The Expendables 2

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, & Jean-Claude Van Damme

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

Sylvester Stallone had a brilliant idea that came to fruition in 2010, with an action movie that brought together all the big names in the action movie genre, but there was a problem. You just can't fit every big name into one movie and give them all significant screen time, so you had to have a sequel. The more things change, the more they stay the same, however, as this time, the story was a bit better, at least for an action movie, and the cast was a bit younger, but the basic genre was still the same. Barney Ross's (Sylvester Stallone) team is once again brought together to do a job, this time there are some new younger faces, to complete what seems like what should be an easy job, what they weren't expecting was to stumble right into the middle of a madman's master-plan. As I said, the story wasn't as basic this time, things were a little more complex, but on a basic level this is still you're typical shoot em up action film, with bodies and explosions constantly coming at you. What I did like was how they change things up a bit and didn't just feature the same actors, even though many members of the team were the same. The one thing the first film was severely lacking was youth, and I don't know about you, but I'd much rather see Liam Hemsworth fighting with his shirt off than Sylvester Stallone. All in all, the sequel doesn't differ that much from the original, but where it does, only helps the series. The cast is younger, the story is better, and the action hits harder. If you're an action junkie, it doesn't get more exciting than the Expendables and the sequel will have you craving a trilogy.