The Expendables 2

Let me set the scene. Its 2009 and its dawning on Sylvester Stallone that his days of making money from Rambo and Rocky franchises that he has spearheaded for the last thirty years maybe behind him. So what to do next? The answer to that question was a simple one. Put together a cast of action film icons and go make the best “leave your brain at the door” film possible.
So with that as its premise and starting point Stallone went away and put together a film that he also ended up directing, which included Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lungren, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke and the terminator himself Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The film became The Expendables and basically it did exactly what it said on the tin. Lots of bang for your buck, an extremely high body count and enough blood on screen to fill about three Olympic size swimming pools.

The film, although never regarded as a classic in the grand scheme of things, made enough money for the studio behind it to start asking questions that went along the lines of “do you fancy making another one?” and “oh go on, pretty please”. Stallone, having recently checked his new and plumped up bank balance, didn’t have any issues putting the band back together and with the exception of Rourke everyone agreed to come back.
Having broken his neck in the first film Stallone and by his own admission, had taken too much on. So he decided to hand the megaphone duties over to the more than capable Simon West.
This freed Stallone up to come up with a screenplay that needed to be bigger and louder than the first. To say that he didn’t disappoint would be something of an understatement but more of that later.

With Rouke bailing on the sequel Stallone needed some new blood to join the party. Firstly he got Liam Hemsworth, who’s the younger brother of Thor for those of you not in the know. Just don’t expect to see him in the third film as and when that gets made (and it will). Then he persuaded the muscles from Brussels to sign on the dotted line. Jean-Claude Van Dam plays against type as the villain of the piece and what a job he does. Happily sending himself up at every available opportunity. The real trump card for this sequel though has to be the inclusion of Chuck Norris, who seemingly never looks like he ages at all. Norris has for a long time had a “legend” tag that he seems to follow him around and is something he appears more than happy to live up too. If you have five minutes to spare I urge you to head over to chucknorrisfacts.com . It’ll keep you amused for hours!

So let’s get back to that to that screenplay that Mr Stallone put together. The premise of the film is that JCVD is about to get his hands on six tonnes of old Russian cold war Plutonium and the CIA can't let that happen! Put simply this screenplay is appalling! It’s so far past bad it’s ridiculous. It doesn’t hold together in any way shape or form and I think the plot may have been asked to go away politely for a while whilst filming was under way. As for the filming itself, it’s preposterous. So full of continuity errors that I stopped counting after twenty minutes and it makes about as much sense as cheese socks.
That said, I LOVED IT!!! Every gloriously ham acted scene, every absurd and over the top death and illogical decision being made. I sat in the cinema for the entire duration of the film with the largest smile on my face. This may well be the first fan fiction film that has ever been green light and could also be the world’s first one star “must see” action film and although they do get far more screen time for this film it seems the only reason Bruce and Arnold were asked to come back was to commit each other’s trade mark catchphrases to celluloid with their tongue’s both fully inserted into their respective cheeks.

Given the fact that this film seems to have come up trumps and at the box office I can only imagine it’s a matter of time before Stallone receives another phone call begging for him to sit down and write another screenplay that pushes the boundaries of thought, perception and human understanding. But the problem he’ll have is this. How do you trump what’s already come before it? How do you make it bigger and better without actually turning up to the White House and saying “would you mind if we actually invaded Canada”?
And then of course there’s the other issue of who can you ask you be in it that hasn’t already been included. Other than Jackie Chan and Steven Segal there’s no other way to top the action cast list that’s already been put together. I would however suggest that if they do have a meeting where they try to come up with which actors to include, they should think outside the box a little just to keep the ideas fresh and original. An action flick that included the likes of Woody Allen, Ronnie Corbett or even Pingu is a film I’d pay to see!

Twitter Review:
Expendables 2 is a crime against film. No plot, no continuity, no point & for those exact reasons you have to go & see it!
#AMustSeeFilm

Useful Links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1764651/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQf3YP8p85I

Ted

Ted, Ted, Ted. Where do you start about a film that’s the brain child of Seth MacFarlane. The Man that brought us Family Guy, American Dad! And The Cleveland Show. Well first of all I’ll start by saying that Ted is very much a “Marmite” kind of film. You’re either going to love it or hate it. You’ll find the comedy therein spectacularly funny or you’ll just sit there looking around trying to work out why everyone else is laughing.

The Plot of the film centres around a young boy who gets given a teddy bear for Christmas when he’s eight. The boy in question has no friends and no matter how hard he tries to make new ones his alienation just gets even worse. Then one night he wishes that his Teddy could be alive so he could have someone to talk to and wouldn’t you know it, before Hollywood can say “sign here Mr MacFarlane” and add the appropriate “nights sky shooting star” effect,  the bear comes to life. 

Shooting forward some twenty seven years we find the boy John Bennett has grown up into a lazy and unmotivated thirty five year old. Played by the greatest living wooden actor since Pinocchio, Mark Wahlberg.  The bear, which is voiced by MacFarlane, has in those twenty seven years gone from being the sweet new best buddy, wouldn’t hurt a fly, play time pal, to a foul mouthed, drug taking, beer drinking partner in crime for John. This is something that Johns girlfriend of four years Lori Collins, who is played by one of the Family Guy inner circle Mila Kunis, is starting to get rather annoyed with. Lori is fed up with lack of commitment being shown and after a series of “Ted” related incidents, which include a home full of hookers and some very bad personal hygiene an ultimatum is given.
“It’s me or the Bear!”

Ted does have some great set pieces dotted throughout the film. If you’re a child of the eighties then I think you’ll really enjoy this film. It has some great cameos from Norah Jones and Tom Skerritt. Airplane gets a mention and a doffing of its cap however if you’re a fan of the film Flash Gordon then I can’t recommend you seeing Ted enough. It’s worth the price of admission alone and may go down in history as one of the greatest homages in cinematic history. Another gem to take away from this film is a little ditty entitled “The Thunder Buddy Song”. It’s short on lyrics but high on standing up and facing your fears with regards to extreme weather. Just a quick word of warning though, it’s not really what the pc brigade would call child friendly so I wouldn’t recommend using to subdue anyone below the age of twelve the next time you’re babysitting and the heavens open. Another little added gem that’s been thrown into the mix is Patrick Stewart Narrating at the start and at the end. Very educational and he even mentions Apache Gunships. Now you don’t get that sort of information in Disney films these days.

So where does that leave us. Ted is basically Hollywood falling back and relying on the age old story of “Boy meets ted, ted comes alive, boy and ted grow up together, ted becomes semi famous, boy and ted live together, ted and boy drink too much and get stoned every time there’s a day that ends with a y, boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, girl tries to get boy to change his ways, ted has to move out, ted gets a job as a supermarket cashier to pay bills, ted has sex using a parsnip, boy and girl split up, ted is kidnapped by Giovanni Ribisi for his son, hijinks and chases ensue, (spoiler alert) boy wins girl back, (another spoiler alert) boy, girl and ted live happily ever after.
Yes I know what you’re thinking and yes we have seen that done million times before by the Hollywood film industry….. But never with Flash Gordon thrown into the mix!

In closing I’ll go back to the start and say this. Ted is really going to polarise opinions when it comes to its viewers. The only real advice I can offer is this.
If you like the film, then go and see it. If you don’t, then stay at home. Hope that helps…..

Twitter Review:
Talking Teddy Bears, Flash Gordon, The Thunder Buddy Song, Seth MacFarlane & Parsnip Sex. What's not to like!
#NotEveryonesCupOfTea

Useful Links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637725/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fbo_pQvU7M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9PnNW56bp0