Ten Statements About....THE EXPENDABLES 2 (2012)

It's like the Mount Rushmore of 80's Action!

"What's the plan?"
"Track 'em, find 'em, kill 'em."

1) One of the things that really, really struck me almost immediately is how many of the characters who each had a little face time in the first movie, giving us a sense of their personality, don't get any in this entry. Hell, we have Jet Li literally disappearing after punching a guy's head until it explodes in the opening action sequence (and given how Jet Li was one of the most enjoyable things in the first film, well....)

2) Is it just me, or is Jean-Claude Van Damme really auditioning to be a Bond Villain in this movie? Hell, he's even named 'Villain' (although the name is pronounced differently)! Given the way he behaves and the scheme he's hatched, Van Damme seems weirdly out of place. He's not unwelcome because he is as operatic as our heroes get at time, but it's still a touch jarring.

"I am a villain...I am also named Villian."

3) It does seem like director Simon West is really pushing everyone else to the background so he can emphasize the Old Guard--Stallone's Barney, Bruce Willis' Church, Arnold Schwarzeneggar's Trench and, to a lesser extent, Chuck Norris' Booker--over the other established characters. Sure, it's fun seeing Trench and Church running around an airport in a smart car shooting people, but it also annoying not giving Hale Ceaser and the like their due.

4) ...except, oddly enough, for Dolph Lundgren's Gunnar. Not only does he seem to take central stage more often than not, there are moments that reflect Lundgren's own background as a chemist. I think I understand why he's given so much screen time, given he was relegated to just being a bad guy turncoat in the first one, but it's still odd...

5) ....and speaking of odd, the whole sequence with the team talking to the Bosnian women where they refuse to help and then just show up to help when Villain's men come calling is strange. There are these weird echoes of Rambo III, and I wonder if any of the abducted men are going to turn out to be gangsters in the future....

6) While, like in the first film, Stallone doesn't pull the trigger on sucking face with Designated Female Maggie (played by Nan Yu)....it seemed like he really, really wanted to, and the whole angle made me weirded out. We get this whole romantic arc without either character saying anything romantic, and all I could think about was the rather vast age difference between the two.

Nothing says 'hot date' like crouching behind a used car and
shooting at ruthless bad guys...

7) I didn't mind the Husker-du games of the first film, mainly because it knew that just having these major action stars of old in the film was enough. But this one...between the music stings (Trench's big re-entrance is heralded with the Terminator theme! Booker is heralded with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!), Booker telling a 'How Tough Is Chuck Norris?' joke, and the constant referencing of previous films from Die Hard! to Lone Wolf McQuaid, the Husker-du aspect becomes akin to the guy next to you elbowing you in the ribs constantly going, 'Get it? Get it? Huh?'

8) The thing I really liked about Liam (brother of Chris) Hemsworth's Billy The Kid is how he contrasts with the other Expendables. His military discipline shows through and his insistence on calling everyone in the group 'sir' makes for a different feel. Pity he doesn't stay around long.

9) It's kinda strangely cool to see the presence of a Soviet Spy City (misidentified as 'a soviet military base') in the film, although I sort of regret how it's used pretty much as window dressing for one action sequence. The Soviet Spy Cities is one of the most fascinating little aspects of the Cold War, and could have been used to greater effect.

10) Apparantly Stallone had a greater control over the script--and I think that might be the biggest problem, given Stallone's tendency to go for broad winks and jokey references. These references overwhelm the narrative at times, to the point where potential plot developments (like maybe militarizing the women in the Bosnian villiage to provide some sort of support) is left on the floor.

Overall...while there are some enjoyable moments, including some decent fight scenes, this sequel is a downturn from the original.

Ten Statements About....BATMAN AND ROBIN (1997)

Boy, those attempts to make the NHL appeal to new
viewers have gotten...weird.

"In the universe, there is only one constant...everything freezes."

1) The best way--some would say the only way--to view this movie is by accepting that this is a film that has surrendered itself so totally to the marketing department that it has ceased to have any connection to character, place or reality. This film is not so much telling us a story but stringing a long succession of scenes together in the hope of getting us to buy stuff.

2) Poor George Clooney, cast at the last minute, is obviously overtired throughout the film, sporting a perpetual five o'clock shadow. Yes, he tries very hard to keep up his energy, but he fails to give us anything more than a Batman who seems to have hit the vicodin a lil' too hard. That being said....

3) His best moments, and the best moments in the film, are the ones between him and Michael Gough as Alfred. There's a genuine connection between the two, so much so that you believe wholeheartedly that this is not employer and employee, but father than son. It is the through line between the two that provides what little grounding this film has...at least until the whole 'Oh, noes, I gots da McGregor disease' development drops Alfred from the second half of the film.

In her off-time, Alicia Silverstone looks for an earlier
version of the script that actually makes sense while
pretending to have a stroke...

4) Here's something heretical--yes, Arnold Schwarzeneggar's incessant ice puns do detract from the movie, but there are some lines of dialogue that Mr. Freeze has that actually make sense and would have been effective if, you know, it wasn't being muttered by a guy with a thick Austrian accent who looks so much bigger than the Clooney Batman that he wouldn't need a suit of armor designed for a Broadway musical to beat his ass. It's those blink-and-you-miss-it brief moment that make me think that yes, at one point, there was a movie that would have been entertaining.

5) Movie, just because you can drag Vendela and Viveca A. Fox and Coolio into your orbit for a few moments in nothing roles doesn't mean you should have.

6) And while we're on the subject, movie...when Elizabeth Sanders' Gossip Gerty and the Neon Skull Gang have both more screen time and more lines of dialogue than Commisioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara, you're very severely flawed.

7) I'm absolutely convinced that of all the people involved in this movie, Uma Thurman was the only one who realized how far down a hole this film was falling and threw all caution to the wind. It's the only way I can explain how she chose to play Poison Ivy as Mae West.

8) You know what the problem is with Alicia Silverstone in this movie? It's that, as an actress, she seems incapable of being serious without doing these weird gurning movements with her face. Watching her emote as Barbara Gordon is like watching a claymation version of her; between the wiggling of her eyebrows and the chewing of her lips from side to side, she comes off as a grotesque.

"You know, in a previous incarnation, I was actually
articulate..."

9) Good job taking Bane, a character who is even more overtly the dark mirror of the Batman, someone whose intelligence and strength embody the nature to Batman's nuture, and turning him into a monosyllabic bull in a china shop.

No, wait. NO IT ISN'T.

10) That total lack of reality I cited in statement one extends to this version of Gotham, which simply is a city that Can Not Possibly Exist. There is no sense of place, just a bunch of crazy items (statues that hold buildings up miles over the street! Insane asylums that have cages up on bridges over the ocean! Factories that are condemned yet still have vats of non-decayed, still soft ice cream out in the open air!) that facilitates set pieces.

Overall...this is not the Worst Movie Ever. It's not even The Worst Superhero Movie Ever (anyone who lobs that charge at this film hasn't seen, among other things, Pumaman or Ghost Rider--yes, Munn, I said it). What it is is a gigantic mess of ulterior motives, bad decisions and miscues drawn together in what has to be a perfect storm of nonsense. Could be worth watching as an example of a franchise crashing down under its own weight.