There are a few changes in the lineup for this sequel, which got a boosted budget of $100 million (but still looks really dark and muddy visually, and is unnecessarily, frustratingly loud). Stallone co-wrote this one but abandons directing duties, leaving them for Simon West, who also worked with Statham on 2011’s “The Mechanic.” Some actors from the first film, like Jet Li, only make brief appearances in this second installment. And ultimately, there’s a weird tonal shift: “The Expendables” mostly pretended to be a real movie about tortured men trying to reconcile their killing with their emotional stability, as evidenced by a depressing monologue from Mickey Rourke’s character. But “The Expendables 2” mostly leaves that introspection behind in favor of rehashing these stars’ greatest lines and bits from previous films, so it never feels West, Stallone, or anyone else is offering something new.
“The Expendables 2” wasn’t screened for critics, which is saying something. Honestly, are you comfortable paying to see Schwarzenegger seem disarmed, even uncomfortable, when firing off a huge machine gun? Or Stallone looking physically winded when knocking down a door? Or Willis smirking when the line “Yippee-ki-yay,” from his breakout film “Die Hard,” is tossed around? There’s a meta, self-aware quality to “The Expendables 2” (Willis berates Schwarzenegger for saying “I’ll be back” so often, for example) that would be wonderful if West and Co. fully embraced it and really sold the film as a campy parody of who these men are and what they’ve done. But it’s too clear that these dudes want to hang on to their glory a little bit longer—as evidenced by the cast’s new, aging additions, like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris—and aren’t necessarily willing to work at doing anything different. It’s a shame, because an effective film, “The Expendables 2” isn’t.
The plot is pure, vintage James Bond melodrama: Barney Ross (Stallone), leader of the elite, eclectic mercenary group the Expendables, gathers them altogether for one last job after the events of the previous film. At the behest of CIA liaison Mr. Church (Willis, of “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Cop Out”), Ross commits the group to facing off against bad guy Jean Vilain (Van Damme), thinking it will be a simple gig. But when Vilain kills one of the group’s own, it becomes personal for Ross and his crew, setting them off against Vilain—who was planning on hijacking a huge mess of plutonium anyway to ruin the world, blah blah blah, yada yada yada.
As the Expendables decide to hunt down Vilain, they’re joined by rival mercenary Trench (Schwarzenegger), who decides to put his beef with Ross aside for the greater good, and new Expendables team member Maggie (Yu Nan), who is—gasp!—a lady. And so begins a series of ever-more-ridiculous chases, shootouts, fistfights, decapitations, dismemberments, and slaughters as the mercenaries track their man, who mysteriously wears sunglasses at all times and loves rambling about how powerful he is. He has a neck tattoo, so you know he means business.
Given so much badness, what are the redeeming qualities of “The Expendables 2”? Much like in the original, it’s Statham who’s the standout, giving the film the right kind of youthful, no-nonsense zing. Perhaps new addition Liam Hemsworth (of “The Hunger Games” and “The Last Song”) could have done the same, but he unfortunately gets a horribly lame backstory as a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, and very little screentime. And perhaps it’s nice that West and Stallone branched out gender-wise and added Nan, but her character still suffers through really uncomfortable, bordering-on-sexual harassment conversations with the rest of the Expendables, who coo suggestive things at her about being Chinese. Classy!
But the nostalgic glee of seeing stars like Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Willis lined up, shooting guns at bad guys together, is gone. It’s hard to drum up much enthusiasm for some guys who are clearly just in it for a paycheck (see: Norris, who shows up for about five minutes total), and all the referential dialogue and plot elements from previous movies are frustratingly uncreative. Worst of all, perhaps, is that Van Damme is actually really, really good here—even though being a bad guy named Vilaincan’t be that artistically challenging, he’s smarmy and manipulative, and can still deliver a mean roundhouse kick. Unfortunately for “The Expendables 2” overall, not much else in the film is that ambitious.
