New review coming up, as soon I hammer my catchphrase into the ground.
The sequel to 2010’s lacklustre but
successful original packs in more action, more cameos and more humour to
the proceedings which is a breath of fresh air after the very serious
in tone original, but oddly the humour is both the film’s strongest and
weakest aspect. The first film was supposed to be a throwback to the
heyday of this type of action cinema, the 80’s. A love letter to that
era of wanton violence, lots of shootouts, and a tonne of gore and one
liners. But something felt off; it was too earnest. It was a serious
film with aspirations to be tongue in cheek; and while the second film
gets a better balance with this, it still feels off somehow.
Barney Ross (Stallone) is the leader of
the Expendables. They’re kind of like the A Team, but with more violence
and killing. They do off the books jobs for shady government types that
normally involve blowing everything up with alarming regularity. They
are hired by Church (Willis) to recover a device for the CIA, and during
the mission one of their one is killed by the villain, called Jean
Villa(i)n (Van Damme) and the rest of the film becomes a revenge tale.
However, the problem is that the story
isn’t really that exciting and you’re just waiting for the next set
piece to begin, with boring exposition in between. The opening sequence
(and all of the action scenes, if I’m honest) is rather awesome, I must
admit, but then it’s just waiting around for the next barrage of
gunfire. There’s no real chemistry or feeling of camaraderie between the
group, they’re just walking hulking muscle men with guns, and half of
them can’t really act; namely Lundgren, Couture and Norris. You get the
feeling the film is just happy to coast along on the reputations of its
stars. Which is fine, but it also pretends to be something better than
that. When it’s really not.
The tongue in cheek nature that the film
is trying to replicate, the era of your Commando’s, Cobra’s, your
Universal Solider’s, doesn’t really sit right. Perhaps it’s because the
cinematic landscape has changed, especially in action cinema, in that
films like that aren’t made anymore and as such everything in this film
that’s trying to invoke a sense of nostalgia comes off as desperation.
So, the first time Arnie pops up and says ‘I’m back’ it’s quite funny.
By the third time, it feels like ‘Ok, we get it.’ The worst offender
though, is not Chuck Norris reciting a Chuck Norris fact, but Arnie yet
again saying ‘I’ll be back’ to which Bruce Willis replies ‘You’ve been
back enough. I’ll be back.’ He leaves the frame; Arnie shoots a couple
of guys and says ‘Yippee Ki Ay.’ Groan. The lines that work are the ones
that reference the aging action stars without battering you over the
head with lame rehashes of their lines from better movies. So when
Willis says ‘that thing belongs in a museum’ and Arnie replies ‘Don’t we
all?’ That works. As does the image of Arnie and Bruce mowing down bad
guys in a Smart car, subverting the action star cliché and being
genuinely funny but not stupid.
However, you don’t go to see this for
the compelling plot and nuanced characters, you go for the action. Which
is great, for the most part. And I will say, seeing Schwarzenegger,
Stallone and Willis tear through the bad guys was a real joy. And Bruce
Willis still has the best shooting a gun face ever.
Big dumb fun.
3 stars (it got one extra for the final shootout)
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