Review of The Expendables 2 (2012) by Thegodfatherson — 24 May 2013

If you bought into the gory, glorious premise of The Expendables, but were disappointed by the slack plot and dull action, The Expendables 2 is here to win you back over. Boasting even more beefy action stars of various vintages and skills, plus an obscenely fun villain played by none other than Jean-Claude Van Damme, The Expendables 2 actually fulfills that original promise of an over-the-top, slightly tongue-in-cheek action movie that revives 80s macho bloodsport while poking just enough fun at it as well.

How much you enjoy all the CGI blood and flying bullets and goofy one-liners will probably depend on how much nostalgia you have for these guys-- though some things, like the charming rapport between Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham, or Van Damme's scenery-chewing baddie, translate no matter how many times you've seen First Blood.

And while the plot is once again dead simple, that's a good thing here, getting away from the convoluted political dealings of The Expendables and diving into straight-up evil. Van Damme plays a notorious Belgian arms dealer who has unlocked a cache of plutonium buried in an old Russian mine.

He's kidnapping local villagers and working them to death to get at it, but even worse, he's killed someone the Expendables cared about to get there. Clearly, they must stop him. The Expendables 2 isn't nearly clever enough to operate as an actual action movie as well as a parody of one-- maybe they'll hire Edgar Wright to write the third one and seriously up their game-- but it is a good amount of fun, especially for those going in for the nostalgic thrills they've been promised.

Maybe they're all geniuses for lowering the bar so much with The Expendables that we can't help but be grateful to this one for actually being a good time.