Release Date: August 17, 2012
Director: Simon West
Written by: Richard Wenk and Sylvester Stallone (screenplay); Ken Kaufman & David Agosto and Richard Wenk (story by)
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Liam Hemsworth, also Jean-Claude Van Damme, with Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger
It's a shame that Jean-Claude Van Damme's roster of characters isn't more heavily populated by villains. His role as Jean Vilain in The Expendables 2 may be the ultimate expression of why.
Certainly he's played some memorable and interesting roles as a protagonist, but as evidenced by his work in Replicant, Until Death and especially this film, he's on a whole different level of investment when he's turned heel. There are movies with better acting. (Like in JCVD.) There are movies with a better display of his physicality and fighting ability. (Like Maximum Risk.) But few movies showcase Van Damme relishing his role more thoroughly than he does in the second outing of Sylvester Stallone's films uniting a bunch of old guard action movie icons under one roof. (It's by far the movie that the first Expendables should have been, but more on that later.)
There's no way to describe Jean Vilain as other than "unapologetically evil." (And yes, Stallone simply removed one "L" from the word "villain" and used that as the name for his lead bad guy.) Vilain will straight up crescent kick a knife into the chest of your team's most fresh-faced member simply to make a point that you do not cross him. Then he'll force men, women, children and the elderly into slavery in order to retrieve and sell five tons of "pure plutonium" from an abandoned Russian mine. Naturally it lands on the shoulders of mercenary Barney Ross and his team of Expendables (including the likes of Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren and Terry Crews) to track Vilain and stop him from selling said plutonium to the highest evil bidder. Oh, and they also want revenge for Vilain killing said fresh-faced team member (Liam Hemsworth), but his presence barely registers before he's murdered so it's hard to feel like this aspect holds any weight.
Whatever story surfaces (two writers are credited in addition to three "story by" designations, and this is the best they can come up with?) is mostly inconsequential anyway since really this is just about finding excuses for these guys to empty boxes of bullets into countless faceless henchmen and generally cause all manner of mayhem. It's a bit of a shame, though, since you'd think that having this many action icons all in one place would somehow inspire something more memorable and worthy of such a combined legacy, but alas. The end result feels more like what you would expect and want out of this sort of "Greatest Hits" outing since it's way more action-packed than its predecessor and, also unlike its predecessor, actually gives us the wide shot that was likely the vision that got this whole franchise started in the first place: Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis standing in a row, guns drawn and mowing down bad guys.
What The Expendables 2 may lack in overall panache, however, it comes close to making it up for it with what JCVD fans get out of it. It's rare that we get to see Van Damme in full-on weirdo mode, but that's very much what's on display here. As previously stated, he basically revels in being a genuinely bad dude. Work women, children and the elderly literally to death? No sweat. Randomly show off your neck tattoo of a goat which you also claim "is the pet of Satan"? Sure, why not? Do the arrogant villain thing where you purposefully toy with the hero and insist you toss away your guns and "fight like men? You bet. No matter the situation, Van Damme is rarely holding anything back and quite visibly relishing this rare opportunity to be bad with no strings attached. That does result in a performance and character that lacks some of the substance and nuances we've seen when he's previously played a heel, but it's a worthy trade off given just how much fun his turn is as Vilain.
It should also be noted that this is the first film of his in quite a while where we get some honest-to-goodness classic JCVD martial arts moves. Vilain's climactic showdown against Barney is a bit too closely shot, dimly lit and far too brief to be labeled as an all-timer, but it's still a fun if minor rumble between two action icons. Plus it's the first film of Van Damme's since The Order (back in 2001!) to give us some good old split kicks. Blessings should be counted when and where they arrive.
Thankfully, as much fun as Van Damme is as a straight up villain, it won't be long until he shows up as such once more. But that's a little bit further down the line.
Van Dammage Report Statistics for The Expendables 2:
Number of splits: 0
Number of split kicks: 2
Reason for being European: He's a villain, presumably from somewhere in Europe.
Best line: "Let's wrap this up!" — spoken as Vilain wraps a chain around Barney Ross's neck.
