Nordling here.
I haven't seen THE EXPENDABLES 2 yet. It didn't screen for press in my area of the woods, and I'll likely catch it this weekend. But there's only one guy whose review I wanted to see, and that's ABKing's. For those not aware who ABKing is, well... whenever a Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger project was working its way through Hollywood, he's the guy who jumped into talkbacks and let us know about it. Back when Talkback was about celebrating movies, ABKing was, well, king.
He's written about several Stallone and Schwarzenegger projects over the years, as well as other action movies, and his love comes from a pure place of true admiration and joy for those great action movies of the 1980s. That's the love that we here at Ain't It Cool strive to come from every day when we post an article or review for any project, and in this jaded age of remakes and reboots, it helps to have someone around with boundless optimism for whatever comes down the pipe. So I sought out an ABKing review for this movie, and thankfully he delivered.
As for me, I'm seeing this bad boy sometime this weekend, and I can't wait. I imagine that with all these projects from Stallone and Schwarzenegger coming, ABKing is straining his cheeks from smiling so much, and I'm glad. But enough from me, here's AB himself:
The SUMMER of 2012 will always be a special one for movie geeks everywhere and ABking. This summer started with a bang with THE AVENGERS and now has ended with a bang with THE EXPENDABLES 2. Simply amazing...THE EXPENDABLES (2010) was a great 80's throw-back and Sly did an amazing job putting that film and concept together: the concept of getting every action star in one film to appear. With THE EXPENDABLES 2, like any great sequel, the movie is BIGGER in scale (can we say RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II and TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY) and so are the action stars who appear this time out.From the rip roaring opening of EX2 -boy do the first 20 minutes KICK UNHOLY ASS- the fans get what they came for right up front and then some. It is an EPIC opening that showcases how bad ass Jet Li is, Stallone, Statham, Crews, Randy and Dolph are. I love this team of guys. They are the real A-Team, the real G.I.Joes...they just work well together. The plot is straight forward and that is a plus for this kind of movie series (lets get real, none of these EXPENDABLES movies is going to have a complicated story thank god).ACTION is what people came to see and ACTION is what you get. When Chuck Norris shows up you just have to cheer and smile. He was so bad ass in the film it left you wanting more from his "Lone Wolf". The audience I saw this with loved him in this. Every single actor from Sly, to Liam Hemsworth, to Arnold to Jet Li and Statham get their moment to shine....and they ALL shine in that EPIC last battle/action sequence at the end, WOW! There was alot of humor in the film and it worked and worked well. Terry Crews and Dolph are hilarious at times. Bruce Willis was still mysterious as Mr. Church which is cool. The asian chick was bad ass and I hope she returns for the next adventure. And yes this film felt like an ADVENTURE film as much as an action film. The score was awesome and I'm glad some of the same score from the first film could be heard here.Van Damme was bad ass as villain and he just looks cool in the leather jacket and shades. His character was out there and Van Damme had fun with him. Scott Adkins was basically like what Gary Daniels was in the first film...basically you would have liked to see more of him because what you saw you liked.It was smart of Sly to hand directing duties over to Simon "CON AIR" West. Mr. West is a capable action director (with that said, if SIMON WEST doesn't direct THE EXPENDABLES 3 then JOHN WOO should, just throwing that out there).All the hype about the movie being PG-13 was all for nothing because EX2 boasts some very violent scenes that could never be in a PG-13 movie. Still think the producers caved into the fans and were toying with the idea of making the film PG-13. Go movie fans!If you were disappointed by movies all summer long that didn't live up to your expectations then no need to worry with EX2. It will meet and exceed your expectations. What you see is what you get.You gotta hand it to Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger because at the ages of 66 and 65 they seem as active as ever as if it was the 80's and early 90's again. Cannot wait to see them re-team in THE TOMB which hopefully gets a JULY or AUGUST 2013 release date. Both the trailer for BULLET TO THE HEAD and THE LAST STAND played before my showing and I was in heaven.ABkingP.S.When THE EXPENDABLES 3 comes out in the summer of 2014 or 2015, the cast should look like this:
