The Expendables 2 (Millennium Films)

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Summer ends and fall begins, with a bang with the return of Sylvester Stallone and his merry team of action heroes in the sequel to the 2010 blockbuster The Expendables 2.

For those looking for something Oscar-worthy, you may want to look elsewhere.

Stallone returns as team leader Barney Ross along with Jason Statham as knife master Lee Christmas, Jet Li as martial artist Yin Yang, Dolph Lundgren as gunman Gunnar Jensen, Terry Crews as weapons expert Hale Caesar and Randy Couture as demolitionist Toll Road.

As the movie opens, the team along with rookie sniper Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth from The Hunger Games) arrive in Nepal to save a Chinese billionaire from terrorists. Afterward, they’re recruited by Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) to team up with tech expert Maggie Chan (Nan Yu) to head to Alberta to find a lost safe containing some important information.

Once they retrieve the safe, the evil Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) steals the safe from them and kills one of their members. Out for vengeance, Barney and his team set out to track down and kill Vilain with the help of Church, Booker (Chuck Norris) and Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger in his comeback role).

The best way to describe this sequel, similarly to the original, is imagining mixing testosterone with steroids and adding plenty of dynamite – a concoction of bloody violence and manly humor.

Much like the original, The Expendables 2 is a throwback to the action movies of the '80s and '90s – men were muscular and armed with guns and bazookas, and blood is sprayed everywhere.

Like those movies, this film doesn't aim for high art; rather it engages the audience by blowing things up. 

The icing on the movie’s action-packed cake, is its all-star cast. As always, Stallone, who co-wrote the script, and his team fire their guns and talk comically to each other. Li only appears in the opening sequence, but acts well, performing martial arts.

Then there's the arrival of Norris, along with theme music from Ennio Morricone’s theme from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, while Schwarzenegger and Willis get a little more screen time.

Though Stallone directed the previous film, directing duties this time is handed over to Simon West, who previously directed the action films Con-Air and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. He does a good job retaining Stallone’s vision of action-film nostalgia with modern film making.

The Expendables 2 is not as action-packed as the first. The movie has plenty of slow, emotional scenes that bogged down the film a bit. However, the climax employs more blood, bullets and one-liners than any other action film.

Throughout the film, there’s a heavy dosage of cliché action one-liners, many referencing other action movies. 

The Expendables 2 delivers the violence and comedy on all fronts. If there are not many other films to watch this September, then this movie is the perfect choice – escape into action-comedy on high-octane overdrive!

THE MOVIE’S RATING: R (for strong violence, language, and brief sexuality)

THE CRITIC’S RATING: 3.25 Stars (Out of Four)