The Expendables 2 Review

"Nurse, Mr Stallone's got out of bed again!"

By Richard Luck, 15 August 2012

Can you imagine how much it'd have cost to mount The Expendables 2 in the 1980s. Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, DolphLundgren, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jet Li - the insurance premiums alone would have bankrupted most studios.

Despite this excess of movie machismo, the original Expendables was a decidedly so-so affair. A case of too many smackdown-laying cooks spoiling the kick-ass broth? Quite possibly. Then again, having Rocky Balboa in the director's chair probably didn't help matters much. This time out, proceedings are over-seen by British filmmaker Simon West (Con Air, The Mechanic) and the end result is a vast improvement.

If you had better things to do than watch The Expendables: Part Un, the men in question are a steroidal A-Team, capable of bringing any brutal dictatorship to its knees. Commanded by Mr Church (Willis), this time around the mercenaries seem set for an easy payday, only for one of their number - we won't say whom - to meet a sticky end courtesy of conveniently named bad guy Vilain (Van Damme, whose recruitment was quite a coup given that he'd passed on the first picture). But while others might quake when the odds are stacked against them, The Expendables are never happier than when the amunitions running out and their backs are against the wall.

Since it's co-written by Stallone, it'll come as no great surprise that his character, the battle-scarred Barney Ross, is at the heart of the action. And while the erstwhile John Rambo might me getting a little long in the tooth, there can be no doubting his commitment to the cause - Stallone performs the majority of his own stunts, a fact that royally pissed off his medical practitioner. The old hands' whole-hearted efforts cannot disguise the fact, however, that action cinema is a young man's game. It's just a pity that West doesn't allow the younger Expendables - Jason Statham, Liam Hemsworth, MMA great Randy Couture - to carry more of the weight.

Continues top right corner...

Continues...

In the end, The Expendables 2 is a victim of unrealistic expectations. Put John McClane, the Terminator and The Transporter's Frank Martin in the same movie and you better have a third act to rival the Resurrection of Christ. Given what West and Co. have to work with, they do a perfectly good job of celebrating the outlandish action cinema of the Reagan era. But if, as has been threatened, a third Expendables picture gets the go-ahead, the execs will either have to invest in fresh talent or set the bulk of the action in a retirement home.

Released: 16 August