Film review: The Expendables II

Yu Nan, Terry Crews, Sylvester Stallone, Randy Couture and Dolph Lundgren in a scene from The Expendables II. Picture: AP

NOT so much a movie as a near-lethal shot of testosterone administered through the eyes, The Expendables 2 is chock-full of strange-looking men aged 50 and older.

All of of them going blah-blah-blah and blam-blam-blam in merry unison. 

Best brace yourself for the scenes where lights are too bright or shirts have come off. 

Many of these cinematic geriatrics look as if they've got their local plastic surgeon on speed-dial, and a jar of human-growth hormones in the fridge. 

I may also add at this juncture that The Expendables 2 is a horrible motion picture that is horribly entertaining. 

As opposed to the original The Expendables, which was just plain horrible. 

The big diff this time is that everyone involved is in on the same joke, and they all tell it very well, indeed. 

Sylvester Stallone (66 years old) and his posse of past-their-prime pulverisers - led by Chuck Norris (72), Arnold Schwarzenegger (65), Bruce Willis (57), Dolph Lundgren (54) and Jean-Claude Van Damme (just a kid at 51) - have a grand old time revisiting former gories. 

Sorry, that should be glories. 

So if you grew up basking in the bloody afterglow of these buffed-up besties doing their worst, The Expendables 2 will put you in a state of nostalgic nirvana.

 The plot? Let's not go there. Stallone and his team of co-writers didn't.

All you need to know is that five tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium is about to be illegally acquired, and then sold on the open market to the richest nuclear terrorist. 

Yep, that's right. The Expendables must save the world. To do so, they must stop the vicious villain who has almost finished splitting all the radioactive rocks he can find. Van Damme plays the role well, mustering all the camp cruelty he can for a character whose surname is - wouldn't you just know it? - Villain. 

The set-piece skirmishes of The Expendables - which commence in Nepal and end in an Albanian airport terminal - are stratospherically over-the-top. 

The death, destruction and violence on display are as subtle and shocking as a Taser down your trousers. 

The best that can be said of these spectacularly stoo-pid scenes is that you can't look away from them. But my, oh my, you can laugh at them. 

News is trickling in that Stallone and his gang of grinning reapers have sent membership forms to Steven Seagal, Nicolas Cage and Harrison Ford for The Expendables 3. Never thought I'd be saying this, but bring it on.

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-- The Expendables 2 [MA15+]

- Two and a half stars

-- Director: Simon West (Con Air)

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

-- Beware of old dogs let off the leash