Based upon characters created by David Callaham
Story by Ken Kaufman, David Agosto and Richard Wenk
Screenplay Written by Richard Wenk and Sylvester Stallone
Directed by Simon West
**1/2 (two and a half stars)
Two years ago, in my review of "The Expendables," I wrote the following description: "The Expendables" is a veritable feast of men for men about men and in honor of men and their excessive manliness."
As I also said in my review of the first film, while I did not think that "The Expendables" was necessarily a "good movie," Lord help me, I was undeniably entertained and even found myself willing to sit through another adventure. Now that "The Expendables 2" has arrived, and a third film must definitely be on the cinematic horizon, I can easily tell you that this specialized feast in brawn and carnage has only grown in size and bedlam. The film is an even slicker production than the first as it is now in the hands of Director Simon West, who has taken the directorial reins from Stallone, who helmed the first film, and who previously directed the hysterically wild action adventure "Con Air" (1997). As sequels go, "The Expendables 2" certainly left no bullet sitting in the chamber unused but my level of gleeful, delirious, gobsmacked hilarity was not as enthusiastic as it had been. Perhaps, I have just reached my threshold with the hyper-violent pursuits of Barney Ross and his band of sensitive yet sadistically merry mercenaries who fly the friendly skies with "Crystal Blue Persuasion" as their personal soundtrack just before the grunting, spitting, shooting and dismembering takes over. But for those of you who need even more of what I have just described, then this movie certainly delivers the goods.
As with the first film, "The Expendables 2" begins with our anti-heroes deeply engaged in a gratuitously "splatterific" rescue mission before the main plot, such as it is, begins. We are re-introduced to the team led by the taciturn Barney Ross (Stallone) and populated by his chief sidekick and knife expert Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), demolition man Toll Road (Randy Couture), firearms master Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), the even more psychopathic live wire Gunner (Dolph Lundgren), ace sniper and Barney's new protege Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) and martial arts demon Yin Yang (Jet Li), who for this film mysteriously arrives for one bracing fight sequence then parachutes from a plane never to be seen again--maybe it was just one action star too many.
Anyhow, Barney and the gang are again forcibly recruited by the enigmatic Mr. Church (Bruce Willis), to locate a downed airplane in Albania which houses a computer that contains the location of five tons of plutonium. They are also instructed to take the gorgeous yet battle trained (of course) technical expert Maggie Chang (Yu Nan) along for the ride to keep this valuable information out of the wrong hands, this time being the improbably named Jean Vilain (somebody slap me!) portrayed by the inimitable Jean-Claude Van Damme.
But, Vilain does indeed live up to his name as he not only grabs the computer and enlists his own mercenary group The Sangs to round up innocent Bulgarian civilians to dig up the plutonium from an abandoned mine, he mercilessly kills the sweet natured yet cold blooded killer Billy The Kid, who was going to retire from the mercenary life and join his Parisian girlfriend at the end of the month. And now, wracked with guilt and remorse over Billy's death, Barney and the Expendables pledge to track, find and kill Vilain while also retrieving the computer and saving the enslaved Bulgarians.
"The Expendable 2" dispenses with this simplistic plot with brutal effect and bombastic efficiency as there are never enough bullets, bombs, explosions, and two-fisted brawlings to satisfy the action film fans' bloodthirsty souls. Many times throughout, I did indeed laugh out loud as the graphic violence was presented as cartoonishly as possible as to not cross the lines of good taste. And I also appreciated the playful bantering between all of the action film stars which even includes a re-appearance by Arnold Schwarzenegger and an inevitable walk on by Chuck Norris.
Furthermore, I especially loved discovering certain gigantic plot holes and head turning nonsensical moments that peppered the film yet did nothing to derail it as you are certainly not going to see "The Expendables 2" for the tight plotting and character development. Even so, a climax set at an airport surprised me as I was truly uncertain as to when and how all of the participants arrived there. The utter and massive predictability of Billy The Kid's demise is so blatantly obvious that he should have been wearing a sign saying "I'm Not Going To Live Through The Next 15 Minutes Of the Movie." When Maggie Grace informs The Expendables that the location of the plutonium has been kept so secret that no one knows exactly where to find the abandoned mine, it dawned on me immediately that not only did they find the mine without difficulty but so did Jean Vilain and his team and everyone else within the story that needed to find it as well.
One visual element that I did enjoy tremendously and felt that it was a complete antidote to the dreaded "shaky cam" was how Simon West happens to be a director, while impersonal, who (mostly) knows how to film and shoot an action scene, especially hand to hand fight sequences. Yes, he does rely on a bit more editing than absolutely necessary, he does keep the cameras away from the participants far enough where the actual story of the fight is captured and presented fairly cleanly. Jet Li's one and only sequence in the film springs to mind right away as does another sequence where Jason Statham gets to show his stuff as he is bombarded by assailants inside of a church. The best of all was indeed the climactic mano-a-mano between Barney and Vilain as Stallone showed off the muscles and punches straight from his days as the "Italian Stallion" and Van Damme exhibited his graceful and nearly balletic moves with punishing fury. That section was a terrific pulse pounder that was sheer entertainment and high comedy all at once.
While there is no conceivable way for me to think that any potential viewer of "The Expendables 2" would ever be disappointed by the sheer massive level of testosterone and utter chaos on display, I do wonder how many more of these films can realistically be made because there's nowhere else for films of this sort to ascend to. Yes, you can bring on more action heroes from the past and from even the wrestling world and blow things up to greater cataclysm but is that really enough? I mean--why not just watch these two films repeatedly and leave it at that. Are fans really waiting for that third movie to address all of the unanswered questions from the first two entries? Hardly. But still, what can Stallone and the gang do in another adventure that hasn't already been done? What else can they shoot, maim, bludgeon, pummel, and destroy that they already haven't?
And I think that is where my sense of fatigue entered as I watched "The Expendables 2," a good "bad movie," professionally and expertly presented, but just not as entertaining of a good "bad movie" as the first one.
For the third film, I'll give you my slab of meat for the ticket price. I think I'll be sitting the next one out.
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