THE EXPENDABLES 2 (Simon West, 2012)
When
the stars of yesteryear lose their luster, it’s common for them to keep
working and try to remain relevant by parodying themselves, sometimes
to the point of debasement. The faded action heroes in THE EXPENDABLES 2
aren’t making mockeries of themselves for the general public’s
amusement, but they’re toeing that line when Chuck Norris turns up
essentially to play along with his own meme.
The
group of mercenaries led by Sylvester Stallone’s Barney Ross are
persuaded once again by CIA operative Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) to do a
job for him and to include Maggie (Yu Nan), one of his own personnel, on
their crew. This time the Expendables, including Lee Christmas (Jason
Statham), Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), and newcomer Billy the Kid
(Liam Hemsworth), are dispatched on a recovery mission in Albania’s
Gazak Mountains.
They
retrieve the desired item but are forced to hand it over when Jean
Vilaine (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and his men intercept them. Vilaine
gives them reason enough to want to hunt him down before Maggie reveals
that they’ve given him a map to the hidden location of five tons of
plutonium.
The
makers of THE EXPENDABLES 2 can claim to have given audiences what they
want. You want action stars, you got ‘em. In addition to the primary
cast of Stallone, Statham, Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, and
young blood Hemsworth, also on hand to get their hands dirty are Willis,
Norris, Van Damme, Jet Li, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Scott Adkins.
Looking for numerous action scenes? Here you go.
At
issue, though, is that most of the biggest names are present for what
amount to glorified cameos. Schwarzenegger and Willis get to do more
than they did in the first film, but they’re hardly reliving their glory
days in the genre. Director Simon West doesn’t skimp on shootouts,
which would be all well and good if they weren’t spatially incoherent
and nonsensically cut. A brief sequence of Jet Li battering baddies
with pans is more pleasing to follow than all of the time in which shots
are held for about as long as heavy artillery can fire off a few
rounds.
THE
EXPENDABLES 2 isn’t a parody, yet it doesn’t help its cause naming the
villain Vilaine. The oldies on the soundtrack are reminiscent of what
scores erectile dysfunction pill ads. One-liners like “rest in pieces”
and “I now pronounce you man and knife” are artlessly added and
overused. The movies that many of these guys made in the 1980s and ‘90s
were hardly bulletproof, but this is a cynical exercise in settling for
what is expected to be passable. THE EXPENDABLES 2 doesn’t give the
impression that anyone is making a serious effort, not when they can
coast on nostalgia.
Grade: C-
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