258) The Expendables 2 (2012) Dir: Simon West Date Released: August 17, 2012 Date Seen: August 13, 2012 Rating: 1.5/5
Really bad. I was supposed to interview JCVD for this but he canceled at the last minute. That not withstanding, this'n is only relatively better than the first Expendables. And that was pretty, pretty bad. The Expendables 2 just starts to skim the moronic "fail" curve I have. 1.5/5 is the point on my scale where you get a big fat "F." This movie deserves it, but I did want to like it enough that its utter incompetence didn't bug me as much as The Expendables did.
Maybe that's just because The Expendables 2 is a busier film than its predecessors, so its action scenes are slightly more exciting. At the same time, Expendables 2 is toxically cheesy in a stupid, I-hurt-myself-today kinda way. And the gunfight scenes, while better light, are ugly, incoherent and loud. Stallone and co. clearly took notes on what people responded to in the last film, as in the scenes with Dolph Lundgren flaunting his real-life rocket scientist-level knowledge, and the one scene where Jet Li gets in that dig about how Stallone and the boys now have to find another stereotype to kick around. Otherwise: a fire hose blasting horse piss. You want it? You can have it.
