Tag Archives: The Expendables 2

Best & Worst Films of 2012

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It seems 2012 has come and gone! We have gone through the best and worst of Hollywood and I am here to bring you my personal favourites and least favourites of the year that was apparently and supposedly to doom us all! I should note that I have not yet seen some movies that may (or may not) have ended up on this list, such as Beasts of the Southern Wild and Battleship for examples.

(Note: In alphabetical order)

– BEST –

1) Argo: Ben Affleck has not only grown to be a very sophisticated actor but also an exceptional filmmaker. It’s a movie that is so bizarre that it could only work as a true story. The cast nothing short but fantastic, Alan Arkin and John Goodman bring great performances and the tension is absolutely thrilling. A great authentic thriller that feels like it belongs to the great thrillers of the 70s like All the Presidents Men.

 

2) Amour: Making a film about love is quite hard to pull off, without having the emotions feeling forced or contrived. Michael Haneke delivers one of the most heart-breaking but inspiring pieces of work he has made to date! Emmanuelle Riva’s performance is astounding, really capturing the effects of old age and truly pulled my heart strings. The film may leave audiences cold but it has that brutal honesty about the themes of age, time and (inevitable) death. It certainly left me touched on a personal level (which is a rarity in this day of age).

 

3) Skyfall: Bond certainly came back with a bang! Sam Mendes promised to deliver a respectful tribute to this 50th anniversary of the film franchise. Not only was it one of my favourite Bond films but it was my favourite blockbuster of the year (yes, even found it better than The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man). Javier Bardem makes one of the most memorable Bond villains in a long time and it is quite refreshing the film overall is having fun rather than being grim (i.e. Quantum of Solace). The cinematography by Roger Deakins is beautiful as ever and Thomas Newman’s score all sounds very modern but also rings back to the classic Bond we know and love. I am certainly looking forward to Bond’s return.

 

4) Zero Dark Thirty: Quickly making a film about the manhunt of Osama bin Laden was going to be a hard task. Though with director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal (the same team behind the Oscar winning The Hurt Locker), all made sense that they were suitable with this material. Jessica Chastain delivers a strong and memorable performance that actually comes across as a character that has a lot of depth and subtlety. The fact that Bigelow knows how everything is going to end but still makes it one of the most exciting sequences on film. The huge plus about the film is it doesn’t glorify their success, they show you how it was done and you decide how you feel about it.

 

Honourable mentions; The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, Django Unchained, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Looper and The Master.

 

– WORST –

1) The Amazing Spider-Man: I really wanted to like this film, I really did but it was even worse than Spider-Man 3. Andrew Garfield is a really good actor (see The Social Network for proof) and the idea of casting him as Peter Parker/Spider-Man did actually sound really good. Although the material he’s been given is awful, and it doesn’t help he’s going against one of the most one-dimensional villains I’ve seen. The visual effects looks terrible, as if they came out of a PS2 cut-scene and it also features one of the most cheesiest scene since Spider-Man. The only decent part of the film is Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy was a smart and self-dependent character rather being the damsel-in-distress.

 

2) The Expendables 2: This macho rubbish has gone on a bit too long, even whilst I was watching the first film. The Expendables are once again on a mission to fight one man and his army, and that bad guy is played by Jean-Claude Van Damme as Vilain (no, really! That’s his name). We still know nothing about the characters, the most we get is a running gag that Gunnar has an advance degree of chemical engineering (when in real life, Lundgren has a master’s degree in chemical engineering). This isn’t a case of ‘it’s so bad, it’s good’, it’s just a bad action movie that doesn’t separate itself from the next. This really wants to be a nostalgic trip of the action movies of the 80s and 90s, when all it makes me want to do is watch the movies that made them famous!

 

3) Taken 2: I was never a fan of Taken to begin with. It’s a mediocre action film that’s taking the story from Commando but is treated like an episode of 24. Liam Neeson looks incredibly bored and seems to being doing this sequel waiting for a cheque. The villains this time round are a lot dumber and don’t even make sure he has any chance of escaping. The worst part is there’s somehow going to be a third one in the works!

 

4) This Means War: For someone like McG that is still making movies to this day still shocks me! After the dreadful Charlie’s Angels movies and the incredibly underwhelming Terminator Salvation, he really brings his career to a whole new low! You have three talented actors from Chris Pine, Tom Hardy and Reese Witherspoon in this unfunny, misogynistic and boring action/rom/com. The fact we’re supposed to be rooting one or the other when they’re clearly a bunch of juvenile agents who wasting the agencies time and effort to impress a woman is something I find really cringe worthy.

 

Dishonourable mentions: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Dark Shadows, Lockout and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2

 

– SURPRISE MOVIE OF THE YEAR –

Dredd: I was not expecting anything from this film but hearing the (somewhat) positive buzz, my curiosity grew and decided to give it a go! To my much surprise, it was really entertaining and very well done. The film is grim and violent but what did you expect from a Judge Dredd movie? Karl Urban makes the character worth rooting for and at least brings some charisma (despite going all Dirty Harry on his perps). The interactions between Dredd and Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) is the most interesting part of the film, showing the different perspectives of the law. It is a shame it wasn’t a box-office success but I believe it’ll have a cult-following in the near future.

 

– DISAPPOINTING MOVIE OF THE YEAR –

Prometheus: Now I’m not saying the film is bad (though depends how you look at this film), the production design, costumes and visual effects are top notch. The idea about faith and creation are all interesting but if only it had nothing to do with the Alien franchise. The mysterious derelict ship from Alien has lost its intrigue and the result is a bit puzzling. Not to mention the characters aren’t as memorable as Dallas and his crew in Alien (or even James Cameron’s Aliens). The reason I didn’t really put this on the worst list is because it did have some positives to the film (i.e. Michael Fassbender’s David was the most interesting character in the entire film).

 

– MOST ANTICIPATED FILM OF 2013 –

Man of Steel: 2013 is going to have another hefty year of comic book films, with Marvel initiating phase two to lead up The Avengers 2 with Thor: The Dark World and Iron Man 3 (Captain America: Winter Soldier will be released in 2014). Though my interest is the upcoming Superman reboot, why you ask? Well it has been seven years since Superman Returns (remember that movie?) and it’ll be the first time that is not part of Richard Donner’s Superman. Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer, the team behind The Dark Knight Trilogy, has created a story that feels relevant and interesting for a Superman movie. Zack Snyder is sitting on the directors chair and British actor Henry Cavill will be donning the suit (first time for a non-American actor to play Superman). What interests me is how this film will be received? It was just as intriguing back in 2004 that a Batman reboot was going to be made, and expectations were a bit low since the last Batman film at that time was Batman & Robin (remember THAT movie?). I’m very excited to see this version of Superman and I really do hope he soars this time round.

The Expendables 2 Film Review

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Much fuss was made over The Expendables – a balls-out, high-octane, no-nonsense shoot ‘em up that Sylvester Stallone nurtured to the big screen. It was a lot of fun, and pulled together three Goliath’s of the action world (Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis) along with a handful of other action giants, both past and present.  Its success meant that The Expendables 2 was inevitable.

 

Along with the original ‘Expendables’ (Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture and Terry Crews) Stallone has more hired guns in the mix for the second outing. Liam Hemsworth joins the Expendables crew, Jean-Claude Van Damme is on villain duty, and a seventy-something Chuck Norris is thrown in for good measure.

 

Unfortunately, it would seem less can indeed sometimes be more.  Whilst the first film seemed like a genuine hark back to something lost; an old-skool actioner with some old-skool actioniers, The Expendables 2 reeks of ‘for-the-hell-of-it’ laziness. The first treated the teaming up of Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis as a momentous occasion and played it cool. Their fleeting on-screen trio – the first EVER – was played with a serious hand (as serious as one can expect) with only a slight nod to the audience. Action took the front seat in that film (action and ultra violence, which fans of the 2008 Rambo will attest to).

 

For this reviewer however, The Expendables 2 has lost its trump card and gone for the cobbled-together, self reverential name dropping road and left all the good, old-skool action behind. Don’t get me wrong, there is action. The opening 20 minutes is as good as it gets. But with only a few more exceptions the action is not only not as plentiful as I would have liked but also not as brutal and ridiculously OTT as the first. Jet Li (an undeniable legend) gives a bunch of goons a cooking lesson they won’t forget, but quickly disappears off-screen for the remainder of the film! Statham, it cannot be denied, is a remarkable martial artist and his action sequences are crisp, violent and precise. In fact Statham is also by far the best actor among the Expendable crowd and were it not for him they would be left following Stallone who unfortunately just looks waaaaaaay to old for this sh*t. Schwarzenegger and Willis (the latter of which can also act, but seems to have forgotten) is laughable (not in a good way) and at points cringe worthy.  Every scene with them oozes self parody, with trademark lines being cheapened, hung, drawn and quartered like never before. Oh, and Chuck Norris pops up for no apparent reason and shoots a load of nameless henchmen. Then does the same again later. Fortunately his beard covers the fact that he is also, unfortunately too old for this sh*t. There is also a Chinese woman who is involved in some way, but her acting is so unforgivably bad at times that I wondered if she may have been on work experience. I can’t actually remember what she did in the film except that she was somehow ‘important’ to the story, my brain must have attempted to eradicate her memory from my head.

 

This leaves us with Van Damme. It may come as a surprise to some – although not those who witnessed his performance in JCVD (2008) – but the muscles from Brussels can act. His performance is – along with ‘The Stath’s’ – the best in the film by a country mile. He delivers his lines with natural menace and adds a real villain to an otherwise empty shell of a film. It is thanks to him and Jason Statham that the film is watchable beyond the first 20 minutes. Sure he breaks out the spin-kicks in the show-down but c’mon, there would be uproar were he not to.

 

The Director Simon West (most notable for Con Air in 1997) does his best with the poor script and ludicrous amount of characters to crowbar into the 100+ minutes run time, but it ends up feeling like words, scenes and characters have been shoved into the Lotto’s Lancealot Machine with set of balls number 2 and given a good going over, only to be poured onto the screen like the contents of an un-drained washing machine.

 

Word on the street (the internet street) has it that number 3 has been given a greenlight, with additional names like Harrison Ford and Nicholas Cage being bandied around by publicity types. Whether this will add more gravitas (try not to laugh) to The Expendables 3 or whether or not they are simply yet more names to try to cram inside a 90 minute window with integrity-destroying consequences is yet to be seen.  Thank God the true, un-paralleled master Bruce Lee isn’t alive to be dragged dragon-kicking and screaming into what unfortunately seems to this reviewer to be a sad misfire of an action film-wannabe.

 

P.S – Jackie Chan, please don’t take any calls from Stallone’s agent. I beg you.