Expendables 2

Barney Ross and his band of old but extremely well built (they can kick a lot of ass even today for certain) men are back. One would have thought that better sense would have prevailed on them with the not so successful previous attempt. But then Sly Stallone chooses to live by the maxim that he preached to his screen son as Rocky Balboa, “It is not about how hard you can hit but about how hard you can get hit and keep picking yourself up”. Only that would explain a 2nd installment of The Expendables.

Lets look at the list of dialogues that would qualify for the Razzies in screenplay
1. Bruce Willis to Arnold – “You’ve been back enough. Now I’ll be back” :S:S:S
2. Terry Crews when he is asked to hand over his weapon – “My big weapon is hanging exactly where it is” – Like what???
3. And then there is “Rest in pieces” and “I now pronounce you man and knife” – AAAARGH!!!!
4. Jason Statham – “That thing belongs to the museum”. In reply we have Stallone – “We all do”. Probably the only dialogue that made any sense.
5. Someone to Arnold or vice versa – “If I don’t get this back, your ass is terminated” – somebody please stop!!!
And I realized the reason for all of this. Guess who has written the screenplay – of course in an attempt to save a truck load of money – Sly Stallone himself.

If all of this doesn’t get to your nerves then you have a random Belarusian village where all the women can speak impeccable, grammatically correct English albeit in an attempted Belarusian accent. I think Sly uncle’s visit to the sets of Kambakht Ishq rubbed off on him in more ways than we could have imagined. Of course there is the absolutely unnecessary but not unwelcome return of Chuck Norris as Booker who always works alone.

All of this for making a movie that should not have been made in the first place. But for posterity, lets give you a glimpse into the story. Church (Willis) catches up with the old man’s team and asks him to complete an assignment to absolve the team of all pending cases against them. Barney (Stallone) accepts and finds himself somewhere in Eastern Europe to recover a digital map for a few tons of Plutonium. In the bargain he loses the youngest member of the squad – Bill the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) to the ruthless JCVD in his first villainous role. The chase begins.

The Expendables 2 is a vastly avoidable movie. Even if you are an absolute fan of action movies and the men who made Hollywood action a reality, I would request you to avoid it. Because it is those very men who are sinking deeper and deeper into an abyss that they may never return from. Quite a heart breaker in that sense of the word. I was extremely disappointed. 4 on 10. The past few weeks have been disappointing with a couple of exceptions I guess.

Watch the trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi839492121/