I know, I know. Who'd have thought it, right?
No, but this is ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, I can get behind a decent, brainless action movie (although I get behind ones with a brain much more, see my review of The Avengers for details), but this is NOT a decent brainless action movie. This one plays to the egos of those involved too much, and focuses on simply getting as many washed-up action stars (plus Jason Statham, Yu Nan and Liam 'not as successful or muscular as my brother Chris' Hemsworth) in as possible.
"Sorry guys, I've been saving New York. Take the runt."
Don't get me wrong, there are good moments in this clunker, but the ones that aren't based on in-jokes about previous movies are few and far between. Jet Li's brief appearance at the beginning to beat people up with frying pans is one-
"I gotta get me one of these!"
-and Jason Statham's fight scenes are impressively visceral. Otherwise, most of the good stuff comes from an unlikely combination; Bruce Willis, effortlessly showing that a balding, middle-aged actor who can act is infinitely more menacing than a muscled-up thug with a bad moustache (if I was faced with the choice of pissing off Church or Barney Ross, I'd piss off the slack-mouthed mumbler in a heartbeat); and Dolph Lundgren.
This isn't just to remind you that 'Masters Of The Universe' exists, I promise.
I loved Lundgren in this, more so than the first one. Unlike the other one-dimensional characters, Gunnar Jensen's chaotic, drug-addled 'action troll' managed to be both hilarious and tragic at the same time. Maybe it was just me, but you genuinely got the idea that Jensen desperately wants to be a bit normal again but simply can't manage it and so falls back into deliberately being obnoxious and macho rather than trying and failing, and Lundgren manages to illustrate this well. Also, Dolph Lundgren can do this which automatically makes him better than the rest of the cast.
Oh, Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris. Christ, but that man can't act. At all. Like, at all. Even throwing in a Chuck Norris fact didn't make up for the true awfulness of that man's time on screen. Arnie suffered from it too, apparently forgetting how to deliver his own catchphrases with any sense of genuineness (although his brief interchange with Willis which ends with him muttering 'Yippee-kay-aye' was rather amusing).
Finally, Van Damme.
Oh, Van Damme.
"Hi, I'm Jean-Claude Van Damme. You know those beer adverts I've been doing?
My dialogue in this film makes that look like Shakespeare."
Let's be honest, JCVD has never been regarded as a good actor. Ever. He's been regarded as someone who can do a pretty good fight scene or, more recently, a shitload of drugs. However, in this movie he doesn't really get a chance, as his dialogue is simply ridiculous and often doesn't really make a great deal of sense. Much like the plot, which seems to kind of revolve around five tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium, but is basically an excuse to kill off Hemsworth in case he was to get any ideas about upstaging the rest, and then track down JCVD for some revenge. Nothing about the last twenty minutes of the movie really makes any sense at all, from JCVD's mob not realising that there's a bunch of heavily-armed mercenaries waiting in front of a helicopter as they arrive at the airport to ferry off their plutonium, to JCVD himself setting up a final fight scene with Stallone for no apparent reason. Instead of just getting on the plane that he's loaded up he hangs around in some random hangar waiting for a one-to-one fight, when everything he's done up until that point has been about getting the plutonium as quickly and (relatively) efficiently as possible.
However, nothing in this movie is as unrealistic or as amusing as watching Sylvester Stallone trying to run.
Had this movie had even the plot of the first one, I'd have been applauding it. As it is, all the extra stars and jokes can't save it from being just a poor excuse to take some money. That said, it sounds like they want Harrison Ford for the third instalment, and you know I'd watch that...
