TheRetroCritic

Putting such a crazy-epic cast together should really be enough to make a good movie. And yet the past has shown that no matter how many famous faces you cram into a flick, it's just not sufficient. Remember the original Casino Royale ? Yeah, that had Peter Sellers, Woody Allen and Orson Welles: terrible. Mars Attacks! had a crazy-big cast but that was a good, fun movie. The Expendables , however, was not. The first movie really was a missed opportunity to say the least. You had a cast that included Stallone, Statham, Rourke, Lundgren, Jet friggin' Li and yet what we got was an instantly forgettable mess. Now with The Expendables 2 we've got more Arnie, more Bruce Willis, a good bunch of newcomers (Van Damme, Norris), how could that movie be anything BUT awesomeness itself? Well, frankly I have no idea but this sequel certainly isn't "awesomeness itself". That said, I gotta admit it is better than the first film in that it at least gives us a dece

lol Pretty great.

A film adaptation of the classic video game seemed pretty straightforward on paper: a bunch of freaks from all around the world get together and fight in the streets of wherever. All the film had to do was to find lookalikes and a reason for all the characters to get together. Instead, we got Van Damme... The casting of the colourful bunch is more miss than hit with some looking nothing like who they're based on (Ken, Blanca, Guile), some barely existing (Dhalsim, Vega) and others looking the part but so Americanized they might as well all be called John Smith. Raul Julia is hammier than he's ever been and looks ridiculous but delivers some of the silliest lines ever with style and gusto. Van Damme is as grating as ever and his childish, airhead Guile is impossible to relate to or take seriously for a second. Especially with Kylie "Spinning Around" Minogue as his sidekick. This is about as misguided as a game-to-film adaptation can get and Mortal Ko