SYNOPSIS: Following a successful rescue operation in Nepal, Expendables leader Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) is once again approached by shady CIA agent Mr Church (Bruce Willis) to try and retrieve a mysterious item. Assisted by his loyal team of mercenaries including Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Gunnar (Dolph Lundgren), Hale (Terry Crews) and Toll (Randy Couture) as well as newcomer Maggie (Yu Nan), they find the item in a deserted plane only to be confronted by sinister boss Villain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and his henchmen. They take the mysterious item from the group with Villain proceeding to kill off one of the mercenaries as a chilling warning not to mess with them. Motivated by revenge, Ross and his team head to Europe to track down their nemesis who is planning to use the weapon as part of his nuclear mining operation.

It has become a rare thing nowadays to say whether a sequel is better than its predecessor especially when that original film was only released two years ago.  But that is exactly the case here as Sylvester Stallone and co. blast back onto our screens in style with their explosive follow-up The Expendables II.

One of the main reasons for the film’s surprising success is Stallone’s decision to let Simon West take over as director which proves a shrewd move. The British film-maker sets the action tone early on in the film’s thrilling opening sequence as Ross and his team storm their way through a heavily-guarded Nepalese camp before unleashing extreme punishment on the countless soldiers. Despite rumours that the violence would be less extreme than the first film, we are still treated to some vicious gore involving men being blown apart by the unlimited force of weaponry used by our no-nonsense mercenaries which include Hale’s bombarding machine gun!

As we’ve come to expect with these dumb action films, the story doesn’t necessarily matter as it’s more about the thrills and spills than the actual plot-line. The humour though is surprisingly witty with the actors sharing some amusing one-liners that audiences will relish whether it be Dolph Lundgren’s Gunnar being the butt of jokes or Stallone and Christmas delivering the most sincere one-liners during some crunch scenes.

The acting is hardly award-winning but that is to be expected from many of these robust, macho stars who over the years had their ups-and-downs during their past film experiences. Stallone carries the film just as well as he did in the first film combining his authoritative nature with a shed of guilt over the death of one of his comrades which shares tragic irony with the recent death of his son Sage. Jason Statham lends the extra steel as Ross’s right-hand man while the lesser-known actors Terry Crews and Randy Couture continue to be used primarily as the muscular soldiers armed with bad-ass weapons. As stated before, Lundgren is targeted as the joker of the group but thankfully is given more screen-time here after being a mixture of good and bad in the previous film.

Speaking of bad, the casting of Jean-Claude Van Damme as the sadistic antagonist is a lean move given his reputation as a heroic protagonist in other films and certainly has more aggression to his character compared to Eric Roberts’s boo-hiss villain. However never has a sight been more welcoming in all the years of the action film genre than seeing Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis firing their weapons together during the film’s climatic showdown sequence which is a far cry from their conversation scene in the first one. They clearly have fun and even use their own iconic film quotes to mock each other which is crowd-pleasing to say the least. All this praise and I haven’t even mentioned Chuck Norris’s sublime cameo appearance. Enough said!

Admittedly it is hard to watch a believable/realistic action film nowadays and while this film is a complete thrill-ride, it is slightly bogged down by the odd couple of clichés which affected the original film. While many people can sit back jaw-dropped at the un-relentless violence, the CGI blood is surprisingly woeful and looks more like you’ve just played a game of Grand Theft Auto. Fans of the first film will also be disappointed to see no Mickey Rourke here while kung-fu actor Jet Li is heavily used in the film’s opening sequence only to disappear and never be seen again. Instead the token Asian character role goes to actress Nan Yu whose cool and feisty mercenary Maggie is okay to watch but it feels like a forced decision by West to include some female gender to the Expendables group. This is a lad’s film after all!

VERDICT: Stallone and his team of supermen (including Arnie, Bruce and Chuck) cause mayhem again in this vastly enjoyable sequel which may lack brains but definitely not fire-power! Rest in pieces people, The Expendables are back with a bang!