Sylvester Stallone has spent the last eight years not so
much trying for career renaissance, but to relive the glory days of his
(relative) youth. Honestly, he wasn’t even that young when he was a major 80s
box office draw. he has made new sequels to the Rocky and Rambo
franchises, a boxing movie with De Niro that plays on their respective most
iconic roles, and the Expendables
franchise which is both tongue-in-cheek about the way it tries to relive the
glory days of 80s action movie heroism and sort of serious in its attempt to be
a modern action franchise. I’ll just put it out there that I really enjoyed the
first film. It had some great playfulness, some killer action sequences and
hand-to-hand fight scenes (especially those involving Jason Statham), and a
great period appropriate villain and theme with Eric Roberts operating in Latin
America as a kingpin. Our neighbors to the south served as the great action
locations and source of villainy during the decade of cocaine. The
Expendables was a welcome respite from the settings of Arab countries
and former Soviet republics.
