<Review by: Daylynn DeSouza>

Directed by Simon West. Starring Sylvester Stallone, Liam Hemsworth, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Dolph Lundgren, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Charisma Carpenter.

Knives, guns, explosions, helicopters, planes, cannons, motorbikes, martial arts, rocket launchers, RPGs, corny jokes and a blatant disregard for the sanctity of human life. All that and much more is what you’ll end up seeing within the first 10 minutes of The Expendables 2.

Since this is a sequel to the first one, you can expect twice the action and twice the emotion (there’s about 20 seconds of real emotion in this one. I know that’s not what us men like to watch but they make up for it by blowing up more stuff). You can also expect to feel old. And, I mean really old. Stallone’s age really shows in this movie. And, Jean-Claude Van Damme… Well… He looks a little like an extra-terrestrial at some points. Aside from the fact that some of the cast are walking relics if you liked the first movie you’ll like this one: This means you, men. This means you. Without further ado, let’s delve into the plot and synopsis. (Hey, I don’t care about it either but apparently just saying, “Go watch it… People get blown up all over the place” isn’t exactly considered a review.)

The movie starts off with a rescue mission in Nepal and about 50 or 100 people get killed or maimed by Stallone, Statham, Li, Lundgren, Crews and Couture. Newcomer to the group Bill the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) kills a few dozen or so too. The Expendables win and they go back home to celebrate. Enter Bruce Willis’ character Mr. Church who sends them all off to retrieve a special item from a plane wreck. While retrieving the item, they lose one of their men and the item itself. (This is where I got invested in the story.) Yup, the villain of this movie Vilain (We see what you did there Hollywood.) played by Van Damme kills one of the boys and the rest of them are out to get revenge now. That’s pretty much it. Oh, and they have to stop Vilain from making off with about 5 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium that he intends to sell at 4 Million Dollars a kilo. (That’s about 20 Trillion Dollars worth.)

More guns, knives, brass knuckles, planes and corny jokes ensue and the Expendables win. Unlike the last movie, everybody gets to kill somebody sometime in this movie. Chuck Norris hasn’t aged at all. I heard the Grim Reaper paid him a visit once. My condolences to Mrs. Reaper and all the little Reapers; our prayers are with you. Chuck along with Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger get to kill people and crack a few jokes that are so bad and obvious that they loop all the way around to awesome.

Now comes the part where I review the acting… Okay, honestly now… who really cares about the acting? I mean seriously. Let me just say that there is some acting involved in this movie but it’s basically just a whole lot of guns, knives, martial arts, explosives, hand-to-hand combat, hand-to-knife combat, Norris-to-tank combat (Yeah! He kills a Tank! I’m not even slightly joking about this. Stuff gets killed and then everyone finds out Norris killed it! Talk about awesome!) and the usual decapitation.

Look, the movie delivers what it promises. Action and a whole load of it. There is no chance in hell you’re gonna walk out of the theatre going, “I wonder if that was an action movie. Hmm…”. This is a guy movie. This is an anti-chick-flick (I came with another name for it but we have censorship laws, but it does rhyme with ‘chick-flick’.)

If you want a movie with substance, great acting and a great life lesson, then go watch ‘Eat, Pray, Die-of-Boredom’ or whatever. If you want over 90 minutes of Testosterone fuelled, gut wrenching, spine shattering, decapitating, round house kicking action packed action… watch this movie. Hell, there are so many dead bodies in it that they even filled up the plot holes! This is an action movie and while you might be a little disconnected during the first 10 minutes, you’ll find yourself getting drawn into it by the time the body count reaches 110 and then you’ll add it to your list of bromantic movies to watch on Valentines Day.