“Back for war”
Released and reloaded on August 17, 2012, “The Expendables 2” consisted of Hollywood’s AND Earth’s mightiest action heroes in the form of the action hero trinity known as Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis. Joined by Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Chuck Norris, and Liam Hemsworth, they take on Jean-Claude Van Damme.
If 2010’s “The Expendables” is a throwback homage of “The Magnificent Seven” meets “The A-Team”, then “The Expendables 2” is definitely “The Magnificent Seven” meets “The Dirty Dozen” and “The A-Team” with Barney Ross (Stallone) leading a crew of middle-aged mercenaries who are willing to take on any job as long as the money’s real. This time, the job becomes personal when the Expendables are up against the ruthless Jean Vilain (Van Damme), who drew first blood on them. Aided by the lone-wolf Booker (Norris), these universal soldiers of fortune are on a mission to stop Vilain and avenge the death of one of their own.
You can say that “The Expendables 2” helped celebrated the 45th anniversary of 1967’s “The Dirty Dozen” starring Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, Clint Walker, Telly Savalas, Ernest Borgnine, and Donald Sutherland in this classic tough-guy story of a maverick U.S. Army Major (Marvin) in charge of leading and training of hardcore, convicted criminals on a suicide mission to go behind enemy lines to killed Nazis during World War II. If they succeed, they’ll be pardoned … if they succeed, that is, as they must learn to work together and trust each other as an unit.
“The Expendables 2” continues to pay tribute to the heyday of the action hero genre that ruled the 1980s and early 1990s with these supermen/men of steel, dark knights, and iron men who have a little bit of both the Lone Ranger and Captain America in them. They didn’t need a mask, a cape, a shield, or a suit of armor. All they needed were muscles and guns … plenty of guns – especially when THEY’RE the gun, a lethal weapon with their hands and feet.
“The Expendables 2” showed that good guys wear black.