Fighting arthritis

The Expendables 2 was everything I worried it would be ... a hail of bullets, blood and boredom.

I went into the cinema hoping the sequel to the 2010 disaster flick, The Expendables might be an improvement and it helped, a little, that filmmaker Simon West, known for Con Air, had taken over the directing role from Sylvester Stallone.

However, the action heroes that never seem to die, annoyed me the most.

The beefcake A-list cast, including the former governor of California, made me forget about their lack of acting ability and focus on the most important question, when are they going to retire?

“That plane belongs in a museum,” said Stallone speaking of a deteriorated aircraft, to which the Terminator star responded, “We all do!”

Yes, I agree, but if the writers of the film are taking stabs at the actors, what makes West think the audience wouldn’t either?

That’s not the end of the lame one-liners either; script writers Richard Wenk and Stallone himself, don’t just play to the cast’s famous catchphrases, they bludgeon them to death.

The story centres on Barney Ross (Stallone) and his team of ageing mercenaries who are sent on a mission by Church (Willis) into hostile territory to recover a top-secret electronic gadget.

In an attempt to add some young blood to the mix, new characters have been worked into the film in the form of Liam Hemsworth, who portrays a sniper trained in Afghanistan, and emerging Chinese actress Nan Yu as a tech genius.

 When things go wrong, Barney guides the gang on a gruesome revenge operation against the malicious villain played by Jean-Claude Van Damme. Along the way they’re joined by Church, Trench (Schwarzenegger) and there’s even a cameo from Chuck Norris. This marks his first appearance on the big-screen since the 1990s. He provided the best scenes and if he had a bigger role I think the film would have been more successful. The martial artist has long been the subject of pop-culture jokes about how tough he is and these jokes are much funnier when told by the man himself.

Barney says, “I heard you were bitten by a king cobra.” Norris replies, “Yeah. But after five days of agonising pain, the cobra died.”

The director however, is less praiseworthy. West tries to squeeze a ridiculous number of action hero cameos into the 103 minutes, making it a confusing and bizarre film.

He’s also thinking about directing The Expendables 3 … someone put me out of my misery!

Although Schwarzenegger was not the worst actor in the film, in my opinion, he could quite possibly be the most useless. He unsuccessfully tried to add some humour by uttering his famous catchphrase, ‘I’ll be back!’ Luckily, he wasn’t on screen for much of the movie.

My favourite aging action hero was Van Damme, and it’s not just because I’m usually on the villain’s side. What impressed me the most was that his character didn’t try too hard to add humour.

I really hoped I would like the movie, but unfortunately Stallone’s stiff face and Schwarzenegger’s pathetic catch phrases really didn’t do it for me. The Expendables 2 had no storyline as well as having an unbelievably terrible script. That’s an hour-and-a-half of my life I am not getting back!

*Showing in Cineco, Seef I, Seef II, Saar Cineplex, Al Jazeera Cineplex