Expendables 2, like its prequel, is the ultimate popcorn flick - a movie filled with tough guys from the 80’s blowing sh!t up and beating the bad guys.
This time around, Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and his team of tough guys embark on a mission at the behest of CIA operative Church (Bruce Willis) to retrieve a mysterious case from an airplane that crashed in some far off jungle before the bad guys can get to it. The bad guys are led by none other than Jean-Claude Van Damme.
If you can believe it, the overall plot for this one is weaker than the first movie but let’s be honest. Who goes to see a movie like this for plot? We just want to see our childhood action heroes beat each other up, right? And for the most part, this movie delivers on that front.
This movie also sports a little more gore than the previous movie, more blood splatters and even a decapitation or two. In other words, I would not recommend this movie for young kids, then again young kids probably don’t even know who Chuck Norris, Dolph Lundgewn or Jean-Claude Van Damme are.
One opportunity missed was a fight scene between Chuck Norris and Van Damme. Obviously Stallone is the main star of the movie, and we all know the main hero has to be the one to take out the main villain. Still I think they could have found a way to let these two karate bad-asses go at it, if only for a bit. Alas, Chuck really doesn’t do much hand-to-hand fighting in this movie at all.
As someone who grew up with these action stars and loved all their old movies, just seeing them all on one screen was enough to make this movie worth watching. If you’re looking for some kind of intricate plot or masterful acting, then you probably will want to find some other movie to go see. But honestly, you probably don’t need to read this review to figure that out for yourself.
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