I may be a bit late in reviewing this film (which is representative of my enthusiasm for seeing it) since most of the people that are going to watch it have already forked over their money by now. Well, I’m sorry for you…I’d give you a refund but I’m also going to guess that the people really looking forward to this movie aren’t too caught up in what I think of it. The Expendables 2 is lazy, brain dead, awkward, and (worst of all) ridiculous…I know this is the part where I say “but it’s also really fun!!!!” like a lot of the other critics have, but I can’t because that’s not true. [Even the action sequences have no life to them, they’re loud and graphic, but they don’t really pop.] This movie sucks and a lot of the critics who have given it a positive review—–it is inexplicably “certified fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes—–should think about another line of work. Maybe they can go work for Faux News and call Romney “a great candidate!!!!” with a straight face.
I know that we’re supposed to suck up to every big budget movie that comes out now, not really dissing anything that millions of people are seeing, and being a little tougher on micro-indies no one gives a shit about, but if you can’t pan a self-parodying movie with a generic plot, cheesy dialogue, plastic-surgery deformed actors who look like they were borrowed from Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, and incompetent action sequences…then what can you give a negative review to?
What Works: I liked exactly two things about this movie: an early fight scene with Jet Li where he uses some frying pans to clobber some opponents (it’s really the movie’s only creative sequence, so, of course, Li immediately vanished for the rest of the movie with no reference to him for the rest of it) and the return of Jean Claude Van Damme as about the only one onscreen taking any of this bullshit seriously, even if he is wearing baaaaaad guy sunglasses for most of his screen time. Now I know that there is a certain kind of nostalgic filmgoer (although moronic 80’s action films aren’t anything I can get particularly nostalgic over) who’s wet dream is watching Ah-nold, Willis, Chuck Norris, and Stallone share a scene together (and they do…once), but it all just comes off as so lazy and uninspired it’s like watching a Saturday Night Live cameo where someone famous comes out, gets a round of applause, and then doesn’t really do anything all that funny until the skit is up. And now for what doesn’t work…
What Doesn’t Work: Even if 80’s action films were your thing, this movie has some key differences that really took me out of it. 1. The Movie is Cowardly: Remember back in the day when nearly every Hollywood movie had a Russian or communist villain? Well, why doesn’t this movie have a Chinese villain? In the world of international box office (where no country is bad and only aliens, vampires, and multi-national terrorist outfits that are shockingly well organized are evil) a movie like this is just too neutered to really call out “the red menace.” In fact, the opening sequence actually has them blowing up Nepal’s Army to rescue a Chinese citizen…talk about bullying a country that barely has a military for them to blow up. 2. The Actors Now Look like Circus Freaks: I have no idea if any of these guys could ever really fight back then (Norris is a black belt, but that was a different time than the barbarians of MMA), but they looked like they could. We believed them as tough guys, the way we still (kind-of) believe an authentic presence like Clint Eastwood or Tommy Lee Jones is a tough guy. The problem here is that most of these guys have had so much plastic surgery and little nips and tucks, that they no longer are really believable as macho…just as pampered Hollywood stars. 3. They Took It Seriously: Were the movies back then cheesy? Yeah, but they didn’t know that. They took it seriously, and that made me take it seriously, or at least feel like it wasn’t an elaborate cash grab. The Expendables 2 is so ridiculous that it practically self-parodies itself as it keeps going.
What I Would Have Done Differently: They don’t care. The studio doesn’t care. They are happy to keep conning people out of their money as long as people are happy to get conned, and I fully expect to see Expendables 3 with Steven Seagal or Wesley Snipes hit theaters in two years.
Old actors have to do something. LOL