Expendables 2 - Review Thread

[Hollywood]

Damn, i was expected to see lower ratings then i see on some post. I hated 1st one, so is it better any then the first movie?

[MasterChief117]

I must see this film, this weekend or Monday. I don't care when. I will see this movie. I absolutely adore anything Arnold Schwarzenegger related, even house maids.

[DarthVader 2004]

Originally Posted by HOLLYWOOD

Damn, i was expected to see lower ratings then i see on some post. I hated 1st one, so is it better any then the first movie?

Yes Its better because really the mission kinda takes place in the day light and you don't get all this overly dark lighting through some of the movie. Also The Extended cameos of Arnald and Willis really improved the movie and other things.
Its more of a salute to 80's movies more so then anything the first movie did.

[DarthVader 2004]

Originally Posted by Justin

Here's my one piece of advise:

Stop casting The Rock and Liam Neeson in everything.

The Rock works because action is what he is best at. And not sure where your getting Neeson in the conversation.

[Justin]

No offense Vader, but do I really need to quote every single time you decided to cast Neeson? It was meant as a joke, though, for the record...

[saveus1011]

Originally Posted by HOLLYWOOD

Damn, i was expected to see lower ratings then i see on some post. I hated 1st one, so is it better any then the first movie?

The first ten minutes blow away anything in the first movie.

[nine1wing]

Van damme should have had more screen time in my opinion, lundgren I think was probably the funniest, jet li's line of don't worry I"m sure you'll find another minority to pick on was hilarious

[saveus1011]

Chuck Norris was my favorite part.

[DarthVader 2004]

The Cobra joke was the best one in the movie. To be honest Chuck looked better then Sly and Arnald for his age. Isn't Norris like 80 years old.

[MasterChief117]

Chuck Norris is actually 104.



I was suppose to see this tonight, but couldn't make the plans for it. Perhaps some day relatively soon.

[Doomsday]

I'm not trying to toot my own horn but I like to think of myself as an action movie buff, perhaps one of the biggest ones on these boards. 80s/early 90s movies were great to grow up with and they provided countless hours of entertainment both then and now. Expendables 1 sought to capitalize on the people like me, people looking for a throwback with their favorite action stars of yesteryear and some newer guys in the mix. To me, that movie hasn't grown better with age and was curious to see how Expendables 2 went especially without Stallone in the director's chair. Right now it seems like I'm trying to validate a simple action movie and you're right, I am but let me tell you why.

First, lets use a fun action movie from the 80s as a comparison, Commando. Textbook Schwarzenegger fare; huge muscles, massive weapons, high body count, explosions, guns, bodies, limbs, completely unnecessary boobs, the works. The same general formula can be used even for the high end/quality action movies like Die Hard. One of main themes of the action movie is the factoring of odds. It's really fun and much more suspenseful when we see one man go up against 10, 50, 100 bad guys. Even in a movie like Predator we see the team get whittled down until it's finally one man vs. a superior alien. Rambo, Die Hard, Commando, a lot of movies use that formula. When Rambo came out in 2008 something was a little off. It just wasn't as fun seeing Rambo go toe to toe with the Burmese army when he has 10 other guys backing him up. Then Expendables 1 and 2 came out, and while the idea sounded good on paper it just isn't as fun seeing 12 huge action stars do the same thing that each of them did individually in other movies. The action was there but the investment lacked.

Second, I understand that Expendables 2 isn't supposed to take itself too seriously and is tongue in cheek. However, it should take itself seriously to some degree. Expendables 2 doesn't at all. How do we know? Because this whole movie is a wink and a nod to the audience and the fans. The entire movie. That's cool to throw in the references a few times, but in this movie it's relentless. At best it gets redundant and at worst it takes you out of the film. The Chuck Norris line, although clever and got a great audience response, was so forced and unnatural. I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of Terminator references, and the Arnold/Bruce Willis exchange at the end was atrocious.

In the middle of a shootout
Arnold: Stay here, I'll be back.
Bruce: You always say you'll be back. This time, I'll be back.
Arnold: Yipee kay yay!

I wish I was making that up. This whole movie wants to remind the audience of the other movies these guys starred in, you almost forget that you're watching one at that moment. The throwbacks are so many and so frequent that it became tiresome and almost insulting.

And that doesn't even touch on the movie. I'll quickly run down the pros and cons. Cons: The dialogue is just as good as it was in Expendables 1, which is terrible. Not terribly awesome, just terrible. There are countless scenes insulting each others' ages, and they are so lazily written you could have asked a 3rd grader to chip in with the rewrites. 'You're too old, you're like a dinosaur.' Great one liners were another staple of the old time action movie. This has the opposite. Also, in terms of the story itself, we see the team go up against JCVD who stole some plutonium and is transporting it to sell. That's it. When you think of plutonium you think there might be a bomb in the mix. Not here, he just wants to get it off his hands and get rich. Time really isn't of the essence, especially since they can track the baddies pretty easily. So again it's hard to build up any type of suspense. This movie's greatest weakness though was one that was so obvious; there just isn't enough room for so many people. Chuck Norris and Arnold were entirely unnecessary, their characters served next to no purpose other than to add a little more firepower. Arnold, Chuck and JCVD are in probably less than 10 scenes between the three of them and the lack of support shows. But there was some good in here. The two highlights for me were JCVD and Dolph Lundgren. The team must have forgotten that Dolph tried to kill them and almost impaled Jet Li in the last movie, because now he's just one of the guys. But he was the most engaging and entertaining of the Expendables crew. Yet JCVD was an awesome baddie here, although he was criminally underused. The fight between him and Stallone dwarfs the Stone Cold fight of the original, and if given more screen time he could have stolen this movie. But like I said, there wasn't enough room for him (bring on Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning).

C- so says Doomsday, I'm not comparing it to Citizen Kane but even by action movie standards it's sub par. If Stallone had focused more on foundation rather than casting credits and big guns he could have made something special. Not this time, now learn from this and make a kick ass Rambo 5.

[DarthVader 2004]

Well Arnald was a bit cartoony I admit. However Norris was a a nice touch and his entrance was great but they didn't need that music whenever he appeared. Its too bad they killed off a certain character because he was the best actor in his role in the whole movie. But I think the team in its self are great and to be honest I don't think they should add anymore characters for 3. But another Norris and maybe Seagal appearance would be better then another Arnald one.

[Joe Cohen]

Chuck Norris is actually 105

[carnage4u]

As someone that has watched all the 80 action movies in the 80's I found the "meta humor" in the show to be pretty good.There were a couple scenes, where they probably overdid it a little, but thats ok.

The action scenes themesves were VERY well done. It was easily one of the better actions movies I've seen in a while. The humor was there, but the #1 thing was it was great action.

Seeing some of those actors in the same fight scenes/batles was great.

Persnoally I think Doomsday needs to lighten up on movies, but thats just an opinion. If he wants to be a bit stuck up on his movie opinions, more power to him. Its not like it effects my life in any way. If anything it just makes me smile and laugh when I read his posts, and nothing wrong with that either.

[Doomsday]

As always, tell me where I missed the mark and I'll retract what I said. Otherwise,

VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:

[Ramplate]

Did Chuck Norris' chin fist hit anyone?

[Doomsday]

No, we weren't able to see due to his 90 seconds of screen time.

[DarthVader 2004]

Chuck Norris had the best enterance of the rest really. Arnald return at the end was not as cool as him taking out all those guys and a tank. BTW Does anyone else know the body count total of this film.

[Daniel]

Man, this movie delivered. That opening scene was amazing, and the fight between Van Damme and Stallone did not disappoint.

8/10

[DarthVader 2004]

Yeah I liked the end fight too. People said it was too short but I look at it as Sly channeling his rocky punches and lets face it even as good as Van Damme is not many could take those punches.
I liked the Chain part best though of the whole thing.

[saveus1011]

Greatest film ever made.

[DarthVader 2004]

Too bad no Chuck For 3. But that likely will give more screen time to new cameos that would equally be as cool. Seagal would be a better moment in these movies. Simply because like Norris he has this ora.

[PG Cooper]

Back in 2010, Sylvester Stallone put together an action film called The Expendables. It had a pretty standard action film plot, but the catch to the film was the cast, which had several major action stars including Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Steve Austin, Jason Statham, and others. The film also featured cameos from Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I was pretty excited but was overall underwhelmed. The film had a lot of problems and overall wasn’t very good. My enthusiasm for the sequel wasn’t very high but to my shock I got a lot of enjoyment from The Expendables 2.

The titular Expendables are a group of mercenaries who travel around the world killing bad guys and saving good guys. The group is made up of Sly Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Liam Hemsworth, and Jet Li. Of course, all these actors have characters they’re playing, but I’m not going to bother using them. It doesn’t matter that Sylvester Stallone’s character is called Barney Ross, you are going to call him Sylvester Stallone anyway. Early into the film, the team is contacted by Bruce Willis, who sends them on a job to find a computer file…or something like that. The team gets the file, but it is then taken by the villain of the film, Jean Claude Van Damme and his team of evil. So The Expendables have to, as Sly puts it, “Find em, track em, and kill em!”

As you’ve probably deduced from the plot description, the plot isn’t exactly Inception. It’s a straightforward action plot with very few twists and turns. The story is more or less exactly what you’d expect. Of course the simplicity works as an asset in many ways. The film does have focus and the story never becomes convoluted. The good guys are good and the bad guys are evil. It’s mind numbingly simple but if you’re willing to accept the simplicity it’s easy to get into and have a good time.

The purpose of the film isn’t to tell a good story anyway, it’s to get a bunch of action heroes together and have them go through a lot of action set pieces. This was the same goal as the first film but this time around, The Expendables 2 actually succeeds. Even though it’s mostly the same cast as the first film, but they’re used much better here. First off, the characters I actually like are focused on, where as boring characters like Randy Couture are mostly left in the background. Expendables 2 also has better villains than the first film. Jean Claude Van Damme makes for a good villain and he’s also given a psychotic henchman who’s also a lot of fun. Chuck Norris’ appearance is also a lot more fun than I would have expected it to be. Most importantly though, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis are in the film a lot more than in the first. They aren’t main characters or anything, but they’re given enough to do and watching them was a lot of fun.

The action scenes here are pretty kickass. The film opens with a massive set-piece which features car crashes, explosions, shootouts, and martial arts. It’s an awesome way to start the film, perhaps too good, since the film is never able to top the opening until the climax. The action is brutal and bloody, but in a way that’s fun and not unsettling. The action is entertaining throughout, but things are taken to a new level during the climax. Throughout the climax we’re given an epic shootout, fun car chase, and two brutal one-on-one fights. There’s not a lot of tension in these shootouts given that the film’s protagonists feel like unstoppable super humans, but the scenes are still a lot of fun.

The Expendables 2 is a stupid movie. The dialogue is goofy, the character development is non-existent, the story empty, there is little tension, and no depth…and I had a blast watching it. Maybe it’s a guilty pleasure, or maybe I was in the mood for a fun action romp, but I had a great time watching it. I realize and acknowledge its many flaws, and there are many, but I can still push past them to enjoy the film. If someone were to criticize the film, my only real defence would be to say, with a smile and shrug, “I had fun.”

Rating: B

[MovieBuff801]

Now THIS is what I'm talking about!

I didn't think the first movie was good, but this one hit just the right notes. The 80's cheesiness worked, the one-liners were good and the action was kick-ass. Whereas the first one felt pretty muddled, this one felt more confident, and it translated into a better-made, more fun film overall. There were a lot of moments in here where I was just grinning in pleasure.

I don't think there's much more to say. If they can keep the feeling this film had, then I say bring on Expendables 3.

***/****

[Justin]

Norris was indeed the best part, even if he was in the movie for 10 minutes. The eagle screeching whenever he showed up was pretty funny.