‘The Expendables 2′ Review Roundup

Today is the day that The Expendables 2  finally hits the theaters and the reviews are continuing to come in. If you’re interested in catching the ensemble of violent incarnates,  you certainly should take the time to see if its worth your time and money.

Armed with middle-aged action heroes from the 80’s & 90’s trying to satisfy the simplest desires of an action junky, you probably would expect the critics to respond harshly.

Surprisingly the action-fueled sequel has been earning some successful reviews from critics and audiences alike. The simple shoot-em-up formula has been a good source of entertainment, which is a lot more than the certified flop, Total Recall, can say.

Betsy Sharkey from Los Angeles Time Film Critic wrote, “But what gives “Expendables 2″ its charm is the film’s unabashed nostalgia for the genre’s best B-movie moments. As Statham’s character puts it so well while slipping on a pair of brass knuckles, never count out the classics.

Entertanment Weekly’s Lisa Schwarzbaum gave a rather perverted jab but seem to like it for what it was. “Assigning artistic values like ”good” or ”bad” to The Expendables 2 is a fool’s assignment. The movie is excellent crap, fine junk, an exercise in campy movie nostalgia, and a demonstration of American supremacy in the field of nutty cosmetic enhancements for aging movie stars. I had an inexcusably fine time studying movie-star hairlines and admiring their willingness to let us gawk.

So, that’s what the ladies had to say. Now surely women look at things differently then men. Since this film is a bloody spectacle that generally should be more appealing to the male gender, lets see what the men have to say.

“The Expendables 2’’ serves up a planeload of thickly sliced, well-aged beef and ham amid lots of stuff getting blown up.” Wrote Lou Lumenick of the New York Post. “It’s hard not to like a movie in which Bruce Willis’ toupee-less CIA agent accuses Stallone’s ragtag band of mercenaries of engaging in “male pattern badness.’’

John Anderson of The Wall Street Journal wrote, “it’s all exactly as you’d expect, if less exciting than you’d want. Setting a bullet-spraying finale in an abandoned Cold War training ground that resembles 1980s New York after an H-bomb is a nice touch. You get the feeling that had that really happened, Stallone and his weathered boys might have withstood the blast, bad quips and all.

Stallone is once more an amiable host. He even pulls off heroics despite having an ill-advised ’stache laying over his mouth, which nowadays looks like a squished octopus.” meanly wrote by Joe Neumaier of the Daily News.

So, in consideration of what a number of the  Expendables 2 reviews are saying, we cans sum things up by saying the film delivers on entertainment value and everything else you would expect from a throwback film jam-packed with violent elderly men with big muscles.