The city is never identified, but from the skyline shots to Rourke's French Quarter tattoo parlor to the "French Connection" homage Stallone staged beneath the Claiborne Avenue overpass, it's clear that when they're not killing dictators, they live in the Big Easy. Most of the movie's murdering takes place on the fictional South American island of Vilena, in scenes shot largely in Brazil.
The boys head there after accepting an assignment from a mysterious stranger Bruce Willis who wants to see the island's dictator David Zayas snuffed. In the playfulness department, that's topped only by the much-talked-about scene featuring old friends and '80s action icons Stallone, Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The inclusion of Schwarzenegger is needless to the plot, but it's a fun scene anyway -- and it's harmless, which can't be said about the movie's ghastly level of violence.
During their adventure, Sly's teammates prove they all have an affinity for giant, "Rambo" knives and for stabbing people in the throats with them. In one scene, after a baddie is dispatched by four gunshots to the ribcage, a two-foot blade is thrust through his chest from behind.
You know, in case the bullets don't work. That's not just regular violence. That's startling, needlessly gruesome violence. It also cheapens what Stallone is trying to do with his film. The sequel's co-writer Richard Wenk later explained to HN Entertainment in a interview that following this deal falling through, they had to find a way to get Li out of the movie too. There was a whole subplot they brought these Chinese businessmen home and he decided he wanted to stay home with his family, that was all in the script.
The abruptness of Jet Li's exit from The Expendables 2 is played for laughs during the sequel, though many viewers were still expecting the character to reappear during the story. It now makes sense that Yin Yang was supposed to have a bigger role in the original version.
Sadly, the character had even less to do in The Expendables 3 , where he only turns up for the finale and fires machine guns instead of doing any fighting. Stallone reunites stars for action fest. The Expendables 2. Sylvester Stallone right is currently promoting the action sequel with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Jason Statham left and Dolph Lundgren are also part of the cast. Published 27 July I was severely disappointed in the first Expendable film, the mediocre action, the use of CGI blood and the unimpressive villain ruined the experience.
So I was hoping that the second time around they would correct these issues. I can safely say, they did and they did it in spades. The big change is Stallone is no longer behind the camera, so he is more focused on his role of Barney and his mind isn't split between two separate places. The biggest change though is the tone, The Expendables 2 does not take itself seriously at all and neither did I, so I had a blast watching what is ultimately a parody of the action genre.
I can look past the acting, lack of story and plot because the film doesn't try to give you one. It's a simple film with a simple purpose.
Get as many of these big guys into one film, make it a guys flick with lots of action and killing and they succeeded. The biggest misstep this film has is the motivation behind the revenge.
The wrong person dies. A character is killed off that we have almost zero emotional connection with, it would have made more sense if it were another character that disappears early on in the film. It seems this character's sole purpose was to have these characters get their revenge on, which makes it less engaging for the viewer. I was surprised at how underwhelmed I was by the action in the first film, here it is more stylized and fun.
The film steps on the gas from the very beginning and almost never lets up. We are thrown into this action sequence at the start, which is better than anything the original had to offer. A more competent action director is behind the lens this time, Simon West who gave us Con Air and the more recent Mechanic.
He understands what is needed and delivers some wild action sequences. As I mentioned before, the film does not take itself seriously and it has a very tongue and cheek demeanour about it. It's not afraid to wink at the camera, specifically when Chuck Norris enters the screen and steals the show with the funniest line in the entire film. The film is full of one liners you would expect from an action film. During a fight, one characters exclaims, "Let's wrap this up" he then proceeds to take a chain and wrap it around another character's neck to choke him out.
Another scene we have a bad guy get shot a dozen times by everyone and Stallone retorts, "Rest in pieces". Finally, my favourite, Stallone says "heads up" then proceeds to throw a head to some people.
Yes, this movie is violent, so no fear about the PG rating. So what about the guys? Well, they all come back, some have a lot more to do than others. Lundgren is basically the comedic relief. Crews and Courture again get short shifted and feel like background characters. Schwarzenegger, Willis and Norris all have more in depth cameos and finally Van Damme shines as the villain.
Van Damme really deserved more screen time.
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