![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Expendables double bill!
Aug. 11th, 2014 10:19 pmHome alone with a packet of frozen chips - what's a girl to do but re-visit the glory days of 80s action flicks with a double bill of The Expendables and The Expendables 2.
What can I say?
Well, I could go into a feminist rant about the appalling presentation of the female characters in the first film but I decided to switch that portion of my brain off for the evening, and just enjoy the machismo. And there's plenty of it to enjoy. Plotwise, I spent a fair amount of time going, "How the hell...?" and "What the f....?" until I decided to switch that portion of my brain off, too. After that, it was just fun.
Surprisingly, Jason Statham and Sylvester Stallone make an excellent pair - the affection between their characters rings entirely true and they clearly had a lot of fun making these films. They even manage to include some depth, with at least some of the characters experiencing an emotional arc that encompasses more than simply blowing shit up. They do blow a lot of shit up, though, and the body count doesn't bear thinking about.
Spectacularly violent, ridiculously over-the-top, and gloriously silly, I rather enjoyed both films (the first one made a little more sense, but the second one was a lot funnier) and I'm now thinking a cinema trip to see number three might be in order in the not too distant future.
What can I say?
Well, I could go into a feminist rant about the appalling presentation of the female characters in the first film but I decided to switch that portion of my brain off for the evening, and just enjoy the machismo. And there's plenty of it to enjoy. Plotwise, I spent a fair amount of time going, "How the hell...?" and "What the f....?" until I decided to switch that portion of my brain off, too. After that, it was just fun.
Surprisingly, Jason Statham and Sylvester Stallone make an excellent pair - the affection between their characters rings entirely true and they clearly had a lot of fun making these films. They even manage to include some depth, with at least some of the characters experiencing an emotional arc that encompasses more than simply blowing shit up. They do blow a lot of shit up, though, and the body count doesn't bear thinking about.
Spectacularly violent, ridiculously over-the-top, and gloriously silly, I rather enjoyed both films (the first one made a little more sense, but the second one was a lot funnier) and I'm now thinking a cinema trip to see number three might be in order in the not too distant future.
