5 Reasons Why The Expendables 2 Found The Perfect Balance
Tone is the most important thing in a movie, especially in an action movie anchored by 60+ year-old stars. Here's why Stallone got it right...
Tone is the most important thing in a movie, especially in an action movie anchored by 60+ year-old stars. Its the make-or-break, end-all of a movie. If the tone is not right, you end up with a movie worth the direct-to-DVD route, or worse Punisher 2! In that regard, I offer 5 characteristics of why Expendables 2 found that perfect balance... 5. It Stuck To A Real R Rating
If I had been a camera on the set of the Expendables 2, I would have been covered in blood, brains, and guts from morning to evening. Non-stop! This movie probably beat Rambo II or whichever movie holds the record for the most kills, and it did it with style. A certain style, at least but that is whats great about this movie, is that it completely embraced its 80s roots by going full-blown R-rated, yet it did it with such an over-the-top way that it never even got close to an NC-17 Now, getting a PG-13 rating, like it was rumored initially, I dont think it ever came close either unless the blood would have been more orange or something. The most important thing that the movie did is that it did not embrace violence and blood per se, it embraced the fun of it, if there can be fun in such an environment. It embraced the power of guns and knives, and exploding heads, too, but with a certain romantic love, not with a horror-gore-porn that you see in some movies. Being splattered all over was fun, but just to make the action scenes and set pieces more emblematic of a certain style, not push the buttons of violence.