Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and his crew of Expendables take on a mission to retrieve a mysterious cargo as ordered by CIA agent Mr. Church (Bruce Willis).  The mission turns personal after plutonium crazed bad guy Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) kills one of Barney’s team.   They must stop Vilain’s plot to sell the plutonium and get revenge for their fallen comrade.

THE EXPENDABLES 2 is a muscular driven sequel to the original film which was a way to get old action stars to shine again.   Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger get bigger roles with Arnold delivering his lines with scene stealing charisma.   The cameo from Chuck Norris is lame even though they are playing homage to one of his old characters in addition to poking fun at Chuck Norris.   Jean-Claude Van Damme is awesome as the over-the-top bad guy who is willing to lay down his own life.    Jet Li is only in the beginning of the film even though he gets one of the top billing spots while they use an another Chinese actress to play a beautiful woman who can handle herself and giving the film a chance to poke fun at Gunner (Dolphn Lundgren).  The sequel manages to put in many references to each actor’s own films and in some cases drawing elements from their own life (they weave in the story of gunner going to MIT as a chemical engineer and Dolph Lundgren went to MIT).

THE EXPENDABLES has some wonderfully directed action scenes from director Simon West with the beginning, a mine sequence in a big cave, and the climatic showdown between Van Damme and Satllone (Stallone approved Van Damme’s request to rewrite the action) being the high points.   The biggest weakness is the film injects too much humor into the story.   Other than that, it is an enjoyable action romp and yet I do think the script of the first film was stronger.   If you want to see the action stars that have their light in the spotlight again, go see it for the awesome action scenes.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Audio commentary with director Simon West which isn’t very exciting to listen to

Four featurettes:

GODS OF WAR-   making-of featurette about making the sequel, assembling the stars for it, and the challenges of filming when some actors weren’t at the same place at the same time

BIG GUNS, BIGGER HEROES- a look at the 1980s action films and the rise of the 1980s action stars with the focus being on the various actors who are in this sequel and their careers as action stars during the 1980s and early 1990s.

ON THE ASSUALT- a look at the real-life weapons used in THE EXPENDABLES 2

GUNS FOR HIRE-  a featurette about the real life mercenaries who do dangerous jobs like the mercs in THE EXPENABLES films as told through interviews with some of these mercs.

The gag reel is somewhat amusing while the deleted scenes were thankfully cut for pacing reasons to move the film along and the action.   Also included are previews for other Lionsgate releases and a code for the Ultraviolet digital copy of THE EXPENDABLES 2.

FINAL ANALYSIS: The sequel plays better with repeat viewings as you remember the action movies and action stars of years past in this very enjoyable follow up to THE EXPENDABLES.  The featurettes are a mixed bag with the first two being the best and the audio commentary you can skip.

This review is (c)11-24-2012 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com