The monosyllables fly fast and furious in The Expendables 2. It’s the joints that are a little creaky, but what would you expect from this sequel to the 2010 blockbuster in which a cadre of aged action stars, led by Sylvester Stallone, gathered to fire guns, blow things up and beat the living daylights out of assorted baddies?
The Expendables 2 brings back essentially the same cast, with a few additions, and features approximately the same quota of explosions and ass-kicking as its predecessor did, give or take a few incidents of flame-throwing and skull-bashing.
Stallone returns as mumbling mercenary Barney Ross, who leads a band of musclebound merry men who’ll do anything for a buck: Barney is most commonly found in the company of his sardonic sidekick Lee Christmas (Jason Statham, who somehow emerges from the most ridiculous scenarios with his coolness intact).
Milling around in the background, with not much to do except throw their weight around, are Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Toll Road (Randy Couture) and Hale Caesar (Terry Crews).
Jet Li’s Yin Yang — one of the most appealing characters in the first movie — appears in an early scene and is quickly dispensed with. He’s replaced, sort of, by an Asian operative named Maggie (Yu Nan), who seems to exist solely to make moo-moo eyes at rugged he-man Ross, who’s having none of that girly stuff. There’s also a greenhorn named Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth), but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.