Director: Simon West
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Liam Hemsworth, Scott Adkins, Yu Nan
Rating: (R16)
2 stars (out of 5)
Now everybody knows that The Expendables 2 (Rialto and Hoyts) just has to jam-pack even more faded action stars into the mix and it will make money.
Thinking back, I liked the first Expendables because it looked as if the actors really were putting themselves through hell and I appreciated the effort. This one has a new director and things look a lot classier but the grit factor has gone.
Here they just let loose with their really big guns and trade those silly old catch-phrases that are burned into our collective memory.
What looked like fun in the trailer is sadly flabby on the screen.
Anyway, Church (Bruce Willis) calls in a debt and sends Barney (Sylvester Stallone) into the old Soviet bloc to retrieve something valuable from a plane wreck.
Jean-Claude Van Damme turns up and takes it from them in a nasty manner, giving the team a new mission to "track 'm, find 'm, kill 'm", which they do for the rest of the movie.
Best thing: Dolph Lundgren takes the acting honours by being the most interesting thing in every scene he appears in. Some cool young director should snap him up at once.
Worst thing: There never was a moment when I felt that the characters were truly imperilled.
See it with: Fond memories of '80s and '90s action films.
- Christine Powley.
