![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Expendables-2-198x300.jpg\" "\\"Expendables")
<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 With \u201cThe Expendables 2\u201d, who needs \u201cThe Expendables\u201d? The 2010 original wrote some checks to its audience that it couldn\u2019t cash. It bragged about the inclusion of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, and Mickey Rourke in its all-star cast of action heroes and then didn\u2019t have them do anything memorable. It also had too many long stretches where there wasn\u2019t any shooting or fighting. The new film does better in both departments. The pacing has improved, everybody gets in on the action, and there are some pleasing new faces in the cast including a man who could win a gold medal at a state fair with blue ribbons for prizes.<\/p>\nThe Expendables are a mercenary crew that specializes in jobs where the people hiring them will probably try to kill them once they\u2019re done. Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) is their leader, who likes guns. Christmas (Jason Statham) is his sidekick, who likes knives. The crew also includes big galoot Gunner (Dolph Lundgren), peaceful powder keg Toll Road (Randy Couture), spry secret weapon Yin Yang (Jet Li), and big not-so-secret weapon Hale Caesar (Terry Crews). Mickey Rourke\u2019s mentor character from the original is sitting this one out, in his place is optimistic sharpshooter Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) who makes the deadly mistake of mentioning that he has plans for life after The Expendables. If that sounds like a thin lineup, don\u2019t fret. The team will eventually get help from Schwarzenegger, Willis, Chinese action starlet Yu Nan, and a man who could get an Amish community to relocate to Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
The team travels to Albania to stop a villain with the ever-so-subtle name of Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme). Vilain has a ton of useless henchmen who really give new meaning to the term \u201cmen at his disposal\u201d. I swear there are scenes where The Expendables kill more henchmen than were in the room when they entered. As the villain, Van Damme is good, maybe too good. The audience at my screening couldn\u2019t quite seem to root against him as he fought Stallone in the film\u2019s climactic sequence. Maybe the film should have had him fight someone a little more beloved, like the man who could lull a baby to sleep by gently playing a vuvuzela.<\/p>\n
The film is made up of about half action scenes, a quarter sad scenes, and a quarter smart-aleck banter. The sad scenes are there to explain why the characters are so mad during the action scenes. The smart-aleck banter mostly consists of the characters finding various ways to call each other stupid, with occasional stops to reference the actors\u2019 films and personal lives. The action scenes feature a ton of shooting where victims pop like bloody water balloons. Occasionally they\u2019ll mix it up with some fighting, the better to savor the violence. Sadly, there are no trademark roundhouse kicks to the face from the man whose roundhouse kicks go around the house (Have I mixed that up with a fat joke?).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Expendables 2\u201d is just as dumb and as fun as it promises to be, which is more than I can say for its predecessor. The original got the \u201cdumb\u201d part right, but couldn\u2019t follow through with the \u201cfun\u201d. The key difference is that this time Schwarzenegger and Willis are actually given something to do (by which I mean weapons to fire), and the star power is upped by the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris. Yes, it\u2019s Chuck Norris I\u2019ve been referencing this whole time with all these exaggerations. I\u2019ve got one more: Chuck Norris should win history\u2019s one and only Oscar for Best Supporting Shooter.<\/p>\n
Two and a Half Stars out of Five.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Expendables 2\u201d is rated R for strong bloody violence throughout. Its running time is 102 minutes.<\/p>\n