“The
Expendables 2” is what the first outing from 2010 -– a surprisingly dull film recreating
and saluting the 1980s action flicks of my over-stimulated youth that had its
head stuck up the butt of the long-gone decade –- should have been. Teeth-rattling fun, mainly.
In that
film, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis -– the Holy
Trinity of the Action Film Genre -– stood around and made blowjob jokes. The talky give
and take was so awkward, it sounded like an investors meeting at Planet
Hollywood, and the scene had zero impact. Here, Stallone,
Schwarzenegger, and Willis come together and blast apart an army of faceless
villains, machine guns popping off endless amounts of bullets. They
are joined by Chuck Norris. They’re all after Jean Claude
Van Damme. Now, that’s star power beyond my 16-year-old dreams. (Chuck Norris!!!)
Let’s
get it out of the way now: “Expendables 2” is ridiculous, from its opening
scene to the last frame. It’s a joke. Everyone on screen has a goofy character name,
but who are we fooling? Our heroes, joined by “Expendables 1” hold-overs Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li,
Terry Crews, and Randy Couture are basically playing themselves, or at least,
our collective perception of the myriad characters they have played on screen
since the time of VCR as a common household item and Ronald Reagan as president. When Big Names mattered over the title on the poster, not just the name of the superhero that the film is about. Hell, these guys were superheroes, flat out.
Schwarzenegger drops his “I’ll be back” lines
from “The Terminator,” Stallone is called “the Italian,” even though his Barney
Frank bears seemingly no relation to a Philly boxer. Willis gets a “Yippe-ki-yay”
in there, for “Die Hard” lore. Lundgren’s real-life background as a chemical
engineer gets picked up for a series of laughs, right before a tip to the
original “Total Recall.” Hilariously, Chuck Norris tells a Chuck Norris joke,
and can barely keep a straight face when he dishes it out.
It’s silly, bloody camp,
a throwback film that winks back at the 1980s/90s, and knows AARP men of that era
have no business starring in a modern action film, but doesn’t care. Yet, that is the kick. I saw this because of the cast, thinking back to the day when we saw a movie because it was Stallone or Willis or Schwarzenegger. Those days are gone, mostly. Now, we see the Spider-Man movie, not caring who stars, but only because it is Spider-Man. Schwarzenegger
says, “We belong in a museum,” ribbing himself before the haters can write the
same dismissive remark in a snide review at IMDB. It’s not as gloriously
over-the-top singularly enjoyable as, say, “Flash Gordon,” but awful close, and
as fully aware of its heightened life as a instant guilty pleasure, without the guilt. Chuck Norris!!!
The improvements are fast, and in the credits:
Stallone starred, wrote, and directed the first film, and looked exhausted the
entire time onscreen. Simon West,
who directed “Con-Air,” takes over the reins here, and Stallone also had help
on the screenplay. And the man looks looser here, focused on the subject at
hand: Kicking bad guy ass. He’s having more fun, really.
The plot is easy, and -– to my surprise -– throws
in what the first film sorely needed, a female protagonist. Yu Nan, new to my eyes,
plays an operative of Willis’ shady CIA spook named Church. The mission: The
Expendables take Nan’s Maggie to a downed airplane in Albania to extract a McGuffin
disk locked inside a safe. What’s on the disc? Not important. A group of
vaguely European creeps want it, and get it, and fight is on. It’s that easy.
Starring as the lead villain, Vilain -– yes, go on and laugh or roll your eyes, Vilain! –- is Van Damme, looking
mean and scarred after years of drug abuse and a reported heart attack. As with
Lundgren in the first film, Van Damme looks hungry for stardom on screen and he
dives so fully in to his maniacal, over-the-top (I really cannot say that enough) bad guy, one can’t help but cheer on the actor, I swear.
As with “The Avengers” and its thin plot, the
set-up of “Expendables 2” is a means to get to the final battle. Unlike “Expendables
1,” this delivers. No spoiler alert needed, if you have not seen this film yet,
these words will make you jump: Stallone fights Van Damme, hand-to-hand
combat. It is freaking awesome. Yes, Stallone versus Schwarzenegger might be
better, but this is just too good not to witness. Rocky/Rambo versus the Muscles from Brussels is what define
high-octane summer films, even purposefully goofy violent.
It’s not rock solid by far. Clearly
Jet Li had better things to do, and drops out quickly. As well, Schwarzenegger may not have the big-screen chops anymore, his line readings are awkward, as if he’s pushing too hard to pull off the one-liners of two decades ago. Liam Hemsworth (“The Hunger Games,” and
younger brother of Chris from “Thor”) plays
a young Expendable who gives this long spiel of an Army mission gone wrong and an
adopted pet dog being slain. It may be the dialogue, it may be Hemsworth’s newness
as an actor, but it falls flat. That aside is a rare turn here compared to the overly
morose tone that dragged “Expendables 1” down.
A Part 3 is promised, and although the cast may grow even larger and even more starry, I’m happy with
this outing. This is a self-aware and knowing go-for-broke blast of fun, a joke that works, by the muscle-bound actors who, for better and worse, defined a decade-plus of action genre filmmaking.
This is all perfectly the right amount of too much, and there’s a difference
between nostalgic road trip and a tired cash grab. P.S., Chuck Norris!!! B+
