Film Review | The Expendables 2

Taking risks might not be a trendy thing to do in Hollywood, particularly in these economically fraught times.

So perhaps the team fronting The Expendables franchise - led by Sylvester Stallone and consisting of a veritable who's who of '80s and '90s action blockbuster stars - is to be commended for the unlikely move of emerging out of semi-retirement for a final go at some hyper-violent adventuring.

Seeing how the action genre is now dominated by comic book-culled superheroes, with alpha males, on the other hand, being sidelined in favour of geeky couch potatoes of the Seth Rogen variety in the public consciousness, the decision to marshal an army of muscle-bound warriors for a feature film is also thoroughly unfashionable.

This time around, however, the team - led by Barnery Ross (Stallone) and consisting of Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), Toll Road (Randy Couture), Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) and Yin Yang (Jet Li; who makes a hasty exit), and two young turks: talented sniper nicknamed Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) and "combat proficient" tech guru Maggie (Yu Nan) - in their mission against the nefarious terrorist-cum-slave driver Jean Vilain (Jean Claude Van Damme) who aims to weaponise a stash of plutonium in a bid for world domination.

But the mission morphs from a professional assignment imposed on them by government pencil-pusher Mr Church (Bruce Willis) into a personal affair after Vilain murders one of their own.

From there on in, the plan is simple.

In Ross's own words: "Find 'em, track 'em, kill 'em!"

It's clear that the seasoned crew (as a cherry on top, they're joined by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris) are taking the whole affair with a pinch of salt, so that the over-the-top violence and cringe-worthy one-liners ("I now pronounce you man... and knife!") all feel like part of a fun carnival of carnage rather than a plodding re-tread of past glories - a fate that befell the original.

Make no mistake though - the film's still clunky. The banter between Sly and 'the Stath' remains enjoyable but the 'down time' exchanges between the rest of the team, while managing to elicit a few laughs, feel forced, arising from a barely-stitched-together one-liners rather than any genuine sense of camaraderie.

This may sound like a minor quibble in a film that values explosions over people, but a human touch to the group would have squeezed out something genuinely memorable from the ensemble.

There is enough charm to go around, though. Stallone unfortunately resembles something out of a Picasso painting these days, but he remains sympathetic as team leader in a refreshingly ego-free performance (all the more impressive for the fact that Stallone is the main driving force behind the franchise).

But it's Van Damme's scenery-chewing turn as the ludicrously-named bad guy that'll keep people talking. It's impossible to divorce the characters from their stars, and wisely enough, the film doesn't try to - sliding in many a reference to their back catalogue, while also acknowledging that they're getting  a bit long in the tooth.

But despite their age, these latter-day superheroes still appear to be in peak physical form. Though that's one of the many fantasies we need to remember to take for granted, when it comes to this nostalgic genre.