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Saturday, August 18, 2012

Expendables 2 Review: Yippie ki yay The Lone Wolf Will Be Back

Much like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, this is a movie that defies reviewing.  If you're an stupid '80s action movie fan, then you're going to enjoy the hell out of this movie.  It has just about everything you could ask for in a stupid '80s style movie.  It has the guys getting shot and then exploding.  It has the funny one-liners.  It has humor.  It has evil bad guys being evil bad guys.  If you were to run down the checklist of crappy '80s style action movies, it checks all the boxes. 

But why are we really going to see this movie?  The stars.  Yep.  It has Chuck Norris.  And in one of the many inside jokes, his character is called "The Lone Wolf."  If you don't know who Lone Wolf McQuade is... do I need to go tell you to go see it?  It has Chuck Norris AND David Carradine.  Enough said.  Go see it.  NOW!!! 

This is a movie that aspires to be a dumb movie.  If that doesn't appeal to you, it won't win any converts.  The story is one of the guys on Barney's team gets killed in the line of duty.  So, Barney (Stallone) cancels the mission and starts one of his own... Revenge.  That's the movie.  Barney has to go get the MacGuffin.  He does.  He loses the MacGuffin.  His friend gets killed and now it's revenge time.  It's simplicity itself.

The only thing I found a little disappointing was that Jet Li leaves the movie very early on.  Before he goes, he has an intense fight scene and it left me wanting more.  Perhaps in Expendables 3.  The other disappointing part was that Mickey Rourke wasn't in the movie.  I honestly don't know what happened to him.  I assumed he died because they talk about a dead old man.  Kinda. 

All the name jokes are there.  Hale Caesar, Toll Road, but now we also have Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) and Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme).  Come on now.  The villian is literally named Vilain.  He is Jean the Villian. 

Expendables 2 is a loud, dumb, cheesy, gory, explosion filled '80s action cliche-filled movie.  And it is immensely enjoyable. 

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