What did you think about Expendables 2? (SPOILERS)

[NizZY']

I honestly came to this movie with high expectations because I thought the first was awesome, and I also love action movies that have less talk than guns, blood, and explosions. I really appreciated the shots all the actors took at each other about their movie history. The Rambo, Terminator, Die Hard, and the "Chuck Norris" internet joke were all very awesome to me. I thought Van Damne being a villain was awesome, I did almost die of laughter when I heard him say "Dun Chullenge Me". I'm easily ammused and should feel bad but whatever. The movie was pretty much all guns and explosions everywhere for the majority of it. I felt a bit disappointed in the Stallone/Van Damne fight though. If you watch any of the movies you will know that Van Damne kicks major ass when it comes to Martial Arts. They made him look weak and made him get swung around by Suplexes and Chokeslams. It felt like I was watching an old WWF wrestling match. Even though I would have loved to see Van Damne make a huge come back and kick Stallone in the face more than 2 times I was still satisfied and saw it coming. When does the bad guy win in these kind of films. Terry Crew is an actor I don't really understand why was picked in this movie. The guy is a comedian. I am glad they picked him though because he brings a little more life to the film with "action humor". His funny yelling and screaming when getting shot at is always funny. Anyway, what did you guys think of it? Did it suck? Did it rock? This has become my favorite action movie of the year. Keep in mind you super hero fans that this film doesn't catagorize with them because it is not a Super Hero film.

[Animal Mother]

I thought it was better than the first movie (less quick cuts) but it was still lacking. The intro action sequence is incredible with all the explosions and people getting ripped apart by .50 caliber machinguns and sniper fire but then they go over a half hour with no action going on and the action scenes that followed were nowhere near as good as the first one. It also seems like the movie had a problem with handling so many heroes that it ends up feeling like they don't belong in the same action sequences. There was also a lack of sense of progression in the action sequences. You never get the feeling that they are thinning out the enemy forces. The airport scene is particularly guilty of both. They're shooting up the place and it seems like there's no shortage of bad guys then all of a sudden, bam, out of nowhere two characters (Dolph and Terry, I think) do an uncalled-for synchronized knife throw at a pair of bad guys and suddenly no one is left except for Scott Adkins and JCVD and they're somewhere in the airport you can't place along with the two heroes (Jason and Sly) on their way to go mano-a-mano with each of them. The intro action scene didn't have an issue with this because it was a rescue operation where they just go in, blast some shit along the way then go out, doesn't matter if the enemies keep coming. It just feels like every action scene except for the one at the beginning was rushed/too short/lacked cohesiveness.

For action films this year, I didn't think The Raid was very good either. Its action scenes with knives or guns in play are amazing, but the ones that are purely hand to hand fights were quite underwhelming and feel incredibly drawn out. Other recent asian martial arts films like The Protector had more brutal unarmed takedowns which were lightning fast and didn't bog down the pace of the movie but were still oh-so satisfying. I'd put The Raid probably a little lower than Expendables 2. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning. It's very low budget (only $11M) and the trailer makes it look incredibly cheesy but the action scenes look brutal as hell. Judging from its director's previous work, Universal Soldier: Regeneration, I think we can also expect some well-shot action scenes. Its also got three of the action stars from Expendables 2: Adkins, JCVD and Lundgren.

[NizZY']

I agree man, I look forward to the Universal Soldier movie too. The first movie suffered from having too many heroes as well. Some like Jet Li barely had any dialogue or scenes. Li was the most disappointing because he was one of the stars I wanted to see more of, and with him being written off at the 2nd scene in Exp.2, it was just disappointing to see. I would have liked to see more of Arnold, Bruce, and Norris as well. Norris felt completely out of place in the airport scene, but he was more of the comedic relief for that scene.I have mixed feelings about his character.