The Expendables 2

Action films are what all younger guys live for during the summer season, and the more explosions, fights, car chases, and adrenaline, the better. In 2010, "The Expendables" made the scene and was surprisingly good. Well, now comes "The Expendables 2" to fill that adrenaline need that its predecessor did in spades.

Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) is approached by CIA man, Church (Bruce Willis), who wants him and his team which includes Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Hale Caeser (Terry Crews), Toll Road (Randy Colture), and Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth), to go to the former Soviet Union to retrieve something that was on a plane that crashed. Church doesn't tell him what he is getting, so Church sends a woman, Maggie (Nan Yu) with him to make sure he gets it. They find the plane and retrieve the object, but some men, Villain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and Hector (Scott Adkins) take one of Barney's men hostage and the leader (Van Damme) tells Barney to give him what they got or he'll kill the hostage. They give the object to him, but kills the hostage anyway. After pressuring her, Maggie finally tells Barney the object shows the location of a Russian plutonium mine. Barney decides to track Villain down and deal with him. They track them down only to realize, at this point, that Villain is the leader of a group known as The Sangs and they have taken all the men from surrounding villages to work in the mine. As one man slows down from exhaustion and is subsequently shot, he is simply replaced. So Barney et al have to save these men and retrieve the plutonium back.

This was effortlessly directed by veteran, Simon West ("Con Air" '97, "The General's Daughter" '99, "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" '01, "When a Stranger Calls" '06, "Purple Mountain" '08, "The Mechanic" '11, "Stolen" '12). By his very resume, this guy knows how to get around an action film. It was written by Richard Wenk and Sylvester Stallone based on a story by Ken Kaufman, David Agosto, and Wenk, which was based on characters created by David Callaham. At the end of the film, I had to ask myself if that was a drama or a comedy. There were so many comedic moments with cheesy, over-the-top lines, that I wondered. Because it was written this was, I have to believe it was purposed, because there was so much of these comedic moments in it.

In any rate, I got what I thought I would get out of it, in that even though it was your typical 'guy flick', cheesy lines and all, it was still somewhat entertaining, not quite as substantial as its predecessor, but still one that will have you cheering for these older, has-been soldiers as they save the day, guns, bombs and all.

Out of 4 stars: 2.5                   Rated: R                     103mins.