The Expendables 2

1½ pipes out of 4

A sequel better than the original? Is that even possible? When it comes to The Expendables and The Expendables 2, it is definitely the case. With Sylvester Stallone staying in front of the camera as Barney Ross and not behind it, The Expendables 2 manages to have a somewhat decent plot as well as amazing action. The introductory fight scene, introduction of the newest member of the group Billy (Liam Hemsworth) and fellow mercenary Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger) leaves something to be desired with plenty of blood, guts and gore. It is kind of disheartening when it is obvious that it has been CGI’d. What happened to the good old days when you could see a gun fight with fake blood instead of computer graphics, and you would think that it might even be a little cheaper. As the film progresses, the plot gets better as instead of CIA agent Church (Bruce Willis) hiring a group of mercenaries to perform a coup in a foreign country, he asks them to perform an extraction mission of highly sensitive material. Of course this material is stolen by villain Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and subsequent hatred is created between Stallone and Van Damme. For the mission a female is added to the team (Nan Yu) and when it all falls apart begins to kindle a relationship with Stallone creating the sub-plot of whether Barney can ever love without getting the people he loves killed. Chuck Norris makes his return to film stacking the cast to the point of toppling. It is interesting that with Norris being known as the complete BAMF of all action stars, the film actually portrays this persona in order to appease the audience even going so far as to including a Chuck Norris joke. The Expendables 2 manages to increase the comedy and action to ramp up this sequel to give it one a satisfactory feeling when leaving the film. This is definitely not the acting action film of old like Saving Private Ryan, The Dark Knight or even The Avengers but this is what you go to in order to reminisce about the good old days of the action heroes.