Reviewing The Expendables 2 Without Having Seen It

Before I begin, I want to apologize for the lack of writing on the site. Life’s been a pain in the ass lately, and Google took a shit on my ranking for some reason, so even fewer people are coming through here than before. I promise to not take another hiatus like that again. Well, until the next mild bump in the road sends me back to the corner I just came from, sucking my thumb and clutching my genitals like a fearful, sexually molested toddler.

I want to love The Expendables 2. The 80s action movies by which it was inspired are some of my favorite films ever. Predator. Rambo. Commando. These were all movies that, if watched during one’s formative years, instilled a proper love of muscles, guns and violence in a young boy. I’m not saying the country has gone to shit since kids stopped being raised on films like these, but I don’t see anyone of my generation shooting up theaters. Sure, we might be unhappily toiling at white collar jobs we despise and ignoring our children as we use the Internet to cheat on our spouses, but we’re not murderers, dammit. That’s a passing grade in the book of life.

So, in theory, I should be welcoming The Expendables 2 with open arms. The problem with that, for me, is the film’s predecessor, The Expendables, wasn’t…good. Yes, it went through all the motions, but it felt like your wife of 20 years trying to save a critically wounded sex life by putting on her old high school cheerleading outfit and asking you to fuck her like you did behind the bleachers: The time for that has passed, and attempting to recreate such a beautiful moment only serves to cheapen the memory of your once-gorgeous wife with C-section scars and pleas of “Cum fast, I’ve gotta take the kids to soccer in 10 minutes.”

I’m probably going to watch The Expendables 2 because it marks Arnold Schwarzenegger’s return to action cinema after his hiatus to govern California and (tragically) I view that man as a father figure now that my own dad has passed away, but I know in my heart it’s going to be a letdown and I’d be better served waiting for it to pop up on Netflix in a year. Who knows? Maybe The Expendables 2 will shatter our perceptions of what cinema even is and it’ll be mentioned in the same breath as other masterpieces of the silver screen such as Citizen Kane and Foxy Brown. My fingers remain crossed.

Tagged as: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Movie Review.