Now as far as action movies go, this is possibly either the greatest of them, or just a tribute to the greatest ones ever known. It's also one of those films that many people thought wouldn't be possible, to bring several action heroes in their 60s along with some fresh faces as well. Does it live up to expectations? Let's find out:
The Expendables
So in this one, Sylvester Stallone takes the role of Director, Screenwriter and Lead Actor. The film begins with Barney (played by Stallone) leading a team of mercenaries in a mission to rescue hostages on a pirated boat. He then later gets contacted and meets his rival, Trent Mauser (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) and a man who takes the name "Mr. Church" (played by Bruce Willis) based on their venue, whom give him a mission to overthrow a dictator in Vilena, a South American island in the Gulf of Mexico. With Trent also being offered the mission, but is too busy with other commitments, hands the job over to Barney, to which he accepts and gets assistance from his team, which he calls "The Expendables". Based on what I saw, and despite the fact that a number of people in this film, I didn't recognise (apart from Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Willis and Li) which is quite sad of me, I found this film to be full of action, violence, humour (when needed) and overall enjoyable. 9/10
The Expendables 2
Sylvester Stallone, once again, is the screenwriter and lead actor, but takes the pressure off by allowing David West to be director instead of him. Following a similar scenario to the last film, Barney leads his team into freeing Trent and a Chinese Businessman from a gang of Chinese terrorists (the actual names of these enemies are unknown as of now, so I'm calling them terrorists for now). Yin Yang (played by Jet Li) after another successful mission, accompanies the Chinese businessman in his safe return to China, which has him temporally leave the group while the group's newest and youngest member, Billy the Kid (played by Liam Helmsworth) tries to fit in with the group and is successful in doing so. Barney gets and accepts another mission from Mr. Church, who leads him in the direction of a woman named Maggie (played by Yu Nan), a tech genius that is able to help the team on their next mission which involves retrieving an item that holds information about a mine containing materials that can make (in some sense) weapons of mass destruction. With the expanded roles given to Willis and Schwarzenegger as well as Chuck Norris's debut in the film, makes this film better than the last one, even though I do find that the story is very similar to the original, but otherwise, a very good film overall. 9/10
Overall, whether Stallone plans to make a third one (at which point, I think he would be at the age of retirement, no offence to the legend himself), I find this series of action films to be not only a tribute, but a celebration of the Action genre of films and what they have become over the years. 9/10
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