There were times there where I thought it WAS Chris Pine, was surprised when I saw in the credits that he was Brother to Thor.
It was so crap, but SO good. Van Damme was the best thing about it. Li was wasted. Some of the dialogue wasn't funny it was just awful (that "you've been back enough...) exchange just had me rolling my eyes. I think they need some younger guys on the team to ramp up the fight scenes a bit. Having said that it was still a lot of fun and it was great to see Van Damme on the big screen.
Was it just my theater, or did most of the closeups of Stallone seem strangely out of focus? We've seen him up close in a few movies already, so I don't know why he would suddenly start feeling insecure about it. And I don't know what happened to Chuck Norris, but his face looked like it was stretched to within an inch of it's life. Lol
Grade is a strong B+ Full of SPOILERS AHEAD READ AT YOUR PERIL The opening rescue in Nepal(?) was fantastic!! Their armored vehicles with the taglines of Shock&Awe and Coming Soon were great. Seems Sly borrowed the "kill a helicopter with a motorcycle" from Die Hard 4 imo so I personally liked that. Jet Li's fight in the kitchen with the pots and pans was a masterpiece of the opening gambit. That last little nudge to fall over was humorous. I had my money on it being Church(Willis) under the hood but it was Trench(Arnie). Caesar's(Crews) line about not losing his favorite gun when he reluctantly lets Trench borrow it was a crowd favorite early on, "You lose this and your terminated". After we get back and are winding down it was nice to have a cameo by Charisma Carpenter keeping some flow of continuity character wise in the films. As long as cameo's were being had it would've been nice for Tool(Rourke) to have been in that scene. If nothing else to bitch about how much harder he had during "x" mission. At first I wasn't sure if we were getting the extra background o Billy the Kid(Hemmsworth) cause he was the new guy or they were setting him up to feel something for him should he die. It was the latter. JCVD's intro as the bad guy Vilain, that spelling has to be intentional it looks like villain, was good and set him up as a type of asshole with a code but he demands respect. Killing Billy was how he intended to get it but that of course backfired. After Billy's death the film actually attempts a type of character development and for a film of this type I can only call it "wordy" where there should've been a bit more going on imo. This is broken up in the mock up American town when Lone Wolf(Norris) shows up. Now me and my audience seemed to absorb and soak up every bit of the Norris intro. The Leone musical march, the "after 5 days the cobra died" all great stuff. The scene with Christmas(Statham) in the church with his knives kicking ass was fantastic. I liked how the final of that scene seemed to show the knives just flying out of the sleeves. Once we get into the airport terminal scene it was check your balls at the door all out action. What you really expect the whole time but it was worth the wait. I do think they overused the I'll be back line. Once was enough, however, it set up Church's great reply the second time "You've been back enough, I'll be back" to which Trench gets a great reply "Yippie Kai Yeah". So for that exchange I'll allow the second use if just to set that up. Lone Wolf shows up to make an early save, cue the music! The final fight with Barney and Vilain was well done. Giving JCVD a chance to show of his patented high kick twice in a row was awesome. Barney unleashing with blow after blow as he's pinned to the wall. The inevitable return of the knife used to kill Billy that Barney used on Vilain only after he whipped his ass silly with those 50lb weighted chains. That was awesome. I was hoping for us to see Trench's team. He mentions them in the opening gambit as "being around" but we never see them. He then only comes solo to aid Barney and his Expendables as a way to pay off his debt for being saved. I feel that somewhere in the middle of the film something with Trench's team might have kept the action quotient up. Maybe just thinking out loud. Of course then who that team would be?
Saw it last night and that sums up my feelings perfectly. It was terrible, yet I haven't enjoyed myself as much at the cinema since Avengers. Plotwise it's ludicrous: How'd they get to the plane at the start? How did Billy get on the plane etc etc. Dialogue wise it's iffy: Cue Stallone's speech after Billy's death, I just hope Stallone intended it to be hilarious because it was. Man but it was so much fun , and I literally got chills seeing Willis, Stallone and Arnie standing side by side blazing away like that. JCVD really needed some better back up though, as somone up thread said, he could have done with a Stone Cold style sidekick better than the one he got, who was pretty personality'less. Kudos to them sticking a woman in there and actually making her a proper member of the team, I thought Yu Nan was really good. Just like last time Lundgren steals the show though (although that entrance by Norris was brilliant)
Since most of the people visiting this thread now have seen the movie, I'm curious: Was Simon West's direction better or worse than Stallone's? Now I'm a huge fan of Stallone, but his direction of the first film didn't really stand out to me (not that it was supposed to, I'm sure). West's direction here was servicable, but nothing outstanding. Which I suppose is also the point, as many of the action films from the 80s had similar "ho-hum" direction.
I appreciated that West kept the cameras very steady throughout for all the action. Otherwise, there was nothing particularly artful or great about it - it was very straightforward and didn't call attention to itself, which is really what this film needed. In some respect, I guess even the direction and camera work felt a bit like a throwback just like everything else in the movie. Whether that was intentional, I'm not sure. In comparison to the first film, I'm not sure I'd say it was really any better or worse. It just... is.
Van Damme's sidekick is probably the best martial arts performer in non-Asian movies today (though other than Bourne Ultimatum and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, he's mostly in straight-to-DVD stuff), but they really didn't give him anything to do. I wonder if they tried to get someone like Michelle Yeoh for the role of Maggie, since she would've fit right in with the cast.
Her and JCVD's sidekick are people that meant nothing to me but I assumed they had some stature somewhere to be included in TE2. I equated them with Couture.
I've seen one (possibly more and don't remember) of his straight to dvd flicks and thought that was ok. Thought E2 was a pretty fun film. I'd have liked to have seen Trench's team (Probably as cameos which if I'd have had my way would have included Ventura, Bill Duke, Sonny Landham etc) - but maybe we can have some of those in Expendables 3 instead.
He should be in there somewhere but he and the producer, Lerner, have some grudge they apparently won't drop. You'd think Segal might drop it cause he could use the work and exposure.
^^ LOL... Saw it this weekend and it was what I expected.. Loud, brash, funny and full of explosive goodness.. Loved the in-jokes and Willis calling Arnold out on all the "I'll be back" business! One thing I really would have liked was to see Norris and Statham go at it in tandum against the bad guys, martial arts style.. Norris has always been known for kicking ass with his fists and feet, with gunplay being his back up... I realize the guy is pushing it, age-wise, but he still looks good.. I missed seeing him throw a few roundhouses... Props to JCVD for creating a good 80's style villian... He was very belivable in the role. On edit... I want more Jet Li in part 3.. Was bummed that he was subbed out for Maggie.. That would have been a fun team up.. Also, toward the end, before the big fight scene, JCVD alludes to his henchmen that they were going to have a "special guest" on the flight and then gives a smirk to a shadowed figure behind a door... Or was I imagining that?? So I'm thinking there was more to the scene, or perhaps a whole scene with the "Special guest" that was completely cut out? my wishlist for Part 3 besides more Li is to include the two French actors (Cyril Raffaelli and David Belle) who did Luc Besson's "District 13" movies.. They are experts in Parkour style martial arts and I think that would bring a lot of cool action to the table.
I think this belongs to here: The Expendables: The Musical http://youtu.be/CGPxlMpzqYQ (Sorry if posted before..)
Watched it with 2 friends on Monday and we all loved it. It was OTT, stupid, loud, funny = awesome movie and well worth turning my brain off to watch for the 1 hour 40 off minute it lasted. Hope we get a 3rd one.