3. Not Enough Chuck
Surprisingly, it's almost a full hour before Chuck Norris shows up in The Expendables 2, as the team are assaulted by a fleet of soldiers. Norris murders the entire squadron off-screen, and then blows up a tank. He emerges in slow motion, as Stallone and company wonder quite who could have wreaked this level of awesomeness, to the theme from
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - one of the film's more inspired moments - before announcing himself as an old buddy of Stallone's. Chuck's appearance here is hilarious and knowing, because it fully acknowledges and engages with his stature as a popular Internet meme, as he explains how once he was bitten by a King Cobra, and "after five days of agonising pain...the King Cobra died". This is an example of what the previous point should have followed; interacting with and celebrating these men and their legacies, but not going too far with it. Chuck promptly refuses Stallone's offer to stick around and help take down Vilain, disappearing out of the picture in a somewhat amusing and abrupt fashion. However, after that appearance, which totals less than five minutes, he doesn't return again until the climax, when he helps save the day, mowing down countless enemy bodies with his machine gun. His screen time all in all totals roughly ten minutes, which is disappointing given his billing suggesting that he would be a major player in the team. It feels manipulative from a marketing perspective, and is likely a product of budgetary constraints.