Nothing can beat a classic or Jason Shatham with two brass knuckles!
Bloody mayhem of group of super-tough mercenaries continues this time in Europe. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Nan Yu and Liam Hemsworth join the old-school action heroes Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Jet Li and Terry Crews.
Here is the age’s list of our heroes:
Chuck Norris (72 years old)
Sylvester Stallone (66)
Arnold Schwarzenegger (65)
Bruce Willis (57)
Dolph Lundgren (54)
Jean-Claude Van Damme (51)
Jet Li (49)
Randy Couture (49)
Jason Statham (44)
Terry Crews (44)
Scott Adkins (36)
Nan Yu (34)
Liam Hemsworth (22)
As it says on the poster, they are “back for war” and this time it is personal.
Martial arts expert Jet Li is back, but he bails out of the film pretty early on, kicked some butts in his awesome Kung Fu style… using griddles, like Casey Ryback in the Under Siege movie – “Nobody beats me in the kitchen”.
There is a fresh-faced youngsters on the team, Billy, the sniper, played by Liam Hemsworth and sexy Maggie, played by Chinese screen star Nan Yu. But as always there is not enough screen time for other actors to shine and Liam has only a couple of moments to show his acting skills.
The storyline brings Barney once again into testy contact with his old nemeses Trench and Church, and so discover a plan devised by an evil-doer antipathetic to the interests of the United States, to tunnel into a disused mine where an unlimited amount of ex-Soviet nuclear material is to be found.
During the mission tough mercenaries meet another group of mercenaries, or it is better to say a deadly duo of Jean-Claude van Damme and Scott Adkins (who speaks with heavy Russian accent like in Undisputed 3).
Chuck Norris and Arnold Schwarzenegger turning up in this mayhem only when our heroes need a deus ex machina or extra help, so on my opinion there is no reason for them to be there. Moreover I don’t understand, why Randy Couture, the skilled martial arts expert, always reads books and walking speachless, moreover he has no chance to show his deadly fighting skills in action?
Mentioned Jet Li’s fight already I can’t miss Statham-Adkins battle of knife and brass knuckles, which is the best action scene in the movie. Some much energy, power and speed in this fight, so it definetely worths to say “these guys found each other”, duo which is on the same level of skills. Actually I am glad to see how Scott Adkins rises the bar with every movie he makes.
As per Stallone-Van Damme fight it is not so impressive – a few Van Dammes flying kicks, upper-cuts, no ground fighting and too much arrogant talks… Character of Jason Statham said to Barny at the end of the movie “You should learn how to fight…”, can’t agree more.
Anyway this is a well-made cowboy ride with a lot of blood, guns and fights, on my opinion it is not so cool as the first Expendables, but every action fan out there will enjoy to see all these movie actors together shooting, crashing and exploding everything around… no CGI tricks are involved.
As with all classic action movies we’re hoping for some great taglines, that true action heroes casually drop after some piece of mayhem, and here is some of them:
Barney Ross: Track ’em, find ’em, kill ’em.
Trench: My shoe is bigger than this car!
Church: Shoot something!
Booker: [I heard you were bitten by a king cobra?] That’s right. But after five days of excruciating pain… the cobra died.
Church: [to Trench] You’ve been back enough. I’ll be back.
Trench: I need a gun, something big.
Hale Caesar: [to Trench] If I don’t get this back, your ass is terminated.
Jean Vilain: Let’s make it more dramatic!
Maggie: [to Ross] If you need me, call me, or I’ll kill you.
Expendables 2 already collected $122,806,492 for 13 days, when the first part collected $274,470,394 for 70 days.
News is trickling in that Sly Stallone and his gang of grinning reapers have sent membership forms to Steven Seagal, Clint Eastwood, Nicolas Cage and Harrison Ford for The Expendables 3. Bring it on!