Escape Plan

I was entertained, but I do have some issues.

Who in their right minds would put the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vinnie Jones and, um, 50 Cent (?) in a film with Vincent D'Onofrio, Jim Caviezel, Amy Ryan and Sam Neill? Surely, those two groups should have been in entirely different films. Preferably, the first batch would have made Escape Plan and the second group could have been in some serious film that requires some actual acting?

Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Jones are doing what they do best, which is looking and sounding angry, getting tortured or torturing, respectively, and generally kicking ass all over the place. They are good at it.

Vincent D'Onofrio is stuck behind a desk in a role that never gets off the ground, Amy Ryan is doing a lot of frowning and is against everything (especially when suggested by a *ghasp!* other woman), Sam Neill is a sad-looking doctor who only seems to remember his Hippocratic oath when Stallone asks for his help (what did he think he was doing in this tightest of all maximum security prisons anyway before?). Jim Caviezel, at least, gets a bigger platform than the other wasted talents. He is the bad guy in nice suit (and doesn't remind us of his Person of Interest character, like, at all) and he is good at it. That's something, I guess.

And 50 Cent has nothing to do except drive a car and hit a few buttons on a keyboard, his role made more believable by putting spectacles on him.

That all said, let me return to my initial statement, I was entertained, but the action heroes would have done that trick by themselves.

5/10

First Blood

This is the first of the Rambo franchise.

John Rambo, Vietnam vet, former green beret, trained to become a killing machine, can't catch a break back home. When he gets picked up in a small town for minding his own business, he ends up beating up a few officers and fleeing into the mountains. The local sheriff sends everyone and their grandmother in pursuit of him.

Rambo goes into self defense mode and holds his ground against some two hundred assorted law enforcement people. Casualties are kept to a minimum (one tends to falsely remember vast numbers of dead bodies when it comes to this, because the later Rambo films spill more blood than this one).

In the end, he faces off with his 'creator', one captain Trautman and breaks down crying, before surrendering.

6/10

The Expendables 2

The sequel to Expendables features everybody (except for Steven Seagal, luckily), this time even Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris. The latter is in it just to be in it. Pure courtesy. His character is of no significance to the story.

As for the story, Stallone and his gang (oh, Lundgren, you are awesome) are blackmailed into retrieving....oh, never mind. Nobody watches this for the plot, which is as insignificant as Chuck Norris.

It's fighting, shooting, bad jokes ("I'll be back.", "Yippie-ka-yay.", something about Rambo) and bad acting. An homage to good old no-nonsense 1980s action films.

Here's a picture of Dolph Lundgren. You're welcome.

(cannot be measured in stars)