The Expendables 2: Blu Ray Review
Rating: M
Released by Roadshow Home Entertainment
Having successfully blown up a lot of stuff (and the box office in the process) in the Expendables back in 2010, it was perhaps no surprise that Sly and his mercenary team of stars from the 80s would return again. (Sly and the Family Stallone, anyone?)
This time around, it's a bit more of a personal quest for the group.
When CIA operative Church (a relatively non-smirking Willis) commands Barney Ross (Stallone) and his unit to extract a safe from a shot down plane, the group duly heads out to pay off their debt.
But what they don't realise is that sneering sunglasses wearing bad guy Jean Vilain (Seriously???) is also after the contents of the safe - and when he takes out one of their own, the Expendables' thirst for retribution propels them to seek revenge.
And that's really it for plot.
Except for plenty of explosions, big guns being shot and crowd pleasing cameos (if you're a fan of the 80s action genre), then the Expendables 2 doesn't do anything more than what it sets out to. There are two schools of thought on this one - it may be bigger, louder and packed with more explosions and mayhem than ever before, but it doesn't half feel a little soulless as it goes about its plot.
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This ageing action thriller is surely aimed at giving the 80s action stars some cred and show that they can still do it with the best. However, it ends up feeling more akin to an episode of The A Team populated by your slightly embarrassing parents, who are determined to show they can still do it, via some grunting, running and generally smacking down whatever they can to demonstrate they're still in shape.
It's incredibly dour with a bit of self deprecation here and there but not enough to carry it off; sure, there's cheese aplenty and cameos to tug at the toughest action hero heart as it enters its final furlong - and there's also risible dialogue throughout. Even with the addition of a female to the mercenary group seems like a shallow attempt to shake the dynamic up and get a few women into the auditorium.
And yet, despite railing against these ideas, I can't quite tell if the film deliberately chose those intentions or whether those involved are such geniuses of the genre that we've all had the wool pulled over our eyes.
Arnie's rolled out like some geriatric deus-ex-machina, and spends his little on-screen time stealing all his scenes, shooting everything and dispensing various catchphrases from his past (no sign of Hasta la vista, so maybe we should be grateful); there's a great use of the Sergio Leone theme from the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, though the person who shows up afterwards is not who you'd expect, Liam Hemsworth gives an utterly ludicrous and laughable speech about how, despite the horrors of war, it was the killing of a camp dog which forced him out of the forces (and thus, being a bit vulnerable marks him for death); and even Stallone looks a little weary and tired as it wears on. Crowd pleasing cameos ensue and ultimately, the film's final set piece ends up at an airport, doling out more carnage than a security scanner would ever prevent from happening. Even the final smackdown between a vengeful Ross and wry Vilain lacks the punch-the-air-in-glee denouement you'd expect from such a confrontation you've been teased with over the past 100 minutes.
Despite all the macho gung-ho testosterone on show, and with all of the formulaic plot constraints and constant bombardment of explosions, and people being shot to bits (after dispatching one guy with guts and gusto, Stallone tells his victim to "Rest in Pieces"), if you check your brain at the door and fancy a piece of retro action which comes with a large side order of cheese and explosions, has little coherence and originality, then the Expendables 2 is the perfect night out for you.
Bear in mind though Arnie's final line - when his pals are given an ancient plane to fly off into the distance, and is told that it "belongs in a museum", the Governator smirkingly nods before announcing that "We all do."
Though with a third Expendables outing slated to go into production and with box office anticipation still high for these OAP mercenaries, that seems highly unlikely to happen.
Extras: Commentary, doco, deleted scenes, gag reel
Rating:
It's violent too and splattered with blood and gore in ways that the very darkest of crime genres should be too. However, I can't help but feel that aside from one well written female character, the other women in this are treated somewhat badly - and I can't quite work out if they are supposed to be caricatures of women within the crime genre. It's borderline misogyny in places and certainly a difficult laugh to garner from the audience. Despite throwing in dialogue from Hans which critiques the poorly written women characters and that psychos get a bit boring after a while, it's an odd mix and one which doesn't sit well with me personally.
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Battleship / John Carter - Taylor Kitsch started the year as the guy who could take over the world but whose two celluloid outings torpedoed those dreams. To be fair, it wasn't so much his acting ability which let him down but the films which let him down. Battleship made good on its Transformers x Hasbro game premise with plenty of hokum and noise; and John Carter turned a great idea into a wonderfully realised but ultimately frustrating film which failed on the story telling front.
Taken 2 - A mis-Taken attempt at a sequel, whose first outing was original, clever and a subtle twist on the established action formula. The problem with this one, which had the families of the bad guys that Liam Neeson's Bryan Mills offed in the first place coming after him and his family, was that it was robbed of any surprise and originality as it dispensed with logic and sanity. Please, no Tak3n sequels - though given how well it performed, am guessing there will be.
StreetDance 2 3D - this time, the dance flick goes to Europe. And appears to leave any semblance of a script somewhere on the plane as it passes time zones. A flat lead character and story, plus f
Dark Shadows - a remake of a 60s show which very few people saw, put a cursed vampire played by Johnny Depp back with Tim Burton to mixed and undercooked results. A spooky atmosphere was squandered by some boring narrative and unamusing jokes. Throw in way too many characters as well and this gothic horror should have been staked at birth.
Certainly, with its fart gags and obvious humour and situations, it's going for low hanging fruit - and yet, its target will definitely love parts of it despite the fact we've seen it all before. And while it's great to see Crystal back on the screen, he's constrained by a film script which aims low and then manages to dig deeper everytime.
But these oft-unspoken truths are lost among the deeply uninspiring and highly unoriginal story we've all seen before. Don't get me wrong, as a piece of holiday entertainment, families with young kids will be amused by the antics and the occasional slapstick.
Steve Oram and Alice Lowe play Chris and Tina, a pair of recent lovers who decide to escape Tina's stifling mother by heading away on a caravanning trip around the Yorkshire dales in the UK. But Chris is a veritable powder keg of anger, waiting to boil over...and as the mundane turns to murderous, the very dark humour is ratcheted up to 11.
But what Wheatley's also managed to capture is the various personalities who inhabit caravan holidays - be they the annoying pedants, noisy neighbours or new age nutjobs, it's a perfect dichotomy of lives lived in middle England.
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So it's fair to say that Jamie Foxx brings a quiet and measured performance as Django, but it's not until the final part of the film that he actually gets to shine, because of how towering Waltz and DiCaprio are. Even Samuel L Jackson as the toadying and calculating runner of the home Stephen is more sidelined by these - but at the end of the day, you can't have the final mix without all the ingredients and it's not to suggest their performances are lesser, but that their superior turns pale when compared to the electrifying performances from the other two. Each get their time to shine away from the others and when they do, you can't take your eyes off the screen.
Magnum Force