“The Expendables 2″

Three stars

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Yu Nan, Liam Hemsworth, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Jet Li, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris

Rating: R, for strong bloody violence

It’s time once again to buy stock in ordnance manufacturers; Sylvester Stallone and his geezer squad are back to wreak more havoc and shoot up fresh landscapes.

Really, even by the already crazed standards of Hollywood’s exaggerated action flicks, I’ve rarely seen so much gunfire. Or so many blood squibs spurting from the chests, limbs and heads of obligingly posed victims. Particularly the goons shot by long-range, high-power sniper rifle, whose heads explode in a spray of viscera.

It’s almost enough to harsh the laughably ludicrous vibe of this otherwise mindless live-action cartoon.

“The Expendables 2” is even sillier than its 2010 predecessor, which was a surprisingly entertaining AARP spin on “The Seven Samurai,” “The Dirty Dozen” and all sorts of other gang-of-losers-against-insurmountable-odds epics. The notion that Stallone and his old coot buddies still could raise hell, definitely raised smiles … and, yeah, it was a kick to see so many familiar faces.

With tongue even more firmly in cheek, Stallone once again shares screenwriting credit, but this time hands the directing chores to Simon West, a veteran of similar high-octane action fare such as “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” last year’s remake of “The Mechanic” and TV’s much-loved (if woefully short-lived) 2003 cop series, “Keen Eddie.”

The first “Expendables” at least made an effort to inject some actual character drama, with Dolph Lundgren’s Gunnar Jensen failing to play nice with the rest of the crew, most particularly Jet Li’s Yin Yang. Lundgren is sweetness and light this time — and has inherited a college-educated science background (!) — but Li makes little more than a token appearance in an audacious pre-credits rescue mission, which pretty much sets the tone for what follows.

Indeed, West errs slightly with this prologue; it’s far better staged than most of what follows. The folks who make these sorts of films really need to stop front-loading their best stuff; the rest of the film invariably feels anti-climactic.

But back to basics.

Any trace of squabbling has vanished, with Barney Ross (Stallone) and the rest of his crew — Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) and Toll Road (Randy Couture) — joking and tossing brewskies like seasoned best buds. They’ve also taken on a rookie, a talented sharpshooter dubbed Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth), who seems to fit right in with the gang.

Or maybe not. With everybody else trading quips in the neighborhood bar and watching Lee’s flirty girlfriend (Charisma Carpenter, blink and you’ll miss her), Billy takes Barney outside and confesses that the group’s lifestyle isn’t quite what he expected, and that he’d rather spend more time with his own sweetie. Barney understands, of course; this allows Stallone to look pensive, as he reflects on his own life badly lived.

At least, what passes for “pensive” in Stallone’s limited range. Said expression also could pass for Stallone’s attempt at grim, unhappy or merely dyspeptic. Fortunately, he isn’t here to emote, merely to shoot bad guys and blow stuff up.

The eternally sour Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) pops up long enough to snarl at Barney and offer a fresh assignment, involving the retrieval of a mysterious computer whatzis from a plane that crashed in the mountains of Eastern Europe. This mission also comes with a resourceful woman — Yu Nan, as Maggie — who insists, with an enigmatic smile, that the politely sexist Barney won’t need to worry about “baby-sitting” her.

Indeed, as we soon discover, Maggie is equally adept at covert ops and martial-arts mayhem.

Although our team successfully retrieves the gadget, they’re just as quickly ambushed and forced to surrender it to the vile Vilain (Jean-Clause Van Damme), who is — you guessed it — the villain of this piece. Vilain is assisted by the equally nasty Hector (Scott Adkins), who we know is Very Tough because he scowls all the time.

Anyway, it turns out that the gadget actually is a map that leads to a huge, hidden cache of weapons-grade plutonium. Once this dangerous stuff is found, deep underground, Vilain and his goons kidnap all the able-bodied men from local Balkan villages, and force them to work themselves to death in the mine.

Mind you, these poor souls apparently die solely from fatigue, as opposed to the radiation poisoning we’d expect to afflict anybody who handles plutonium … or even gets anywhere near it. Stuff and nonsense, apparently; details of that nature don’t figure into this tale. Apparently, the cylindrical containers neutralize the radiation. Uh-huh.

Aside from stung pride, Barney is additionally motivated by revenge for a heinous act Vilain committed during their first meeting. From that point forward, we pause only briefly between explosive skirmishes, which grant spectacularly bloody deaths to — it seems — every stuntman in Bulgaria (where most of this picture was filmed).

These battles are (briefly) separated by bits of comic relief, mostly relating to predictable jokes based on various characters’ names — “Christmas came late this year,” somebody complains to Lee, at one point — or a given actor’s prior credits. Thus, Chuck Norris’ “lone wolf” operative is, of course, a nod to his 1983 film “Lone Wolf McQuade,” while his character’s name, Booker, references the guy he played in an even earlier film, 1978’s “Good Guys Wear Black.”

So yes, this is rather flimsy, lowest-common-denominator humor … which is appropriate, given the comic book sensibilities at work.

That said, West and production designer Paul Cross have a good time with several set-pieces, most particularly a hell-for-leather melee inside Bulgaria’s Plovdiv Airport, which grants everybody a slice of the action. Even Willis’ Mr. Church grabs an automatic weapon and starts blazing away.

One-handed, of course, the way all the cool kids utilize such guns … never mind issues such as recoil and kick-back.

Best friends Barney and Lee bicker a lot, and Stallone and Statham do reasonably well with these bits of light-hearted camaraderie. Crews has a good time with his character’s culinary skills, and Nan does a lot with irony, slow takes and deceptive smiles.

Van Damme makes a suitably oily scoundrel, while Hemsworth adds some actual narrative depth as the conflicted Billy. Couture isn’t given much to do — one Expendable too many, I guess — while Norris’ so-called acting continues to be wooden enough to warp. (Of course, even that is part of the deliberate silliness at work here.)

Schwarzenegger and Willis merely riff their outsized macho images.

Despite a plethora of shortcomings, however, this second outing with Stallone’s geezer gang qualifies as a solid guilty pleasure: the sort of mindless, camped-up pandemonium that goes down well on a fun-loving Friday night.

Dumb stuff and nonsense?

You betcha … but not without a certain degree of goofy charm.

— Read more of Derrick Bang’s film criticism at derrickbang.blogspot.com. Comment on this review at www.davisenterprise.com

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Donna Murphy, Stacy Keach, Dennis Boutsikaris, Zeljko Ivanek

By Derrick Bang

Enterprise film critic

Any doubts about the Bourne film series surviving Matt Damon’s departure can be laid to rest; replacement star Jeremy Renner capably opens a new chapter in Robert Ludlum’s popular franchise.

Although it’s perhaps not the chapter fans were expecting.

Ludlum, who died in 2001, wrote the three books made into the film trilogy that featured Damon between ’02 and ’07. Ludlum’s estate sanctioned Jason Bourne’s literary revival in an ongoing series of sequels by the prolific Eric Van Lustbader, who thus far has written seven more, starting with 2004’s “The Bourne Legacy.”

But although this new film shares the same title, that’s all it shares. Like most latter-day James Bond films, which also borrowed Ian Fleming’s book and short story titles — and nothing else — director/co-scripter Tony Gilroy concocted an entirely new narrative suggested by Ludlum’s conspiracy-laden premise.

And rather than tagging a new actor to play Jason Bourne — thus cleverly leaving the door open for Damon’s return, at some future point — Renner is introduced as Aaron Cross, one of several “sidebar assets” in the U.S. black ops agency’s clandestine Treadstone project.

Gilroy scripted all three of Damon’s “Bourne” films; he also wrote and directed the sleekly sinister George Clooney vehicle, “Michael Clayton,” and had fun riffing on industrial espionage with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, in 2009’s “Duplicity.” So it’s safe to say that Gilroy knows the territory.

Gilroy wisely takes his time with the first act of this new film, introducing Cross during an extreme survival training session in the Alaskan wilderness. Details are sketchy, aside from the same heightened senses and reflexes that characterized Bourne; Cross also carefully maintains a daily regimen of pills — one blue, one green — that are safeguarded in a container worn around his neck.

Back in D.C., high-level spook Eric Byer (Edward Norton) frets over the public appearance of Dr. Albert Hirsch (Albert Finney), recognized from the previous film in this series. Similarly, Pam Landy (Joan Allen), Jason Bourne’s former handler, has threatened to go public with Treadstone’s seamier details.

Feeling that they have no choice, Byer and fellow conspirator Mark Turso (Stacy Keach) decide to shut down Treadstone and its half-dozen human assets, despite their highly effective work in various world hot spots. And in this realm of unsupervised behavior, “shutting down” has lethal ramifications for said assets.

Rather reprehensibly, the soulless Byer — quickly established as this story’s uber-villain — goes for total shutdown, which also means eliminating all scientists and medical researchers working to produce those little blue and green pills, in the concealed lab of a Maryland pharma-giant dubbed Candent.

Byer’s scheme isn’t entirely successful; one top-security researcher, Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), survives and withdraws, shaken, to the comfort of her magnificently dilapidated, three-story fixer-upper mansion in the Maryland woods. Shearing also knows Cross, but only as a man dubbed “Patient No. 5” who routinely submitted to blood panels and full medical work-ups numerous times, during the previous few years.

More to the point, Cross remembers Shearing; when everything goes pear-shaped, she becomes the one person who might be able to help him stay alive — and properly medicated — long enough to figure out what the hell is going on.

Assuming she lives that long.

Although you’ve just read a fairly straightforward précis of Gilroy’s narrative set-up, these details don’t arrive anywhere near as neatly in the film. Indeed, Gilroy and co-scripter Dan Gilroy (an older brother) go out of their way to deliver crucial details through flashbacks, confusing cross-cutting and just plain obfuscation. It could be argued that the screenwriters try too hard to be obtuse, relying overmuch on terse, heated and vaguely worded arguments between Byer, Turso and Cadent CEO Terrence Ward (Dennis Boutsikaris).

It’s difficult to get emotionally involved with the “crisis,” early on, when we haven’t the slightest idea what these guys are quarrelling about.

At the same time, though, Tony Gilroy’s leisurely pace allows us plenty of time to get inside Cross’ head. Like Bourne before him — whom he doesn’t know — Cross had a former life and career before being co-opted by Byer into this soul-deadening black-ops existence. Although properly grim and implacable when necessary, Renner also grants Cross gentler characteristics: curiosity, wary anxiety, compassion and a strong moral compass that Byer definitely wouldn’t admire.

Renner looks friendly, and his Aaron Cross believably slides from companionable smiles to lightning-quick lethal action in the blink of an eye. Renner is totally convincing, and when his expression turns grim, the results aren’t the slightest bit surprising. Indeed, we come to anticipate that transformation.

Unlike so many directors who front-load their action scenes and then have nowhere to go — I’m looking at you, “Total Recall” — Gilroy understands the effective art of building to a suspenseful climax. We learn much about Cross’ capabilities during the extended Alaskan sojourn, but these are hardly melees; his hand-to-hand skills don’t come into play until he returns to civilization. Cross doesn’t fully explode until he resourcefully finds his way to Shearing’s Maryland home, at which point Gilroy kicks his film into a higher gear.

But even this proves to be only an intermediate phase. Gilroy, editor John Gilroy (a younger brother) and stunt coordinator Dan Bradley throw everything into the climactic third act, which opens with a rooftop pursuit and builds to a jaw-dropping motorcycle chase.

Weisz is note-perfect as a lab rat wholly out of her depth, in this dangerous world into which Shearing suddenly is plunged. Her initial slide into hysteria looks and sounds just right, as Weisz digs deep for an inner core of stubborn defiance, in order to hold things together. Later, having (reluctantly) learned to trust Cross, Weisz brings considerable emotional warmth to what follows, her character’s sincerity doing much to elicit similar positive virtues from this man who, at other times, seems more killing machine than human being.

Norton is properly smarmy as Byer, and Tony Award-winning stage actress Donna Murphy is memorably persuasive as his capable and similarly pragmatic aide. Zeljko Ivanek is chilling as Foite, one of Shearing’s Cadent lab colleagues; Elizabeth Marvel is similarly creepy, as a government psychologist whose motives prove to be less than sincere.

Scott Glenn and David Strathairn briefly pop up in the roles they introduced in 2007’s “Bourne Ultimatum,” and Gilroy cheekily keeps Matt Damon firmly in our minds, with occasional photographs in files passed among key characters.

“The Bourne Legacy” layers slick, suspenseful action atop an intriguing, intelligent and emotionally involving narrative. Previous director Paul Greengrass definitely brought Ludlum’s Bourne series into the 21st century with authoritative snap, and Gilroy has continued the tradition quite honorably.

And as this film’s closing scene quite blatantly teases, we’ve not seen the last of Aaron Cross.

— Read more of Derrick Bang’s film criticism at http://derrickbang.blogspot.com. Comment on this review at www.davisenterprise.com

STARRING: Zachary Gordon, Steve Zahn, Robert Capron, Devon Bostick, Rachael Harris, Peyton List, Grayson Russell, Karan Brar, Laine MacNeil

By Derrick Bang
Enterprise film critic

Few things are dependable in Hollywood, but the movie adaptations of Jeff Kinney’s “Wimpy Kid” books are a welcome exception.

Various filmmaking teams have hewed closely to the all-essential tone established in Kinney’s books. Additionally, the clever means of animating his books’ stick-figure artwork — for title credits, and as transitional segments between live-action escapades — further reassures fans that these characters are in good hands.

Indeed. They’re also in good acting hands, and this continuity is just as pleasant. Although different cute girls have wandered in and out of hapless Greg Heffley’s orbit — it’s a shame Chloë Grace Moretz’s career took off, because it would have been nice to see her character again — the rest of the cast members have been a refreshing constant.

Best of all, director David Bowers and the production team possess the wisdom to resist the numbnuts slapstick that infects far too many so-called “family films” these days. To be sure, Greg’s various misadventures are mildly exaggerated for comic effect, but nothing here seems wholly inconceivable. And while some adults are held up for ridicule, that’s mostly a function of the way kids view their parents, as opposed to an indictment of anybody over the age of consent.

With school having let out for the summer, Greg (Zachary Gordon) is looking forward to endless days parked in front of the family TV set, playing his beloved video games. Alas, his parents have other ideas; his father (Steve Zahn, as Frank), in particular, wants his middle son to be more of an outdoor type, like the sports-minded boys who live across the street.

This strikes Greg as the height of absurdity, since he is — by his own admission — hardly anybody’s idea of well-toned physicality. And, truthfully, Frank should know better; his fondness for spending hours painting Civil War miniatures isn’t any different than Greg’s devotion to video games. And if you think there’s a lesson to be learned here, you’re correct.

Initially, though, Greg and his father have nothing in common … except their shared loathing of a sappy daily newspaper comic strip called “Li’l Cutie” … which seems a case of Kinney making fun of his own artistic stylings.

While dodging his father’s efforts to engage him in manly pursuits, Greg accepts an invitation to join best friend Rowley (Robert Capron) at his parents’ country club. This oasis of luxury — a universe removed from the horrors of the town’s public pool — comes complete with side benefits such as bottomless smoothies served by polite attendants, and the presence of adorable Holly Hills (Peyton List), still the unattainable object of Greg’s desire.

Unfortunately, the country club’s members also include the much-feared Patty Farrell (Laine MacNeil), who lives to humiliate our poor young hero.

Greg’s older brother, Rodrick (Devon Bostick), generally keeps to himself; this changes when he learns of Greg’s sudden proximity to Holly … because Rodrick has been trying to impress her older sister, the hilariously stuck-up Heather (Melissa Roxburgh). Rodrick still believes that the best way to a woman’s heart is through music, and thus constantly seeks a means of exposing Heather to his ghastly garage band, Loded Diper.

Greg’s sidebar excursions and setbacks include a weekend stay at a cabin, with Rowley’s sickeningly sweet parents; the addition of a large, slobbery dog — dubbed Sweetie — to the Heffley household; and Frank’s various methods of trying to bond with Greg, which include a camping trip and an internship at his office. Greg escapes the latter only by claiming to have secured a job at the country club: a lie that’s bound to be detected eventually, and he knows it.

At which point, Greg fears, his parents may give up on him completely, and ship him off to a nearby private academy for recalcitrant boys. And nothing would be worse than that.

Gordon continues to be just right as Greg: somewhat dweebish, always testing boundaries and seeking shortcuts — like any kid — and mischievous to a degree that stops short of anything truly harmful. His Walter Mitty-esque daydreams — so hilariously depicted in Kinney’s books — aren’t as prevalent this time out, but that’s all right; Greg finds plenty of real-world ways to be his own worst enemy.

Zahn once again displays his talent for befuddled slow takes and hilariously frozen stares, the latter put to good use each time Frank gets in trouble with his wife, Susan (Rachael Harris). It could be argued, however, that Sweetie’s presence skews this film’s tone in the wrong direction; Frank becomes a buffoon whenever the dog is around, and at least one sight gag is swiped from the Bumpus hounds in “A Christmas Story.”

Bostick, as always, is just right as the obnoxious, spelling-challenged older brother who believes black eyeliner to be the height of rock ’n’ roll fashion. Younger brother Manny, still played by twins Connor and Owen Fielding, exists mostly for some gross sight gags … such as the little guy’s notion of soap.

Capron is marvelous as the meek, fearful Rowley: the stereotypical sheltered kid whose parents have done him no favors by “protecting” him from the horrors of the real world … such as a hair-raising carnival ride called the Cranium Shaker. At the same time, Rowley possesses core values of integrity that are somewhat lacking in Greg’s character, and the wide-eyed Capron lands more than a few perceptive remarks.

That’s the major thrust of these stories, of course: Everybody in Greg’s world — whether his parents, best friend or even older brother — serves as a collective, de facto conscience. Gentle lessons are learned, although scripters Maya Forbes (“The Larry Sanders Show”) and Wally Wolodarsky (“The Simpsons”) take pains to avoid sounding preachy.

Grayson Russell returns as the gross and socially unacceptable Fregley, and diminutive Karan Brar makes the most of his brief scenes as the amusingly solemn, wise-cracking Chirag. Watch closely, and you’ll spot Kinney during a crowd scene at Heather’s “Sweet 16” party.

Sadly, Gordon already is maturing beyond his somewhat undernourished stature as a “wimpy kid,” and his voice has deepened a bit. Kinney’s seven books remain fixed in their middle school setting, which Gordon is outgrowing; 20th Century Fox needs to gamble aggressively and rush three more films through back-to-back production during the next 12 months, in order to keep the cast intact, and so we can enjoy Greg Heffley’s antics for the next several years.

“Wimpy Kid” still rules.

— Read more of Derrick Bang’s film criticism at http://derrickbang.blogspot.com. Comment on this review at www.davisenterprise.com

‘Ice Age: Continental Drift’

Four stars

Starring (voices only): Ray Romano, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah, Peter Dinklage, Jennifer Lopez, Keke Palmer, Josh Gad, Seann William Scott and Josh Peck

Rating: PG, for action/peril and mild rude humor

Chris Wedge deserves a great deal of credit.

During the decade since he co-directed “Ice Age,” back in 2002, the series has generated three sequels, each of which has been as fresh, funny and visually enchanting as the first film.

DreamWorks’ “Shrek” series (as one other example) hasn’t been nearly as consistent, with the same number of installments; Wedge, his Blue Sky Studios colleagues and their “sub-zero heroes” have scored runs with every turn at bat.

In no small measure, this is because Wedge and his rotating teams of scripters understand the importance of story. Each new film doesn’t feel like a box office-driven remake of the same basic plot elements, as often happens with lesser sequels; the “Ice Age” entries build on each other, forming distinct chapters of a much broader narrative whose limits have yet to be reached.

Plus, Blue Sky’s films are funny. Very funny.

And more than a little subversive.

As has been true with each “Ice Age” installment, the acorn-seeking Scrat’s hilarious escapades serve as “bumpers” between significant events in the central narrative experienced by an ever-expanding cast of major characters.

Scrat’s attempt to bury an acorn in a frozen ice bank sets off a chain of tectonic events that proves calamitous for all of our other prehistoric animal friends … and, incidentally, separates Earth’s land masses into the seven continents we know today.

A particularly nasty seismic shift separates Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano), Diego the sabertooth tiger (Denis Leary) and Sid the slobbering sloth (John Leguizamo) from the rest of their “mixed herd.” When last seen by everybody else, Manny, Diego and Sid are drifting away from land on an ocean-bound chunk of ice. Also along for the ride: Sid’s denture-challenged Granny (Wanda Sykes).

Back on land, with an advancing mountainous wall threatening to push everybody into the sea, Manny’s better half, Ellie (Queen Latifah), and their headstrong teenage daughter, Peaches (Keke Palmer), organize the others into a rapid march to a nearby “land bridge” that will lead to safety. Trouble-prone possums Crash and Eddie (Seann William Scott and Josh Peck) mindlessly embrace this continental crack-up as another great adventure, while newcomer Louis — a mole hog voiced by Josh Gad (imagine a prehistoric meerkat) — takes a warier view.

Louis has a huge (if impractical) crush on Peaches, who treats him only as a best friend; she’s potty for the self-absorbed Ethan (hip-hop star Drake), the local Big Mammoth on Campus. Prior to their seismic-induced separation, Manny and his headstrong daughter butted heads over her coming-of-age issues; indeed, the bonds of family — in many different variations — keep this story’s loving heart beating throughout increasingly dire events.

Although being adrift in the ocean would be bad enough, things get much worse when Manny, Granny, Sid and Diego encounter a rag-tag pirate crew — aboard a giant ice ship — led by a fearsome, wickedly clawed orangutan dubbed Gutt (Peter Dinklage). The name, Gutt cheerfully explains to his new captives, results from his ability to “turn your innards into your outards.”

Gutt’s varied crew includes first mate Flynn (Nick Frost), a jiggly, giggly elephant seal; Squint (Aziz Ansari), an over-caffeinated bunny with a Napoleon complex; Raz (Rebel Wilson), a prehistoric kangaroo with a penchant for weapons; and Gupta (Kunal Nayyar), a prehistoric badger whose skull-and-crossbones-patterned fur makes him a perfect ship’s pennant.

Oh, and Shira (Jennifer Lopez), a cunning, sexy female sabertooth who immediately views Diego as a challenge to be bested.

Gutt is determined to conscript the new arrivals; Manny is equally determined to return — somehow — to his family. Needless to say, things don’t proceed as anybody expects. Subsequent events unfold in distinct, well-paced acts, with co-directors Steve Martino (“Horton Hears a Who”) and Mike Thurmeier (“Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs”) deftly cross-cutting between the two separated sets of characters.

Each act has its own quite satisfying minor crisis and partial resolution, with everything building to an exciting climax. Scripters Michael Berg and Jason Fuchs definitely know how to establish, maintain and build our emotional investment.

Along the way, we’re equally involved with inter-personal issues, such as Diego’s efforts to talk Shira away from the dark side, and Peaches’ thoughtless snub of poor little Louis. And then there’s the mystery of Granny’s “Precious,” a pet she keeps feeding on the sly, but which nobody else has ever seen.

With a voice cast this talented — and this laden with masters of split-second comic timing — it’s difficult to single out one performance over another. Leguizamo continues to be a stitch as the speech-mangling Sid, particularly when stricken by paralysis-inducing berries; Sykes is every bit as funny as the similarly saliva-spewing Granny.

Romano remains the eternally put-upon husband he played so well on his own TV series, with an equally clueless view of fatherhood thrown in for good measure. Dinklage is impressively nasty and ferocious as the villainous Gutt, while Gad grants the diminutive Louis a sense of nobility that far outstrips his size.

Martino, Thurmeier and cinematographer Renato Falcao make excellent use of this film’s 3-D imaging, with exhilarating sequences that justify the premium admission price. John Powell’s rip-roaring score adds to the frantic action, while also nicely complementing (for example) gentler moments between father and daughter mammoths.

In all respects, “Ice Age: Continental Drift” is a hilarious, suspenseful and inventively amusing romp, with a strong emotional core. I can’t wait for Part Five.

— Read more of Derrick Bang’s film criticism at derrickbang.blogspot.com. Comment on this review at www.davisenterprise.com