of those “heroes”, as in the last film, only three of them (in this case, Stallone, Statham and Hemsworth) really matter (also, some women might object to the idea that the women in these movies always find the beefy, mumbling Stallone attractive; speaking of women, there’s pretty much nothing that would endear this movie to female viewers. I mean, NONE). Also, of all the stars in this movie, it’s curious that arguably the most legendary one (Chuck Norris) is the one who has least purpose to be here. His role is pointless, and he doesn’t even kick anybody (though he does tell a joke).
What Works?
Like its prequel, The Expendables 2 is super fun. It’s more fun, in its own way, than even The Avengers, Marvel’s put-em-together-and-let-them-fight-baddies assembling of its own instantly-recognizable heroes. The actors don’t really matter, but they’re still fun to watch. Stallone gets most of the lines, but Couture gets to throw people around and yank them into suplexes, Crews gets to flex his muscles and blow 50-cent-piece-sized holes through people with machine guns, Jet Li takes on a small army of knife-wielding Asians, and Dolph Lundgren lifts up his heavy legs and kicks a dude straight off a balcony. Willis and Schwarzenegger even get into the action this time, getting to shoot up several roomfuls of bad guys and ripping both doors off a puny European-made car. Hemsworth takes over for the first movie’s Mickey Rourke as the person who actually does a little bit of acting, but my personal favorite is Jason Statham. After three Transporter movies, Safe, The Bank Job, and The Mechanic, it’s clear that, while he’s no Laurence Olivier, no one can take out a half-dozen or more faceless bad guys without breaking a sweat like Statham (one bit involving Statham donning priest’s robes in an old Eastern Orthodox church to catch a few thugs off guard is this film’s high point, nearly as fun as the Dolph Lundgren/Jet Li faceoff from the first movie). Oh, and Yu Nan brings a hint of gravity to her role as the token tough female.
Content:
Most of the bloodletting is done at a distance, but that doesn’t stop it from splattering. This movie reaches almost ludicrous levels in its depiction of people being blown away by walls of bullets (one guy in particular appears to receive as many bullets in the torso as Vito Corleone’s son Sonny in The Godfather). There’s also some cussing, but this movie is rated R for bloody violence (if you ever thought a movie where people shoot each other would contain simply people getting shot rather than being dismembered, boy were you wrong). Keep the kids and the squeamish far away.
Bottom Line (I Promise): It’s ridiculous, of course, but I’m a guy, and I enjoyed The Expendables 2, just like I enjoyed its prequel. There’s little story, little acting, and this movie even wastes a few of its stars, but its adrenaline-fueled shootouts are the stuff of a guy’s daydreams.
The Expendables 2 (2012)
Directed by Simon West
Written for the screen by Sylvester Stallone and Richard Wenk
Rated R
Length: 102 minutes
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