"The Expendables 2" is Violent, Stupid, and Fun

At some point during the production of The Expendables 2, Sylvester Stallone must have got his hands on a copy of Joss Whedon's script for The Avengers and said, "I want to do that, too!" So, instead of taking the doomsday route that he had with the first one, he emulated Whedon's wise choice of making his ensemble action movie lighter in tone. What he failed to do was mimic Whedon's talent for witty dialogue. This is where The Expendables 2 crashes and burns worse than the countless vehicles in the actual movie.

There is nothing inherently wrong with being self-referential. After all, is that not the entire point of the Expendables franchise? But Stallone takes it a step too far by having the various non-characters in the movie verbally refer to the very same movies their cast mates have starred in. I was okay at first when Terry Crews tells Arnold Schwarzenegger that he will "terminate" him should Arnie lose his gun, but when someone later says, "What's next? Rambo?" that is where I draw the line.

For all of the movie's cringe-worthy one-liners, it at least has the good sense to be immensely entertaining. On paper, the plot is simple: Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) wants plutonium from underground to do dastardly things with it, so Church (Bruce Willis) dispatches the Expendables to make that not happen. In execution, however, all is confusion. The story gleefully defies logic at every point, characters drop in and out, and when the going gets rough, there is always good ol' deus ex machina to save the day.

The same crew from the first flick is here: Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li (for a millisecond), Dolph Lundgren, Crews, Randy Couture, and longer cameos from the likes of Chuck Norris and the Governator himself. As you would expect, it is great to see these legendary and not-so-legendary personalities teaming up with one another. The guys work well together, and each man is given a moment to shine. Things get a little weird with the introduction of a woman to the group, played by Nan Yu, who fills in the Asian-sized hole left by Li. Although there is an unsettling bit of misogyny when the team encounters a town run all by women who manage never to land a single shot, for the most part the movie sticks to running and gunning throughout.

If you go into The Expendables 2 with expectations highly adjusted, you may enjoy yourself quite a bit. You will laugh on the way home from the theater, and promptly forget about it a week later, much like the sexagenarian actors in the movie.