Movie – The Expendables 2

Stallone l Willis l Schwarzenegger Plus Statham l Crews l Li l Lundgren l Van Damme and Norris“The world's greatest action stars return to the big screen in the sequel to box-office smash.” Well you do get what they say on the box.You could add that they are also trying to break a world record in how many guys are (unnecessarily) shot in the opening sequence and how long they are going to make the said sequence last before any credits roll onto the screen but the dream team of action heroes is back!As with the first one, it doesn’t matter if the film is littered with quotes from the respective actors’ films. E2 is a little over laden with cliques but that doesn’t matter either and there a couple of terrible lines that would make even Saturday night quiz show hosts cringe but that’s forgiven too. Almost everything is forgiven to have Stallone l Willis l Schwarzenegger all on-screen together, albeit for a few minutes. Both Willis and Arnie had tiny parts that probably took them minutes to shoot. Come to think of it, I don’t recall many lines from Jet Li either but we do have a girl who joins them in the mission and for once, refreshingly, she was just one of the guys.Chuck Norris is the real surprise addition to the sequel and its interesting (read – hilarious) to see Van Damme as a baddie. In case you’re bothered (I clearly am not that much) the story is that Church (Willis) is owed a favour by them so he tasks the Expendables with a mission to reclaim some plutonium and later we find out that he is doing it before it falls into the wrong hands. That it does and as badass Van Damme pillages small Russian villages to lure men into the mine to find it, killing one of Barney’s (Stallone) gang along the way, the Expendables go to work.Despite the number of departed bodies, this is 102 minutes of pure entertainment.More on Expendables 28/10 (not quite as good as the first)Smile factor 9½/10 (deduct ½ for cringe-worthy lines)