If you're a movie studio exec, and you're sitting around wondering how to get the Thornton family away from the TV and into some theater seats, the most sure-fire method (other than paying for our tickets or offering a buffet) is to promise us a top-of-the-line action movie. In fact, even middle-of-the-line will probably get us to the box office, as long as they put the camera on a tripod when they film the movie... with a couple of exceptions, we're not big fans of the "shakey-cam" method of shooting action sequences. As indiscriminate as we might be when it comes to shoot-outs and car chases, we still like to know who's shooting or chasing whom. Consequently, we never really enjoyed The Bourne Identity franchise, which I think starred Matt Damon, although there was never a confirmed sighting.
But I digress... the point is that we can wait for home video to check out the romantic comedies and insightful dramas. When considering the human condition or contemplating relationship issues, I prefer being in my recliner, where I can doze occasionally. But when I want to appreciate the nuances of a high-speed chase involving a car towing a bank vault through downtown Rio, I prefer to watch it on the big screen.
And it's not just me, or my sons. My wife, the lovely and talented Susan, prefers a good action movie over something like The Joy Luck Sisterhood of the Fried Green Traveling Pants. If we let her, she'd watch the Die Hard and Lethal Weapon franchises every month or two. We've been married for over 36 years, and it's been suggested that I've exerted some Svengali-like influence over her throughout the years until she's been brainwashed to only go to movies with a body-count... but that's not true. I've known her since high-school, and her taste in movies (while not as indiscriminate) has always been simpatico to mine. The first two movies we saw together were Darby O'Gill and the Little People and The Godfather (Sean Connery was in Darby O'Gill and we thought it was a James Bond movie).
So we were there when The Expendables came to theaters a couple of years ago. It was a project put together by its star and director Sylvester Stallone and its hook was to feature in one movie a dream team of past and present action movie headliners. The names on the bill were Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, and probably some others whose names I'm not familiar with, but might recognize if I saw them with a weapon. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis appeared briefly.
For The Expendables 2, everybody but Austin returned, plus they brought in Jean-Claude Van Damme, gave Schwarzenegger and Willis a little more to do, and added an equal dose of Chuck Norris. To counter-balance, they cut back on Jet Li.
Looking at the list, it becomes apparent that the casting directors were hard pressed to come up with someone you'd identify as an "action" star from the latest generation of actors. Jason Statham and Terry Crews, at ages 45 and 44 respectively, are the youngest of the Expendables group. I think I can consider Statham as a genuine action headliner, but I'm still most familiar with Terry Crews as the dad on the sitcom Everybody Hates Chris. I don't recall him blowing anyone up in that show, but judging by his appearance in The Expendables and its sequel, it looks like he's had an infusion of gamma radiation since then, and we all know how cranky that can make you. My point is that both of these gentlemen are eligible for mid-life crises and I don't see many 20-something interns on deck.
Instead, although there are still plenty of action movies, it seems like they're populated with actors that aren't identified exclusively with that genre; like Robert Downey Jr. (in his 40's) and Liam Neeson (who just hit 60). I'm not complaining... with today's special effects, I could be credible in an action movie, if they could get me away from the caterer's truck. I'm just saying that, when you make a movie where the mission statement is to cram it full of action stars, most of the cast is going to look like a Hair Club For Men roster.
They brought in one youngster for this movie, played by The Mighty Thor's little brother, but SPOILER ALERT you know from the start he has as much a chance of surviving this movie as a red-shirted Enterprise crewman has of upstaging William Shatner.
The first Expendables was about a group of mercenaries with hearts of gold who go on a mission and use enough gunpowder to shoot a Land Rover to Mars. Thanks to a still-decent supply of testosterone in the country, it was a big box-office success. So there had to be a sequel.
The Expendables 2 goes an entirely different direction than its predecessor, exploring the inner emotional lives of the mercenaries to determine what would cause these men to adopt this kind of work, and how it affects their relationships with those around them.
Ha ha, just kidding. It's pretty much more of the same, but probably a little more fun due to the extra participation of Schwarzenegger, Willis, and Norris. My son Sam was a little put off by some of the self-referential humor that traded off the cast's past movies and catch-phrases, but I thought it was in keeping with the overall fun tone of a movie with the body-count of a small nuclear explosion.
It's rated R, but I don't recall anything racy happening in between gun battles, so the rating is probably prompted by the physical mayhem. It looks like computer guys with the know-how to automate the Atlantic Fleet instead devoted their resources to make cinematic heads convincingly explode. Maybe there was some R-rated language, but I couldn't make out much dialogue over the gunfire and explosions, and even during the lulls, I have trouble with the heavy accents of Li, Schwarzenegger, Van Damme, and Stallone.
Stallone didn't direct this sequel, but that's understandable. Of the main cast, he's the oldest, so he should probably slow down a little. Back when he first started as Rocky and Rambo, he was sort of a beefy guy; then as his career as a sequel-maker progressed, his face and body seem to get more chiseled. Now he seems to have reverted to his original body-type, as if the lease ran out on his mid-career physique. I don't see that as a set-back; Stallone's always been an appealing screen persona to me no matter what shape he was in, probably because I never got the feeling he was talking down to me. With Stallone, I feel like I'm on the same intellectual footage, rather than feeling mentally outclassed like when I watch a Steven Seagal movie.
We all came out of the movie giving it the Thornton stamp of approval, but frankly, we give that to about any movie that doesn't try to teach us anything. The lovely and talented Susan probably liked it a little more than the rest of us. Although I found The Expendables 2 entertaining, I realized that, except for Sylvester Stallone with the Rambo franchise, the rest of the headliners aren't really known for this military-mayhem ammo-dependent type of movie... although they might play guys with a military background, most of the movies are about one guy (sometimes with an odd-couple buddy) going after a bunch of bad guys for personal or professional reasons. I'm thinking of Die Hard; The Transporter; The Punisher; The Eraser; etc. Nowadays the on-screen military doesn't have time to mess with terrorists or rogue nations... it has its hands full dealing with giant extra-terrestrial technology like Decepticons and the creepy crawlies from Independence Day; Battle LA; and Battleship. During The Expendables 2, I found myself wishing that I could watch each of these guys in their own movie, preferably set at Nakatomi Plaza.
I think the exhibitors anticipated this nostalgia, because the block of coming attractions that were shown for the two hours preceding the movie featured new action pictures starring Stallone and Schwarzenegger in solo turns, plus the upcoming sequel to Taken, with Liam Neeson returning as a non-Jedi bad-guy-killing juggernaut.
So I told the theater manager to keep my seat warm for me, and in my best Terminator timbre, intoned "I'll be back." The manager immediately took my picture with her cell phone and promised to give it to all the employees, which I found encouraging. It'll be nice to get the extra attention, since my family said I'll be going to the movies alone from now on.
All material copyright 2009 Chuck Thornton