Expendables 2 is exactly what you’d expect: a kick-ass nostalgia driven tongue-in-cheek action comedy. Fortunately, the movie is in sure hands and delivers on our expectations. While not giving any more complexity to any of the characters, the Expendables 2 ups the first movie’s ante and gives expanded roles to Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger and adds Chuck Norris and Jean Claude Van Damme to the picture. Using a by-the-numbers 80s screenplay, and I felt like I was taken back in time to the era of Cold War politics.
Led by Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone, only acting this time), our favorite mercenaries: Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), and Toll Road (Randy Couture) are joined by old allies Trench (Schwarzenegger) and Church (Willis) and newcomers Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) and Maggie (Nan Yu) to track down Villain (Van Damme, and that’s really his name) a mercenary who has found some plutonium to sell on the black market.
Sure there are “twists” and “character building” moments, but most of those moments are quickly pushed out of the way by the action sequences. Director Simon West, who directed Con Air, knows how to stage a fun action sequence. The opening 20 minutes is a rousing showcase of macho action and elaborate set pieces. Shaky Cam’s are gone so we are pretty aware of what is going on, even when a plane is crashing. The obvious showdown between Stallone and Van Damme is solid if unspectacular because of both of their ages. Most of the characters get their moments to shine, and the violence upgrades the movie from PG-13 to R, making some of the deaths infinitely more gruesome.
This movie gets a lot of mileage out of its well of action in-jokes. Schwarzenegger gets the best lines, including a nice little sequence with Bruce Willis where they rip off each other’s lines. Dolph Lundgren gets more screen time, and his off-the-wall character generates a lot of laughs at his personal expense. Chuck Norris is playing a character he played in the late 70’s, partly an homage, but partly winking at the audience. Van Damme of course does his patented roundhouse kick. Unfortunately, these in jokes leave people like Couture, Li, Crews, Na, and Hemsworth with smaller roles. Li, Na, and Couture get to showcase their martial arts and MMA skills, but Crews is criminally underused (I thought he was the best part of the first Expendables) and Hemsworth is solely there as a plot device. If they somehow signed Miley Cyrus to show up as a love interest for him, that would have been given more moments for his character.
Movies like Expendables 2 are refreshing. Just like the original, it knows what its audience wants and gives it to them. In an age where movies try to unnecessarily complicate a story, the Expendables 2 is macho enough to keep those distractions to a minimum. The Expendables 2 speaks loudly and beats you down with its big stick.