'The Expendables 2' - What Did You Think?

The summer of 2012 — a summer that turned out to be rather a mixed bag, as so many hotly-anticipated movie seasons tend to — ends with a bang, or at least an explosion. The Expendables 2 is the Simon West-directed sequel to the Sylvester Stallone film that crammed together a whole bunch of aging action stars in one film.

For the sequel the roster has expanded, with Chuck Norris showing up, Jean-Claude Van Damme as the bad guy (and getting some of the best notes in reviews so far) and expanded roles for Bruce Willis and the post-political Arnold Schwarzenegger. Some of the action looks great, much of the script looks silly, and the guys are all ripped and grimacing, for most of the time, at least.

So how did The Expendables 2 turn out? Germain enjoyed it, with his review highlighting both the silliness and the fact that the film, unlike the first one, does most of what it promises. We'd like to know what you think, too. So sound off after the break, where spoiler comments are encouraged.

I didn't care for the first film at all, and sadly haven't yet had a chance to see the second, so I'm going to stay out of it here. I will say that despite my general dislike for the original, I'd still drop money to see this without a second thought, mostly to see if Van Damme really does work well as the villain.

Not that there are any great expectations out of a film like this — if the action works and everything else just manages to get out of the way, that'll do nicely. So what did you think? Did West and his huge bicep ensemble make that happen?