The Expendables 2

"Back for War."

2012 1h 43m EN

😐

6.4

MID

🍅

68%

FRESH

😬

METACRITIC

⭐

6.6

IMDB

★6.4TMDB · 7,360🍅68%Rotten Tomatoes●51Metacritic★6.6IMDB · 334,324

ActionAdventureThriller

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Mr. Church reunites the Expendables for what should be an easy paycheck, but when one of their men is murdered on the job, their quest for revenge puts them deep in enemy territory and up against an unexpected threat.

“Back for War.”

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Where to watch · US

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Cast

Sylvester Stallone
Barney Ross
Jason Statham
Lee Christmas
Jet Li
Yin Yang
Dolph Lundgren
Gunner Jensen
Chuck Norris
Booker
Jean-Claude Van Damme
Jean Vilain
Bruce Willis
Church
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Trench

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Simon West
Writers: Richard Wenk, Richard Wenk, Sylvester Stallone
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America, Bulgaria, Germany

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

$100M budget — tentpole studio territory.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Made its money back 3.1× over at the box office.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 14 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 3 countries: United States of America, Bulgaria, Germany.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

Part of the "The Expendables Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

CAST

Did you know

222+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Simon West, shot by Shelly Johnson. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Brian Tyler. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Simon West directs. Shelly Johnson behind the camera. Brian Tyler scores. Todd E. Miller cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America, Bulgaria, Germany. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1$100M budget — tentpole studio territory.
2Made its money back 3.1× over at the box office.
3Released 14 years ago.
4International production across 3 countries: United States of America, Bulgaria, Germany.
5Part of the "The Expendables Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
6222+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.
7Directed by Simon West, shot by Shelly Johnson. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
8Original score by Brian Tyler. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
9Editor Todd E. Miller shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
10Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham and Jet Li carry the top of the cast.
11Marketing tagline: "Back for War.".
12IMDB entry: tt1764651 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
13Classified under 8 themes, including "airplane", "loss of loved one", "mercenary", "sequel".
14Released under 14 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Shelly Johnson
Original score: Brian Tyler
Editing: Todd E. Miller
Production design: Paul Cross
Costume design: Lizz Wolf
Makeup / hair: Nicole Venables
VFX supervisor: Stefan Tchakarov
Sound: Chris David
Stunt coordinator: Asim Ahmad
Runtime: 103 min · 1h 43m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $100,000,000
Box office: $314,975,955
Return: 315% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: The Expendables 2 (2012)
Rotten Tomatoes: 68% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 51/100
IMDB rating: 6.6/10 · 334,324 votes
MPAA: R

Awards

4 wins & 5 nominations total

Part of

The Expendables Collection

An ensemble action film series about a group of elite mercenaries. This series pays tribute to the blockbuster action films of the 1980s and early 1990s, starring an array of action veterans from those decades.

Also by

Simon West

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Community reviews

What people are saying

poisoned2012-10-14
★ 2/10
Jokes aren't funny. Scene logic is stupid. It´s a movie about guys with plastics in action!
Dark Jedi2018-04-30
★ 8/10
This is a movie that you watch for two things and two things only, the action and seeing your old favourite macho-guys on the screen again. For me, it was mostly the action since some of these old guys are really…well…getting old. At least Stallone, Dolph and “Schwarzy” starts to get well past the best before date for these type of roles. Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme actually didn’t look that old and Bruce Willis had a role where his age didn’t make him seem too misplaced. This movie is pretty much like the first The Expendables, that is some minimal story to build a whole bunch of action against. And action there is, lots of it. All of it quite well done although not always very realistic of course. In general it seems like the so called “critics” liked this movie more than the previous one. This I do not understand since I thought they were pretty similar and if nothing else, that the previous one was the better of them with a slightly more coherent and plausible plot. For instance, in this movie, old buddies where popping up out of nowhere saving their behinds with some pretty “magic” display of firepower which felt like the scene was just put in there to get the actor into the movie…which it probably was. I’m not complaining though. I wanted and expected an all-out action movie and that was what I got. Loads of action, macho-dialogue and cheesy jokes (I quite liked Schwarzy’s comment about that Smart crapmobile that they drove around inside the airport). Oh, and of course loads of references to other movies (Rambo, Terminator…) and stuff as well. They even managed to get a quote from Duke Nuke’m in there. I enjoyed myself immensely when watching this movie.