THE EXPENDABLES 2 (2012) Dir: Simon West BLU-RAY REVIEW

I reviewed this film during the Summer and proclaimed it to be one of the best action films of the year, as it turns out I'm not the only who thought this. Shawn Francis got a chance to review the U.S blu-ray release and you can read what he had to say after the jump.

Written By Shawn Francis

Aside from Horror, Science Fiction, Anime/Animation, select Comedies and Fantasy movies another genre I like, or used to like, are Action films. I say, ‘used to,’ because in this day and age, Hollywood doesn’t make action films like they used to. It’s the live action comic book movie that has become the new action film, well, in late summer of 2010, a bunch of aging action stars from the 80s got together in one movie in an attempt to re-create those gratuitous days of yore.

I’m ashamed to admit I skipped the first one in theaters when reviews weren’t all that positive and skipped it again when it hit cable. Interest was piqued, finally, when I heard Stallone recut the movie for a blu-ray only release. Reaction I’ve heard about this version is generally more positive. Again, I’m ashamed to admit I still have not seen it. Which brings me to this movie. Only reason I decided to review it was that a press release came my way from Lionsgate offering me the chance to do so, and since I’ve finally got a blu-ray player now, I thought, sure, what the hell. Thinking all along that this movie will most likely just be a mild distraction for an hour and half, and nothing more.

Well, I’d like to report that the lackluster reaction I predicted I’d have towards it couldn’t have been more badly, well, predicted. This was the best action movie I have seen in decades. In fact the last few movies I’ve seen that qualify as action movies was in the mid to late nineties, and those were, SILENT TRIGGER (1996), HOLLOW POINT (1996), RETROACTIVE (1997), MADE MEN (1999), and A BETTER WAY TO DIE (2000), all of which I still own. But none of them come close to what THE EXPENDABLES 2 did.

This is a glorious hark back to the kind of flicks every one of those actors used to put out at the height of their career. It’s kind of unfortunate that this big ass team-up couldn’t have been created back in those days. I can understand why it wasn’t, everyone’s salaries wouldn’t have left room for much action or much of a story, only in their “golden years” could these guys have pulled off something like this. Honestly, I’m generally not a fan of watching aging action stars try to reprise their glory years, which is the main reason I have no interest in watching Harrison Ford play Indiana Jones. The man is just too old, but from what I saw in this sequel Stallone, Lundgren, Van Damme, Schwarzenegger and Willis can still pull off an exciting action scene. They are, however, paired up with some of the younger fellows that have been making their mark in the films these days namely Jason Statham, which, in my opinion, is the closest thing we have to a died in the wool, old fashion action star in this bold new world, and Jet Li, who, unfortunately, only has a small role.

For those interested in the plot, not that that really mattered much when it concerns these guys. The main draw, back in the day, for me anyway, was simply going to the theater and watching them shoot, karate kick, stab, hack, slash and blow up the bad guy(s). A good storyline comes in second to that shit. And the story here is Willis, who plays the oily agent in charge of getting Stallone’s gang into situations no normal, sane person would willingly put himself, or herself, getting Barney Ross (Stallone) and his men to retrieve a “special something” from a safe on a plane that went down in Albania. Simple? Well, it should have been, and was, if you don’t count that moment when the safe triggered its self destruct mechanism, and was about to blow Ross and his men to Kingdome Come, or that moment when bad guy, Vilain (cute), played by Van Damme, and his men show up to take the “electronic map” for his own. In so doing he ends up killing a member of Ross’s team and what started out as a simple retrieval mission turns into a revenge ride that takes on epic action movie proportions.

I must add Van Damme seems very adept at playing this particular villain. I instantly hated him the moment he opened his mouth, and was thrilled to pieces when Stallone kicked his ass into the great unknown in the movie’s final action scene. And the kind of proof he brings back to Church (Willis) and Trench (Schwarzenegger) of Vilain’s demise was very unexpected..

Only two downsides to this film is Jet Li and Chuck Norris’s cameos should have been longer, they should have been more intricate to the plot. I would’ve loved to have seen Norris in a hand to hand combat scene, but I get the feeling he may be too old for something like that now. He only wasted a bunch people with his machine gun in two scenes. They did homage two of his previous movies though, one with his name, Booker, and the other with his reputation, of being a Lone Wolf.

In another review I recently made I complained about movies not using their scope aspect ratios to their fullest, well, I noticed director, Simon West, takes full advantage of his 2.40:1 aspect ratio on this film. As he states in the commentary he wanted the action stars to be seen together instead of cutting away to close-ups when they spoke, just to show everyone the miraculous site of seeing these infamous guys acting and kicking as together in one film. My words, not his.

Two more interesting factoids about the movie I learned from West’s commentary were that Jet Li’s fight scene was cut way back for time. So, as aweseom as it was, it was more so, making me wonder if, like the first film, this one, too, is destined to get some kind of director’s cut/Unrated version. And that formula Lundgren’s writes on the napkin in that bar scene is for real. For fans of Lundgren, it’s common knowledge that he holds a degree in chemical engineering, and he double-checked that formula to make sure it was accurate.

As far as extras go this blu-ray comes equipped with four major featurettes: ‘Gods Of War: Assembling Earth’s Mightiest Anti-Heroes’ (21:19) basically covers the making of the movie as seen through interviews with cast and crew, and is very revealing, especially for someone like me who has yet to see the first movie. I had no idea Stallone had it pretty tough making that movie. He busted himself up real good in some of the action scenes, and they showed footage of a bloody scalp, and he broke his ankle. He states when it came time to make a sequel there was no way he could direct and star in at the same time, like he did with the first, especially since the movie was going to be bigger.

‘Big Guns, Bigger Heroes: The 1980s And The Rise Of The Action Film’ (24:59) is an interesting dissection of how Hollywood leaned towards making these kinds of films back in the 1980s and how it related to the current political air and changing mores of men in society. It seems FIRST BLOOD (1982) was the movie that kick started this whole shindig.

‘On The Assault: The Real-Life Weaponry Of The Expendables 2’ (13:36): Randy Couture takes a trip down to a well known Las Vegas gunshop and takes a few choice high powered assault rifles, and hand guns into the back and shows us all, in slow motion, how the fuckers fire. Very cool.

‘Guns For Hire: The Real Expendables’ (24:19): This is an interesting inside look at the security agencies that do this shit for real. You see how they train and what it takes to be essentially a “merc.” One of the heads of one of these agencies doesn’t like the “mercenary” term, by the way.

Rounding out this fine package are trailers for THE LAST STAND, DREDD, the TARANTINO COLLECTION, EPIX (HD) Channel and THE EXPENDABLES 2 video game, Deleted Scenes (4:59), and a Gag Reel (5:09). Only scene I wish they had re-instated is a fight with Maggie (Nan Yu) at the airport at the end. She has another in the flick, but it doesn’t show off her martial arts ability as well as the one that was cut.

Before I forgot, which I almost did, on the first featurette I covered, Stallone talks briefly about what THE EXPENDABLES 3 is most likely going to be about, and that’s passing the baton on to a younger generation of action heroes, in an attempt, he hints, at keeping the franchise going. I get the feeling now the characters of some of the more seasoned ones are going to start pushing up daisies in the next flick. That will be sad day indeed. But, alas, all good things must come to an end.