Expendables 2 Trailer

Looking impossibly more ridiculous than the first. Should be great!

Expendables 2 Movie Poster

Fuckin' A! Why Jet Li looks like a Chinese woman however is beyond me...

;)

Schwarzenegger Filming For 'The Expendables 2'

I love Arnie =)

Film Review: RED

Warren Ellis and Cull Hamner's graphic novel, RED, is a darker affair than the movie would have you believe. Eminently light hearted, RED is nonetheless still an enjoyable romp, following a group of Retired, Extremely Dangerous geriatrics who have been targeted for termination on account of knowing too much.

Bored and lonely retiree Victor Moses (Bruce Willis) fills his mundane life by finding excuses to call civil servant Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), who deals with his pension, so he can flirt with her. Longing for some excitement, Victor is soon visited by a squad of assassins and forced to flee his home. He concludes the reason must be down to something in his CIA past, and thus embarks on a mission to get the 'old band' back together, designated 'Retired: Extremely Dangerous'.

Willis still plays the role of wisecracking badass, and while accusations of typecasting may be abound, it doesn't matter. It's Bruce Willis goddamn it! And frankly, no one in Hollywood is more suited to the part. Yet RED isn't the Willis show. As he journeys across the United States to reunite the gang, we are introduced to Joe (Morgan Freeman) living it up in a New Orleans retirement home, paranoid crackpot Marvin (John Malkovich) and former MI6 liquidator, Victoria (Helen Mirren), who is now running a B&B. All share one thing in common; their nostalgic fondness for the 'good old days'. Indeed, age hasn't left them rusty, rather RED points out the value of seasoned wisdom.

Fans of the graphic novel may not find this more effervescent version, which glosses over the character's grim pasts, to their liking. Indeed, the plot is not particularly innovative and so the film relies more on its star power than story, but RED is still a very likable and fun film which glistens with a certain charm. Who said retirement was all about the onset of Alzheimers and afternoon Countdown?

Film Review: The Expendables

A rogue CIA agent turned drug lord (Roberts) has funded a coup on a small island in the Gulf of Mexico through his puppet, General Garza (Zayas). Letting his emotions get the better of him upon seeing the state of the island, Barney Ross (Stallone) and his gang of washed-up ageing mercenaries return to wreak destruction on the bad guys. The plot is, quite frankly, a bloody load of shit. But let's be honest, you didn't come to see that, did you? To be perfectly clear here, by critical standards this is a terrible film. Deep, winding character arcs, Oscar-worthy performances and clever writing there is not. Neither is this a parody of those 80s action films like Commando and Rambo we grew up with. Rather, The Expendables is a film that could easily have come from the decade itself. It is a raucous ride fuelled with testosterone, coated in nostalgia with a sprinkling of dynamite.

All the characters in this film are incredibly generic, one-dimensional beings. There's the short guy, subject to the same joke throughout the film (Jet Li), the guy with the cauliflower ear (Couture), the obligatory huge black dude with a love of heavy weaponry (Crews), the wise old sage (Rourke), whose role is surprisingly rather small in this, and the inevitable member of the team you can never trust (Lundgren). One can only reason that if you're going to cast every action star on the planet in the same film then there really isn't going to be much room to manoeuvre around all the huge egos. For this film to be truly complete it would only have needed the presences of Jean Claude Van Damme, Couture's role evidently penned for him, and that weirdo Steven Seagal, both whom turned down Stallone's best efforts to sign them. Roberts is perfectly cast as the 'sophisticated' slime-ball bad guy accompanied by his massive bodyguard in the form of cueball 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin. David Zayas' tinpot dictator, General Garza - whom you may recognise from the TV series Dexter - is just one big fat cliché. Indeed, everyone else takes a back seat to Stallone and Statham who actually make for a pretty entertaining duo on screen. There was definitely a little spark between the two, notably where in one scene Statham's Lee Christmas introduces himself as 'Buda' and Stallone as 'Pest'. Honestly, it's funnier than it sounds.

Of course, the talking point on everyone's lips was the inclusion of the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mr 'Die Hard' Bruce Willis. If Stallone had left it a secret for audiences to see in the theatre then you may have been forgiven for thinking this wasn't merely a bad publicity stunt. Cheekily however Stallone marketed the entire film on this 'gimmick', displaying it for the cheesy nostalgia fest it really is from the word 'go'. The scene itself adds absolutely nothing to the plot (or lack of) and one might easily be mistaken for thinking it no different to one of their Planet Hollywood gatherings. It really is full strength cheddar, but if you grew up with these bad-asses it is also jaw-droppingly cool. Even though the acting is so contrived and wooden it is nonetheless highly amusing to watch these ridiculously jacked geriatrics taking pot-shots at one-another, particularly one of Stallone's jibes at the Austrian behemoth.

As far as action sequences go The Expendables is absolutely insane where everything in this film defies logic. From Stallone running about 20 feet behind a plane and then making some immense jump to 'just' latch on, to the subsequent aircraft strafing the island's pier, to a moment involving Stallone, Crews, an artillery shell and a helicopter. It really is just preposterous. As well as explosions and big guns, the hand-to-hand combat is brutally awesome as you flinch with each bone-crunching twist. I literally pissed myself laughing at a part where Crews, wielding a huge shotgun, rampages down a tunnel blasting away generic soldiers. I'm fully expecting an amusing .gif of this to be present on the internet very soon.

Stallone is not the brainless muscle-bound idiot some people would believe. His career has actually seen some very poignant works and great pieces of writing. The Expendables however does not rank up among them. Is this a good film? Probably not. Entertaining? Hell yeah!