Good news everyone. There are only 13 tagged actors for this movie, and one of them is actually a woman. Crazy, right? Obviously, The Expendables 2 is a sequel to The Expendables, which I forever have disliked because it came out the same day as Scott Pilgrim.
Insert dead horse joke.
The crew is basically the same before. Lead by Stallone, second in command Statham, but also still with Couture, Lundgren, Crews, and Li. Too bad Jet Li leaves in the beginning of the movie, to come back later. Yes, he is pointless.
But they do have a young guy, Bill the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) who is former military sniper, and good at what he does.
Bruce Willis is mad because of events from the first film, but he is willing to forgive the team, if they go and retrieve some data from a downed plane far away. Easy enough. He is making them bring along a woman too, Maggie (Nan Yu) who definitely won’t be there as a romantic interest either.
But turns out the simple mission isn’t very simple. Shit hits the fan, and people might die. A different military group, lead by Vilain(Jean-Claude Van Damme…and yes Vilain? What?) and his lackey Hector (Scott Adkins) decides to steal the package and get away pretty cleanly. But what they stole, for their secretive reason, can actually put an end to the world as we know it.
The Expendables crew will have navigate unfamiliar territory, versus basically an army, and a pretty short clock to do it in. For those disappointed with Bruce and Arnold from the last movie, don’t worry, they do more shit. But also, Chuck Norris, because the internet loves him. Before you ask, basically, Chuck Norris was a walking Chuck Norris joke in is 2ish scenes he was in.
The triumvirate of power, right in front of your eyes folks.
I think it is acceptable enough to compare this to the first one right? Well I thought the first one was boring. It had a lot of action, but I don’t think I really understood everything going on, in between explosions and fisticuffs.
The second one? Well, I understood the plot! There is that. I also found the action scenes to be a bit better overall. I would say the first scene of the movie, a compound break in was a bit confusing due to the vehicles. The airport scene was a bit over the top, because it made no sense to have a basic flood of enemies continuously appear for them to mow down from all angles.
Interesting action movie? That is a rarity in my case. When the death happened, I actually felt upset. The final fight scene that you know exists between JCVD and Stallone was pretty epic.
But at the same time, a lot of features ended up annoying me. Having Jet Li in for one scene felt like a waste. Couture, Crews, and Lundren were all underused as well. The girl love story was a nice pointless addition, that felt forced. And basically anything involving planes, really.
So I am sure they are planning another one, which I will watch, but won’t really need to see the previous ones again.