Oh no! A woman! She has no testicles! She’s going to PMS all over us! What a wacky new dynamic in the Expendables! What’s up for part three? A dog? Kids? I wish “The Expendables 2” was a great follow up to the fun original film, but sadly it isn’t. It has this idea that including a woman in the group will somehow stir things and create tension, but it feels hackneyed and ancient. Plus, with a female version of “The Expendables” waiting in the wings, this plot device feels forced and trite. It also sadly feels like a way to derail a lot of the homoerotic tension between Jason Statham and Sly Stallone’s characters, and that’s a shame. Their bromance makes for some good dialogue and interplay, and to wedge a woman in between them feels like over compensation of the worst form.
While “The Expendables” wasn’t a masterpiece, it surely did bank on the appeal of Jason Statham and the staying power of Stallone, focusing primarily on the duo for the duration of the film. “The Expendables” could really have been much better focusing on Statham’s character Lee Christmas working alongside the Expendables. But since Stallone seemingly wants to give everyone their due, “The Expendables 2” spends most of the time hopping from character to character and never actually fleshes out an interesting hero in the bunch. Stallone catches on to the first film’s interesting storyline with Christmas only slightly by introducing young buck Bill the Kidd, a shady soldier with a tortured past who is learning the ropes in the group. Rather than display more courage by killing off an established Expendable, we waste a lot of time with clunky exposition on Bill the Kidd and what he plans to do in the group.
Of course, the group of mercenaries run afoul the evil Vilain with his henchman Hector ( Scott Adkins, a welcome addition) and things definitely take a turn for the worse. Stallone doesn’t really seem eager to take a lot of risks with this second script, so he instead establishes Bill for twenty minutes and murders him almost immediately to give the group a purpose for chasing after and stopping Vilain. It would have been much more entertaining if Stallone had the scruples to kill off Christmas, or hell even Caesar. Bill’s death allows the group incentive to tackle Vilain’s operation, and “The Expendables 2” is never as focused as the first film at any moment. Which is not to say the first film had a precise narrative, but this follow-up attempts to squeeze in as many action movie nods and lacks any actual narrative or protagonist.
There’s Schwarzenneger’s introduction, and Willis’ introduction, Chuck Norris appears in a hokey cameo as a deus ex machina, and Stallone never actually writes in a sympathetic or engrossing character or dilemma to suck audiences in at any point. The only two saving graces are the fights between Adkins and Statham, as well as Van Damme and Stallone, but they’re minor bright spots in a clunky and terrible action film. I hope “The Expendables” series goes out on a high note with an entertaining story and some actual focus on our core characters. At this point it’s such a juvenile and boring experience with god awful writing, that it completely eliminates the fun of watching action heroes kick ass on screen.