FILM REVIEW: THE EXPENDABLES 2

THE EXPENDABLES 2 (15)

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Scott Adkins  Chuck Norris

Director: Simon West

Running Time: 103 minutes

Released Out Now

Released by: Lionsgate UK

Many, many years ago it was every action fan's dream to have all his heroes in one cinematic basket. Sure, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Jean Claude-Van Damme all had successful parallel careers, but the closest you could get to seeing them together was to hang out vainly at Planet Hollywood and hope for a premiere or special event to spontaneous occur.

An actual film in which they all appeared together... it might have been cat-nip for studio executives, but whether it was ego, money or sheer time-tabling it never happened. As each of their careers began to dip into DVD territory (or in Arnie's case... a different black hole politics) it seemed even less likely that we'd see a big-screen team-up that was anything more than a cheeky cameo or reference. Bruce Willis continued to have an A-List career, but there were a new generation of pretenders-to-the-thrown and a growing market for a more eastern-style of action with trained martial-artists.

So, in many ways The Expendables (2010) franchise achieved the impossible, combining some of these irresistible forces and immovable objects and creating a gung-ho romp built on testosterone and nostalgia. Sure, the director and star, Sylvester Stallone only shared one real scene with his fellow resteraunters, but the likes of Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke and Jet Li were there to bring in the audience.

"Bluntly, the script is appallingly vacant, the dialogue strained and creaking and the banter painfully tilted, loaded with more signposted movie in-jokes and references than an automatic rifle has bullets... and yet in many ways it doesn't matter because the film never takes itself seriously..."

There may have been mixed reactions and reviews, but The Expendables created enough impact to generate the idea of a follow-up... but they'd have to go bigger, wider, longer and louder.  So they did.

It would be utterly pointless to tell you the sequel's plot other than Barney Stone (Stallone) vows vengeance for the death of a colleague and issues his surviving team members with the key instruction about the enemy: "track 'em, find 'em kill 'em". There in a nutshell is the whole ninety-minutes and within that time-frame all you will see are explosions, bullets, tanks and a team who love the smell of testosterone in the morning.

Bluntly... the script is appallingly vacant, the dialogue strained and creaking and the banter painfully tilted, loaded with more signposted movie in-jokes and references than an automatic rifle has bullets and delivered with a rat-a-tat repetition until you feel knocked senseless by an unsubtle subtext. Every cliche, every formulaic plot development struts into the spotlight and unloads in unforgiving fashion. And yet...

... in many ways it doesn't matter because the film, directed by Simon West of Con-Air fame)  never takes itself seriously. Though it sometimes falters along the line it tries to walk between in-your-face standard action and overt parody of the genre to which it owes its lineage, it finally plumps to throw any credibility out the window and just toss everyone and everything into the frame.  Casting Jean Claude Van Damme as the bad guy (and calling him Jean Vilian), having Chuck Norris turn up as a 'Lone Wolf' mercenary, having Schwarzenegger say "I'll be back..." so many times that even Bruce Willis calls him out on the catchphrase are all masterstrokes in meta-textual mock-machismo... literally doing everything except look into the lens and physically wink at the punters.

Though they make light of their senior age themselves, there is the genuine constant shadow hanging over the whole production that they've missed their REAL opportunity for an superb action-outing by a good decade. Though as tough as old boots, Schwarzenegger and Stallone look like walking, talking weathered, leathered, botox'd punchbags rather than real action men and the only way this can work is to make themselves the punchline of the punch-fest. On one hand this is terrible in every regard, in another it's a romp so absurdly silly that you are brought along with the madness until it becomes more like a steroid-enhanced guilty pleasure. The cast are clearly having a ball and with the exception of Jet Li who disappears a third of the way in, everyone gets a good amount of screen time, including the likes of current action-man Jason Statham and another British actor Scott Adkins who scores well as Vilain's chief henchmen. 

Expendables 2 does nothing more than it says on the tin, but there's really no excuse for not knowing what you'll get before you buy your ticket. If the action genre is the one for you, you'll be pleasantly concussed by this wide-load juggernaut. 

3/5

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FILM REVIEW: THE BOURNE LEGACY

THE BOURNE LEGACY (12A)

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Stacy Keach

Director: Tony Gilroy

Running Time: 135 minutes

Released Out Now

Released by: Universal Pictures

When Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass called time on the Bourne franchise, it could well have been the end of the films that were loosely adapted from the best-selling novels by the late Robert Ludlum. But this, after all, is Hollywood and the success of the film series featuring an amnesiac agent trying to discover how he came to be disavowed had proved a strong box-office contender and you don't just forget that.

So the question was not IF the franchise would continue, but how. Batman and Bond recast on a frequency that suggests it's going out of fashion, so the most obvious route was simply reassigning the part. However, in this case, a more complex solution was suggested. Why not run a different story, inspired by the original but running parallel to the events of the previous outings.  In short, farewell Jason Bourne, hello Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) and director Tony Gilroy...

With some of the bad-guys nefarious programming and espionage dark arts exposed by the events of the previous chapters, it is decided to burn similar projects to the ground, leaving no real evidence and no trail to the guilty. This involves not merely the shredding of paper but the termination of some top agents in the field. They are top assets - their response-times and brain patterns enhanced by a formula delivered in regular pill form. Either by poisoning that supply or the old-fashioned gun to the head, those assets are disposed of... but some are less easy to reach than others.

"For its first half, this new Legacy is something of a 'talky' rather than a 'walky' - suggesting that this might be a change of pace...the film continues with something of a split-personality, never quite deciding what pace and momentum it wants to settle upon..."

Aaron Cross is halfway across an extreme mountain-range, facing sheer cliffs, deep chasms and hungry wolves. Despite that, he's making record time and arrives at the isolated cabin safe-house a day early. There he finds another agent like himself, but despite their shared heritage, many of Cross' convivial questions are met by silence. While outside, getting ready to move on, Cross witnesses the cabin blown to bits by a drone aircraft. He quickly realises it is his own side who are trying to eliminating him, so making them think they've succeeded, he heads to the only place he can... back to the institute where he was supplied with the special pills that keep him sane.  However, back at the laboratory, doctor Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) is having her own problems. She's aware of the shadowy nature of the treatments she's provided, but not the bigger picture. When her own department becomes 'expendable' she survives the massacre, but can Bourne get to her in time to get them both answers?

For its first half, this new Legacy is something of a 'talky', rather than a 'walky' - suggesting that this might be a change of pace. The previous entries were always clever, detailed and intricate looks at the world of counter-espionage and dubious morality, but one wonders if the more 'action' elements have largely been dispensed with altogether in favour of a good, but slower-moving thriller.

However, the film has an epiphany when Cross gets back to civilisation and kicks up a gear, with Cross/Renner demonstrating some killer instincts and fine hand-to-hand combat moves as he and Marta go on the run. Has the slow-burn paid off?  

Well, not so much... the film still continues with something of a split-personality, never quite deciding what pace and momentum it wants to settle upon.  The problem - though it isn't Renner's - is that Cross is supposed to be a killer agent, not without emotion of conscience but definitely putting such on a back-burner to do a pragmatically amoral occupation. His new status is initially driven by the need for a new supply of pills, but in a blink of an eye he essentially becomes a good-guy saviour and protector of Weisz's doctor. True, she's his link to more medication, but short of the fighting sequences and Cross developing the occasional cold-sweat there's never any real sense of urgency or hint of the ruthless agent beneath. He's not using her, he's protecting her and while that's good for our idea of a hero, that's not what Cross's character is supposed to be.

Also missing is the dynamic camera-work seen in the previous Bourne movies. In such cases, we followed our characters out of windows as if we were jumping through them ourselves... it was a visual style that was so impressive that it ultimately caused the Bond franchise to reassess its priorities. For Gilroy's  Legacy, we're back to what amounts to fairly generic cinematography with long-shots and framing devices we've seen in literally hundreds of flicks before - it's almost as if, ironically, the director is now taking cues from the classic Bond.  The hand-to-hand combat moments prove more successful. After a grounding in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and The Avengers, Renner knows how to work a martial-arts move and please the camera and his face reflects the tension we saw in his breakthrough The Hurt Locker.  But while he excels in the up-close-and-personal, the script he's been given slowly descends into a formula that isn't bad but merely unsurprising and less challenging than expected. The main bad-guys (Edward Norton, Stacy Keach etc) are merely desk-jockeys barking suspect orders and frowning as their plans unravel... never a front-line threat or in danger of a physical comeuppance.  It's all perfectly adequate but feels like it could have been more.

A sprinkling of familiar faces (Albert Finney, Joan Allen) from the first films act as distracting punctuation, but by the time the credits roll, there's a feeling that this was an expensive opening salvo, all set-up but no real pay-off...  a big-budgeted television premiere rather than a standalone movie.

There's a lot of potential here, but once again we have a film that seems to be trading on the expectant principle that more will be revealed in a sequel, but one that , in reality, is far from a foregone certainty...and so the gaps and lack of conclusion are less forgivable.  There really should be a compulsory notice when film-makers intend to deliver half a story...

That being said, as action-thrillers go it has all the components needed and a cast that delivers what they are required. It should do decent business at the multiplex and even moreso on DVD. It's nowhere near the highlight of the summer, but the Bourne Legacy is  just about alive and kicking... though its pulse could do with a little quickening...

3/5

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FILM REVIEW: TED

TED (15)

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis and Seth MacFarlane 

Director: Seth MacFarlane

Running time: 106 minutes

Released 2nd August

Released by: Universal Pictures.

Many years ago, little Johnny Bennett, a social outcast in search of a friend, wished that his toy teddy bear was real. Lo and behold - and with a little help from a magical shooting star and a sardonic voice-over from narrator Patrick Stewart - his wish is granted. Johnny and his new pal Ted promise to be thunder-buddies forever and ever and ever.

Seen as either a miracle or something demonic, Ted becomes an overnight celebrity, courted by the media and appearing on chat-shows, but although the new lifestyle takes its toll on the innocent bruin, John and Ted's friendship endures. Two decades later and we find that the media has lost interest. John (now played by Mark Wahlberg) is a slacker who is just getting by on getting by. He's in a long-term relationship with the patient but upwardly-mobile Lori (Mila Kunis) but he sees no reason to formalise their relationship with a ring. Ted still has his fuzzy butt parked on the sofa and now likes to indulge in beer, bong and fart jokes like Teddy Ruxpin on crack.

When Lori encourages John to start taking more adult responsibilities, Ted feels somewhat threatened. He likes Lori well enough, but will he and his buddy's carefree lifestyle be stymied? As John  genuinely attempts to get his life in order, he'll have to decide where his real loyalties lie... though Flash Gordon (Sam Jones reprising his cult film role) and a menacing fan (Giovanni Ribisi) may have something to say about that!

"MacFarlane is an equal opportunist: beastiality, drugs, slapstick pratfalls and workplace sexual harassment all act like explicit script punctuation, but though he'd probably deny it, there's a Disney heart beating under the pimp-master exterior. He'll make you wince and cringe, but by the end he achieves the art of also making you care..."

Director and writer Seth MacFarlane, also voicing the profane plushie, continues not so much walking a fine line as strutting it and flicking the finger to both sides. Those who liked Team America, Family Guy and American Dad will know exactly what to expect in the humour department.... often deliberately crude and rude, but not without some stylish pitching, genuinely sharp irony and a distinctly sweet scent of sentimentality that lingers on through the fart gags. There IS a genuine story of love and bromance here and one that MacFarlane pitches rather well when he decides to pull the reins in a little. Like most of his outings - and similar to contemporary Kevin Smith - he sometimes goes too far, acting like a school-kid who has just found a rude word in the dictionary and intends to say it as often as possible unless it go out of fashion, but there are enough self-deprecating and knowing pop culture laughs to balance out the deliberate cringes.  MacFarlane is an equal opportunist:  beastiality, drugs, slapstick pratfalls and workplace sexual harassment all act like explicit script punctuation, but though he'd probably deny it there's a Disney heart beating under the pimp-master exterior. He'll make you wince and cringe, but by the end he achieves the art of also making you care.

Like the character of Ted himself, this is a film that never means to truly offend, but is more concerned with tweaking your nose, embracing self-indulgence and to heck with the consequences. Like a teenager it rebels at anything you have, striving to push boundaries and find its identity, sometimes stumbling in the process, sometimes being refreshingly unfettered by the pressures of political correctness.  Ted's description of his post-fame life being "...like the cast of Diffrent Strokes, well... the ones that lived..." pitches the obtuse attitude perfectly as it seeks to move to the beat of its own drum.

Ted himself is an undeniable, technological marvel. This is a pitch-perfect blending of completely believable CGI and carefully placed animatronics and it would take a hard soul not to find the foul-mouthed miscreant convincing as a standalone creature, whatever your view of the movie vehicle itself.

An adult fairy-tale about not wanting to grow up, TED is one of those films which will fall into the love-it-or-loathe-it category. Know the creator's pedigree and you'll probably find this to be a superior entry in MacFarlane's catalogue of nose-tweaking, ego-puncturing fun (Sam Jones, Tom Skerritt and Ryan Reynolds happy to send themselves up for a good cause). Wahlberg  - one of the industry's most versatile actors - has great fun in a role that could have been less sympathetic in lesser hands and Kunis makes sure she's more than just a foil for the punchlines.

Grin and bear it. This is a distinctly dirty and pleasurable dirty pleasure....

4/5

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