As if Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren weren't enough. Now Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude van Damme join the all-action madness
Avengers Assemble might be obliterating box offices all over the place, but it's only really the entrée. Because, secretly, we all know it's just the warm-up act for this summer's real all-action ensemble blockbuster. That's right, I'm talking about The Expendables 2.
Like Avengers Assemble, The Expendables 2 brings together a fleet of beloved screen icons: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren. Like Avengers Assemble, the setup for The Expendables 2 has been spread across several movies: The Expendables, and probably some others. Unlike Avengers Assemble, the set of The Expendables 2 probably stank of cod liver oil and Werther's Originals. But what happens in The Expendables 2? Here's the trailer breakdown …
1) There's no mucking around here. We're straight into the action. Here's Sylvester Stallone mowing down generic foreign soldier after generic foreign soldier. But get this – he's doing it with a gun that's made out of his own finger. Amazing.
2) Next we see Jason Statham dressed as a monk just so he can say "I now pronounce you man … and KNIFE" and then stab a load of baddies to death. Already, without exaggeration, The Expendables 2 looks like it will be the best film ever.
3) But wait – we haven't even met the baddies yet. And if anyone ever wanted to know what Jean-Claude van Damme would look like if he re-enacted a Backstreet Boys video while being flanked by a gang of anonymous machine-gun-toting heavies, then all your dreams have come true.
4) Plus, for the internet, here's Chuck Norris walking and holding a gun and wearing a nice hat at the same time.
5) Best of all, though, is this. It's Arnold Schwarzenegger looking like one of the old animatronics from the Super Mario Bros movie and essentially barking like a dog. What's better than this? Nothing. Not a single thing. But, introductions over, what actually happens in The Expendables 2?
6) Well, at the start of the film, The Expendables do their best to recreate an early U2 album cover next to a lake.
7) And then they all take out a couple of foreigners by hurling a concrete wall at their heads. It doesn't matter where they're from, or what cause they're fighting for, or if they've got children who'll wake up on Christmas morning and wonder where daddy is. For the simple reason that they're not Sylvester Stallone or Jason Statham or Dolph Lundgren, they probably had it coming.
8) And then Jason Statham bites a woman on the arm. Again, it doesn't matter why he's doing it. He just is. This is The Expendables 2. If you're a woman, and you're not Michelle Yeoh, you've got it coming.
9) And then Arnold Schwarzenegger tears the door off an economical inner-city car much to the consternation of Bruce Willis. Why? Aren't you listening? It doesn't matter. This is The Expendables 2. Foreigners, women and cars that don't weigh three tons and aren't armour-plated and don't have an unnecessarily symbolic pair of testicles hanging out of it have all got it coming.
10) And then, for the internet, Chuck Norris walks and holds a gun and wears a nice hat at the same time. And that's all that happens in The Expendables 2.
