Vilain’s master-plan: to steal five tons of weapons-grade plutonium and use it to bring the world to its knees. “Six pounds of pure plutonium is powerful enough to change the balance of the whole world,” he says, probably with his eyes lighting up, not that we can tell. “Imagine what five tons would do.” It is the job of our ragtag team of leathery-faced action heroes, elite mercenary squad the Expendables, to put a bloody end to Vilain’s evil scheme and to engage in half-witted male bonding when the explosive action comes to a brief halt. “Explosive” will prove a key word when discussing “The Expendables 2:” walk through a theatre past a screening of the film, chances are the ground will be quaking beneath your feet.
Wielding similar ambitions to its 2010 predecessor, “The Expendables 2” operates as a loving throwback to the old school action pictures of over two decades past. Fuelling its inspiration are such wham-bang ‘80s thrill-rides as “Commando,” “Cobra,” “Die Hard,” “Bloodsport” and the “Rambo" trilogy. Channeling their famously visceral nature, “The Expendables 2” is much more brawn than brain. And unlike the first “Expendables” movie, it does not suffer from the sense that if it weren’t for its impressive line-up of vintage action figures it would be residing at the bottom of a Blockbuster bargain bin. Director Simon West (“Con Air”) employs more technical skill here than leading man Sylvester Stallone did when directing the first film: for example, West, unlike Stallone, knows not to shoot his action in the midst of a 7.8 earthquake.
The film boldly brings together some of the genre’s most well-established and revered stars. Some are franchise newcomers, most are returning. Stallone (who wrote the film with Richard Wenk) is Barney Ross, burly leader of the Expendables. The rest of the team, each of whom handily serves his own individual role, are as follows: Jason Statham is blades specialist Lee Christmas; Jet Li is martial artist Yin Yang; Dolph Lundgren is sniper Gunner Jensen; Randy Couture is demolitions expert Toll Road; and Terry Crews is the ingeniously named weapons specialist Hale Caesar. Hey, if your surname is Caesar, your first son’s Christian name must be Hale, or possibly Julius.
There are two new recruits: tech whiz Maggie, played by Yu Nan (a female!), and fresh-faced sniper Billy the Kid, played by rising star Liam Hemsworth. In an early scene, young Billy pulls Barney to the side and talks of his plans to leave the team, speaking with fond words of the beloved girlfriend waiting for him back in Paris, a fatal sign sure to be spotted by any self-respecting action hound. Returning with larger roles from last time round are Bruce Willis as enigmatic CIA agent Mr. Church and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Trench, Barney’s rival and occasional ally. Also stepping into the action is Chuck Norris, whose appearance sees him “hilariously" indulging in the seven-year-old internet meme ironically proclaiming him to be a godlike being. Suffice to say, his scenes (all three of ‘em!) are... discouraging.
Yet there is strange, irresistible pleasure in the presence of this aged action man, as is there in having the rest of the muscle-bound cast for on-screen company. Their collaboration and interaction, the primary appeal of the movie, wields the star-studded magic of Steven Soderbergh’s crime caper ensemble piece “Ocean’s Eleven,” but with a few heavy dollops of nostalgia added to the mix. Watching such icons of the action genre squeeze triggers, flex muscles, fling grenades and swing knuckles as a collective whole, particularly during the super-noisy climax in which all leading men (and woman) take part, carries the power to transform any fan of ‘80s beat-em-ups and shoot-em-ups into a giddy teen foaming at the mouth. And this time round the collaborative awesomeness is thankfully not undone by murky lighting and needlessly jittery camerawork.
The all-important action element is expectedly bigger than that of the first movie, and quite possibly even more destructive. The many booming set-pieces are achieved practically, flaunting real men performing real stunts, with the occasional computer graphic slipping through the cracks. A lengthy, fiery 15-minute prologue sets the balls-to-the-wall mood, seeing the Expendables bursting their way into an Asian terrorist hideout in makeshift tanks all guns blazing, with heads exploding all around. Later, Barney intentionally crashes the Expendables’ official airplane into a cave filled with kidnapped miners with no possible way of knowing how many innocent civilians stand at its entrance. It’s a little undermining of the Expendables’ ultimate aim of stopping a terrorist madman that their methods of gung-ho heroism cause as much earth-shattering damage as - oh, I dunno - five tons of plutonium.
With such a grand plethora of scenes featuring nameless background characters being mercilessly and mindlessly slaughtered, the film unintentionally calls to mind the parodical genius of “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery,” in which we witness the friends and families of Dr. Evil’s slain henchmen in teary-eyed grieving. This brings us to the identity crisis at the centre of “The Expendables 2:” while at times completely sincere in its tributes to a long-gone cinematic era, it has a tendency to veer off into the territory of silly, “Planet Terror”-esque piss-takery. Stallone and West appear undecided on what sort of film they’re making: is it a stony-faced homage or a goofy parody forever winking at the audience? Their minds are never made up and, in the end, the film is kinda neither, kinda both, kind of a mixture of the two.
Taking the mickey or not, “The Expendables 2” is a significant improvement over its disappointing predecessor, a film whose dullness was irredeemable considering its rock-solid premise. The plot is a little more involving this time, with a theme of vengeance added to the mix (this time it’s personal and all that jazz): Vilain brutally murders one of the Expendables (no points for guessing who) and Barney swears bloody revenge. Its frequent action, drenched in testosterone, is more inventive and better shot: one creative use of a plane's propeller by Statham’s character, harking back to “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” is amusingly grisly. Best of all though, it’s much more fun, and it has a winning self-deprecating sense of humour about itself. “That thing belongs in a museum,” grunts Sly when setting eyes upon a rusty airplane way past its prime. Arnie cracks: “We all do.”
7/10
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