Expendables 2 Blu-ray Review
Sly returns with his team of renegades for another adventure, only this time they have invited a few more big name action stars into the mix.
Things get personal on a fairly routine mission when one of their number are killed by a rival team of mercs lead by Jean-Claude Van Damme’s antagonist. Expendables 2 drops the potty mouth in favour of more explosions and bloodied bullet shots. The banter in between is a bit more lively than from the first film giving each team member a chance to try out their comedic timing 9of which Lundgren probably comes out on top). As for the action, Van Damme pretty much steals the scenes he is in and makes for a very good opponent, aided well by the mammoth that is his henchman Hector (Scott Adkins).
Expendables 2 honestly needed to drop the guns more often in favour of hand to hand combat. When you have Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, Statham, Stallone, Couture, Adkins and Van Damme on your call sheet you might want to make a few of them square off more often than what we get here. The film may not break in any new trends, but it is continual fun from start to end. Just not as great as the cast suggests it might be.
On the extras side – Director Simon West provides a very chatty commentary. There is a handful of deleted scenes (which won’t be missed), a half decent gag real (worth seeing just for Van Damme’s alternative takes on the material) and a couple of featurettes on the weapons and the assembling of the cast.
We’re still keen on Expendables 3!
Steven Hurst