Escape to the Movies: Expendables 2

[Shinsei-J]

O, Bob, I feel for you and your inbox of hatemail.
Speaking for myself I didn't like the first I didn't like the second ether.
Though I can see the appeal.

 

[Aureliano]

Honestly, this is pretty much the big-budget version of all those 'movie' movies where they actually had the cash to spring for the original actors (see: Epic Movie, Date Movie, Meet the Spartans, etc. Actually don't fucking see them. They're awful).

It's not convincing; the 'story' is just a mishmash of other movies, actors' real lives and fanfiction put up on the silver screen; the writers don't understand what jokes are; and the supposed appeal of the movie rests on people's enjoyment of a piece of media entirely consisting of references to better pieces of media. Bottom line: avoid it. Just watch the movies that made these aging lesbian-looking hunks of gristle famous in the first place.

 

[DRTJR]

I liked it, and I'm tickled pink that ARNOLD is acting again.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

O, Bob, I feel for you and your inbox of hatemail.
Speaking for myself I didn't like the first I didn't like the second ether.
Though I can see the appeal.

He's probably used to it by now. What I don't get is why people get so defensive over archaic tripe like this movie.

 

[gphjr14]

My only regret is that Scott Pilgrim didn't have a sequel...so it could get trounced again at the box office by the Expendables' sequel.

Also nice addition of captchas with ads.

 

[Scrustle]

I often hear people lamenting with these movies about how they could have possibly gone wrong. That doesn't make any sense to me. The question I would sooner ask is how would it even be possible for them to go right?

I guess people are blinded by their nostalgia of those old movies to see just what a bad and impossible idea these movies are.

As nineties kid, I can't even pretend to get this. But it seems Bob loved the thing this series is supposed to be an homage to.

I don't think he's ever really explained why they rub him the wrong way. He just says it's mediocre in several ways. I'd like him to break it down a little. I don't care about this movie at all, but I think people would be less upset if he took the time to deconstruct this one. The shortness of the episode kinda tells me he didn't really mentally give it a chance.

I mean...I agree with him. And you. But ya know, I feel like Bob just keeps setting himself up with this. He certainly triggered a lot of bile last year when he talked about the first one....hope this isn't an encore.

Yeah I don't think he really explained things very well in this review. I'd have liked him to actually go in to more depth but he didn't really.

 

[maninahat]

Honestly, this is pretty much the big-budget version of all those 'movie' movies where they actually had the cash to spring for the original actors (see: Epic Movie, Date Movie, Meet the Spartans, etc. Actually don't fucking see them. They're awful).

It's not convincing; the 'story' is just a mishmash of other movies, actors' real lives and fanfiction put up on the silver screen; the writers don't understand what jokes are; and the supposed appeal of the movie rests on people's enjoyment of a piece of media entirely consisting of references to better pieces of media. Bottom line: avoid it. Just watch the movies that made these aging lesbian-looking hunks of gristle famous in the first place.

"Lesbian-looking"? Mister, you just murdered your own argument with that put down.

 

[shogunblade]

Also I want to add Hudson Hawk in any movie is worth seeing it.

Only if Demolition Man and Street Fighter are on the list as well.

OT: I wasn't feeling it for Expendables 1 either, so Moviebob's dislikes are recognized by me as truths rather than a guy who wanted to hate the movies. It's not very good because they are dead serious about it, and it damages the film than willing to be laughably bad at the sake of the actors dignity.

Jean Claude Van Damme did this in Street Fighter to a terrible degree: He's not aware the movie is any good, so he's quite serious for the whole movie (He has a scene with a knife that's kind of funny, well, two scenes with knives) while his co-star Raul Julia (In his final performance) chews the scenery and hams it up to the highest degree, and it works.

I think if the movies were more willing to be written as comedies, with badass fight scenes thrown in for good measure, the "bad choreography" Bob seems to complain about would be kind of endearing and respectful to the people who watch it, as opposed to winks at the camera where the actors say a one-liner and we laugh and die a little inside.

Long story short, I'd love to write The Expendables 3, I guarantee it'd be the funniest action movie you'd see for about a week.

 

[maninahat]

O, Bob, I feel for you and your inbox of hatemail.
Speaking for myself I didn't like the first I didn't like the second ether.
Though I can see the appeal.

He's probably used to it by now. What I don't get is why people get so defensive over archaic tripe like this movie.

Bob said as much himself. For some reason, what others like and dislike is of crucial importance to some people.

That said, in his last Expendables review, Bob went beyond criticizing the movie, and made the mistake of brow-beating the audience for liking it. Basically he got a taste of his own medicine as a result.

 

[Mr_Terrific]

Funny as hell but I disagree. It's great to see these guys "suit" up again and it simply does not matter what they're doing in those sad sagging suits. You get Rambo, the Terminator, John Mclain in a movie together doing anything and that shit is the equivalent of an 80s action flick Justice League....which is nothing but awesome.

 

[Shinsei-J]

What I don't get is why people get so defensive over archaic tripe like this movie.

People didn't like what they liked, and they don't like that.
So I guess they just want Bob to be a little more respectful of the movie/genre or something,
which is kinda dumb because he's a critic.

 

[UNHchabo]

The reason it was so commented on was because of who insulting Bob was in it, calling anyone who saw it a sheep or a idiotic piece of macho meat, and saying how much he lost faith in humanity just because something that had never really had a chance of being much more the a cult classic not being number one on the chart, pretty much saying you don't have the same taste as therefore you are an idiot. He did this review a lot better and if he had the the review for the first one like this he probably wouldn't have gotten called out

This is entirely true. I had no problem with Bob not liking the movie; my issue was with two aspects of his reviews:
1) He all but explicitly stated that anyone who enjoys The Expendables is dumb, and a bad person.
2) He all but explicitly stated that anyone who did not see Scott Pilgrim on opening weekend (the same weekend The Expendables came out) is dumb, and a bad person.

And it wasn't just in the review for The Expendables, he hinted at this for weeks on end. Bob was genuinely angry that Scott Pilgrim got fifth place, and he said it was my fault for not going to see a game involving my "culture".



I liked The Expendables 2. The first one was trying to be a serious action movie, and only did "okay" at that. The second was trying to be a B-movie, and succeeds wildly.

Watch the trailer. If you laugh at the line "I now pronounce you man and knife", then you'll like the movie. If you're deadpan when that line comes up, you likely won't like the movie.

 

[Terramax]

Meanwhile, movie Bob will like pretty much any super hero movie released, even when they're full of plot holes, cover no new ground, aren't funny when they're supposed to, action sequences are boring, the acting is sub-par, etc.

Hell, he even spent no less than 2 videos reviewing the Green Lantern trying his hardest to like it in some way.

 

[Furioso]

Probably gonna believe Brad Jones (Cinema Snob) review on this one. (at least until I see the movie myself) His midnight reviews are completely unscripted so they tend to ramble, but you get a lot more detail on what he liked due to the large video length. Calling a movie bad for 5 minutes without going into much detail doesn't really work too well

 

[Warforger]

I was surprised he didn't mention that some people hate the first one because it killed Scott Pilgrim.

 

[WanderingFool]

My prediction before watching the review:
He won't like it

You dont even get a cookie for that.

Also, I saw this movie Tuesday, and GOD!!! I loved every fucking minute of it. The only thing they could have done better was cut out about 30% more of the non-action scenes and added more explosions and firefights.

This is like COD. It may be bland and boring, but it caters to a crowd that loves it, and it succeeds at that.

 

[RTR]

Dolph Lundgren went to MIT?! Am I the only one who's thinking they should've played that up before this movie? I mean, wouldn't it have been awesome if at some point in the 80's someone made a movie where he's like a John Matrix type guy only that he can mess around with raw materials and make stuff like medicine and explosives and such? That could've put him right up there with Stallone and Schwarzenegger in the eyes of pop culture.
I mean, at least I think that's interesting.

 

[Hungry Donner]

As a 30-year-old who grew up loving the movies these guys were in I'm supposedly the target audience, but I didn't see the first one and I have no plans to see the second - decisions made long before MovieBob commented on them. Self-referential and tongue-in-cheek humor are a lot of fun, but as far as I can tell these are bad movies that try and cover it up by being intentionally bad. If they want to gather these guys up and do a supposedly straight-laced action film with a subtle, satirical script sign me up. Until then I'll feed my nostalgia with my DVD collection.

 

[Mumorpuger]

This was a much better review compared to the first one, in that he critiques the movie, not the movie goer.

Thanks, Moviebob.

My only question is, why did he review it in the first place? It seems like it was pretty obvious his thoughts would be negative, regardless.

 

[Jetsetneo]

The 'refer to the actors as their other action movie/roles' schtick was brilliant. I loved it.

Refering to Norris as Total Gym? Brilliant in its own right.