Stallone and company better than ever in The Expendables 2

Good men get better with age. Good action stars even more so.

Sylvester Stallone together with director Simon West has achieved the near impossible with the sequel to his blockbuster action film, The Expendables--not only is it a successful second installment, but a film so remarkable in its own right that there's just no beating it. This is all the bad ass you've ever dreamed of, and more, too.

Stallone reprises his role as Barney Ross, who, together with his team of mercenaries from the previous film plus newcomers Billy (Liam Hemsworth) and Maggie (Nan Yu), is strong-armed into another mission at the behest of an unnamed government agency led by Mr. Church (Bruce Willis). A walk in the park, Church tells Barney, but it's clear enough that it won't be--not only is the targeted material inside a dangerous spring-loaded mechanism whose safe changes its code every sixty seconds, but once recovered, the goods are hijacked by a new team of mercenaries led by a man named Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme); in the battle over the goods, one of Barney's men is executed. Forgetting the mission and motivated purely by revenge for their fallen brother, the team pursues Vilain, whose end game is to excavate and sell weapons-grade plutonium. Ultimately the team must decide whether to simply retaliate or to save the world while they're at it. They choose wisely, of course, but not without a little help from their friends.

The film works wonderfully in that it's good writing, great visual storytelling, and above all, fun. This is an incredibly violent story, but done in an unapologetic way that revels in its excess; bad guys aren't just shot, they're shot, stabbed, and occasionally run over, all at once. In one of the early scenes where Jet Li suddenly finds himself unarmed inside a kitchen full of attackers, the fight simply shifts from guns and knives to pots and pans, each metallic bludgeon sounding more like a carefully composed percussion solo than a man fighting for his life. Gamers, are you watching? They're doing all this for real.

Also good for laughs is the continual self-reflexive stand the film takes in not only assembling basically every action star from the eighties onto one screen ("Who's next, Rambo?" one asks another in the midst of an all-out battle) but in that these guys know each other, they know the tag-lines, and they've all seen each others' films (clearly crafted by a screenwriter who knows his film history). The fight choreography is nothing short of amazing, especially in Jason Statham's scenes, and attention to little details like props ("Knock, Knock," on a tank's cannon among other choice stenciled phrases) and classic music ("Crystal Blue Persuasion,")--extremely well done. This stuff made for a literally smashing experience.

Ironic, isn't it? Best-selling books are getting less cerebral while action films get smarter? Keep 'em coming, Sly, keep 'em coming.

Quite Possibly the Worst Film Ever Made.

I know this is an easy target, but honestly, if any of you out there want to take a stab at making it through this entire film, I submit that you'll be undertaking a brutal task. . . I turned it off about halfway, seriously unable to go on. It would be tempting to say that Bruce Willis is a kiss of death for any non-action 80s film (MORTAL THOUGHTS, much?) but to say that would be to miss the forest for the trees, if you get me.

There was one good thing in this train wreck, a very small one thing: KIM CATTRALL. She was actually spot-on as Sherman's wife.



My list of issues?

1. Tom Hanks being cast in this, at all. Gray status of teeth not appealing. He is not sexual at all.
2. Melanie Griffith, anytime, anywhere.
3. Bruce Willis, as Peter Fallow. This guy was written as a Brit, took pride in his Brit-ness, and most of his POVs from the book dealt completely with this Brit disdainfully parading around American unpleasantness.
4. During the first half, nothing was really said about Kramer's financial situation, which seemed to be a big deal driving his actions throughout the story.
5. Whole movie told from Willis's disgusting Fallow's POV was awful. Definitely the wrong move. Who thought that up? Gross.
6. Sherman's constant "hemorrhaging money" wasn't brought up at all. Again, a big deal driving the narrative that was ignored.
7. The fact that a decent director (Brian DePalma) did this just makes me sad. Screenplay was shit. Either write it yourself or don't do it.
8. Also, did someone just allow Melanie Griffith to AD LIB her entire role? She was like tin foil on fillings, more than usual, even.

Wow. In thinking of past films that have earned this "status," I can really only think of two others, neither of which I've seen all the way through.

Pearl Harbor and, surprise, Mortal Thoughts.
I mean, there's a way to do something cheesy and have it be good, like Clerks, or Dallas. It's like the minute you lose your sense of humor about what you're doing, you just completely tank it.

Gross.