THE EXPENDABLES 2 (2012) Dir: Simon West

Regular readers may recall a review I did sometime ago for The Expendables, the action packed 80s throw back to OTT action films. You may recall that I referred to it as a buffet, and that the starter was a bit lame but the main course was awesome, well it's two years later, The Expendables 2 is out and ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you this, the sequel is all main course and it's un-fuckin- believably tasty.

The thing I love so much about action movies, is how they will take a simple premise and make it as big and as loud as possible for the entertainment of you and me, they can throw logic out of the window and still people will watch, you can blow up an entire mansion on the beach of Miami and people will clap and find enjoyment from it. Well back in the 80s this sort of shit happened a lot. When we look at the movies we were given in the 1980s, the stand outs were of course Commando, Rambo, Invasion U.S.A, Die Hard, Predator, Cobra etc, then everything changed, action became more militaristic with films like The Rock and Black Hawk Down where the films were trying to convey messages, these were the films that were getting the big business at your local cinema, but Action cinema as we know it, didn't entirely disappear, it found it's self in the world of DTV movie making, a place that became ridiculed for it's low budget Eastern European aesthetics. But what people failed to notice was the fact that while these films were being made, DTV action was gathering a huge fan base, why? Because they were still doing it properly, still using squibs, pyrotechnics and cheesy one-liners. But what about the actors, what happened to them? Well while Arnie was the governator, Willis was still a steady actor, taking roles in films like The Kid, The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable where he did prove that he was a better actor than most and Stallone had gone off grid thanks to the complete failure of Driven and D-Tox and only making little seen films like Avenging Angelo and Shade, but it was Van Damme and Lundgren blazing trails in DTV land, churning out some pretty badass action flicks. Van Damme had The Shepheard, Wake Of Death, In Hell, Replicant and Until Death and only when his sort of Autobiographical film JCVD started getting critical attention, did Van Damme once again start getting the attention, Dolph started venturing behind the Camera, directing and starring in films like Command Performance, Diamond Dogs and Missionary Man, but Stallone made his way out of limbo with the incredible final chapter in his boxing saga, Rocky Balboa, the film was a critical and box-office success which got Sly back in the game, then came Rambo 4, and brutal violent action filled our screens once again. The success of both Rocky and Rambo allowed Stallone to make the Expendables, bringing friends with him on his nostalgic journey. Dolph completely stole the first film which to be honest, was a bit of let down. But fear not, the sequel is here, it's not directed by Stallone but by Simon West, the man who gave us Con Air and Statham's remake of Charlie Bronson's The Mechanic. West knows how to shoot action, and to be honest the action, Camera work and directing is head and shoulders above the first film, that's not to say that Stallone is a bad director, but West seems to be able to handle it better.

Well this is an action film so you don't need to be Stephen Hawkings to work out the plot, it's a simple revenge plot. Barney Ross and his bad boy expendables, are basically forced by Bruce Willis to retrieve a suitcase containing an item from a downed plane in Eastern Europe. Once they have the case they're stopped by the evil Villaine who takes the item and kills one of the men, the item contains a map of an underground cave that houses 5 tones of weapons grade plutonium. Barney and the boys go on the hunt for Villaine to stop him and take revenge for the death of one of the expendables.

It's a pretty simple plot as you can see, but when you've seen the previous film, you know damn well that the plot is going to take second place to the action and oh my god is there action, from the insane opening 10 minutes to the incredible 20 minute finale it's almost non stop full throttle mayhem, hell Chuck Norris takes out a fucking tank with what I presume was a round house kick as we don't actually see what he uses. Talking of Chuck Norris, we need to remember that this guy fought Bruce Lee back in the early 70s and in 2012 he's taking out Euro-mercs with one hand, the dude is in his 70s and still acts like a total fucking badass and he's called Booker, the Lone Wolf, which is two references right there, Lone Wolf McQuaid and John T. Booker which is a reference to his character in Good Guys Wear Black, but even though his part is pretty much a glorified cameo, he really is a bad ass mother fucker. Unfortunately most of the Expendables are used purely as background characters this time around, Gunnar is probably the most used of the team as they play on Lundgren's own background in chemical engineering but Randy Couture and Terry Crews are woefully under used, even Liam Hemsworth gets more screen time than these two and he's only in it for half the movie. This time around though, Trench and Church have a much more bigger part of film instead of just some 2 minute scene in a church. Arnold Schwarzenegger is back baby, this time Trench proves that he does indeed like playing in the jungle, even though it's more of an airport than jungle and it's amazingly cool to see Arnie back on a screen wielding a fuck off big gun, it's gotta be said that the interplay between Arnie and Willis during the finale is great fun, both ripping each other's careers apart and saying each other's catch phases, Willis says i'll be back and Rrnie says Yippy Ki-Ay. It's all very cool and makes me want to see them together more although there are some silly moments such as Trench just ripping the door off a smart car and saying that his shoe is bigger than the vehicle. There's also a nice little reference to Total Recall with Arnie driving a big tunnelling rig through a wall, I was half expecting Arnie to shout ' Benny! SCREWWW YOUUU' as he burst through the wall. It's all done in good fun and it's just great to see the man back on our screens. Willis does what Willis does, nuff said. New girl on the block, Nan Yu plays Maggie, who tags along with the Expendables as she knows how to open the safe that contains the device that is on the plane. Hmm, I can't help thinking her part would have been much more suited to Maggie Q as she seemed out of place. But she was alright, it should have been Maggie Q though.

Stallone channels a bit of every character he's ever played with Barney Ross, there's bits of John J. Rambo in there, there's some John Spartan, Marion Cobretti and little bit of Rocky, he's always a good watch and manages to carry a film like this which we all know Stallone can do in his Sleep. Statham does his best as usual and the banter between Barney and Lee is great, they're like a bickering old couple throughout most of the film and Statham faces off against Scott Adkins' Hector during the finale which is a pretty good fight even though everyone knows that Adkins would win hands down. Here Adkins is channelling the awesomeness of Yuri Boyka from the Undisputed sequels and plays the right hand man to Villaine. For me Adkins is a much better actor when he's playing a Russian, it's just a bit weird when he acts in his English accent or tries an American one. But the film truly belongs to Jean Claude Van Damme who seems to be relishing the fact that he's back on a cinema screen in a studio picture for the first time in 14 years, playing the villainous Villaine, he's a total psychopath obsessed with knives and doesn't seem to give two shits who he kills, I’ve missed this Jean Claude and I think Jean Claude missed the Jean Claude. He's an absolute treat to watch.

The fact that most of the cast are either in their 50s, 60s and 70s and still making films of this magnitude really puts modern action cinema to shame. Leave to the old pro's to show these youngsters how to do it and my god do they still do it in style. It's also a shame that most of these actors have been languishing in the DTV end of action cinema for the most part of 15-20 years and churning out entertaining action films on much lower budgets. But it's this kind of DTV aesthetic that I loved about this film, I loved how everyone in it, plays up to the fact that they were has beens, and how each and everyone of these guys are just glad to be back in the public eye once more, right where they belong. More films like this please Hollywood. Full on full throttle action movie mayhem which i'm going to reward 5 stars to because you won't find a more fun action packed throwback to big men with big guns this year. Along with The Raid and Get The Gringo, 2012 is the year real action returned to our screens....