Dabble...: Movie Time: The Expendables 2

The Expendables 2

As I'm sure you've already heard,
I love movies.
I have moments were I am picky, but I'm never biased
(unless Kristen Stewart is involved).
I can appreciate a movie with any cast,

any genre, any budget, in any language (as long as there's subtitles;),
as long as it's a good story with a believable cast that can keep my attention.

Why do I tell you this?
Because I LOVE action movies.

I always have.
So when I saw the ad for The Expendables in 2010, I was MORE than excited.

For those who don't know,

The Expendables was a film straight from the minds of David Callaham & Sylvester Stallone.
It was one of the most anticipated action movies in the last decade.
Why?
The action star studded cast.

Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Steve Austin, with Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, & Arnold Schwarzenegger.
So... yeah :)

The movie is about a group of mercenaries who are assigned to take down a dictator in South America only to find that a group of Americans are the real cause of the conflict.
Lots of booms and bangs, you know the drill.

I was SO excited.
But sadly, I didn't get a chance to go see it in theaters, and by the time I had the chance it was too late.

But according to all of my friends who had seen it, it was HORRIBLE, so I wasn't missing out.

They said it was cheesy, and just a bunch of washed up actors blowing shit up.
By the time it had come out on DVD, I had lost all interest in watching it.
I'm not proud of this folks, but you can only hear that a movie is shit so many times before you tear down the expectations you had in your head.

The sequel came out about a month ago and one of my friends (a fellow cinefile) really wanted to see it.

I told him that I hadn't seen the first one and that I didn't like seeing sequels

without seeing the original (OCD thing I guess).
So thanks to my friend's persistence and the convenience of Netflix,

we watched The Expendables.

And I loved it.
Yes, it was cheesy.

Yes, Sylvester Stallone looks like he has had more botched plastic surgery

than any woman I've ever seen.
But it was okay, because they knew that.
They made jokes about it through the movie, and by acknowledging the cheese and making fun of the fact that this movie is ridiculous, it made it amazing.

Later that night we went and saw the second one.

And it was EVEN BETTER.

Action from start to finish, and humor all throughout.

What I liked more about this one is it was deeper than the first one.
I would elaborate but I don't want to give anything away.

Let's just say that in this one, there's personal reasons behind their work, not just to be the heroes.

Liam Hemsworth, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Chuck Norris join the cast

to add even more awesomeness to this sequel.

(they may or may not have made a Chuck Norris joke in the movie, I cannot deny or confirm;)

AND
Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger are in the movie for longer than a minute,

which was HUGE for me.

And I was really happy with the transition between directors and writers.
Most of the time, there is a very drastic difference between films when they are made by different people.

But not in this one, they did a GREAT job of keeping the original themes and styles.

My only complaint is, like the first one, the storyline is a little sloppy.
People just kind of show up without a lot of explanation as to how or why.
But, again, that's an action movie for you.