Film Review - Expendables II (2012)

Expendables II once more sees Sylvester Stallone as Barney Ross, leader of the Expendables team as he also faces another assignment from Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) to deal with a stolen 5 kilos of plutonium by Vilain (Jean Claude Van Damme) but Ross will need some big help to take out this new villain.

Expendables II is a huge improvement on the first film which I thought was fine but suffered from some inconsistent storytelling, here the script feels much more focused, the action has more of a presence as does the action editing and direction feel more spaced out and the humour and characterization feels more natural than it did in the first film where it felt somewhat forced at times.

But it's hard not to talk about this movie and not mention the film's climax in an airport which is nothing short of spectacular for me, anyone who has wished for something like this to happen in an action picture will have their wish granted in a big way and I was smiling the entire time, Van Damme also makes for a much better villain than Eric Roberts did in the first film and the fight between him and Stallone was great to watch.

But if I do have one complaint about this film it's that I really wish Christopher Lambert had a role in it, there had been talk when this film was being prepared that he might be considered for a role but it never happened and its saddening for me that it didn't but still what's here on screen more than makes up for that.

So all in all, Expendables II is a huge improvement on the first film and it's also a film I really enjoyed watching, 3 and a half out of 5.