The Expendables 2 Touches Down on BD, DVD

Ready for some hardcore ass kicking? Well, you're in luck! Lionsgate Home Entertainment will bring the smash-hit sequel, The Expendables 2, to Blu-ray, DVD and Digital Download November 20, 2012, just in time for Thanksgiving!

While not as a big of a hit in the U.S. as the first feature, the star-studded sequel was a huge success overseas, grossing nearly $300 million worldwide.

The Expendables 2 will come to Blu-ray and DVD fully loaded with bonus features. The Blu-ray will boast a 1080p hi-def transfer, with 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. The DVD will feature an anamorphic widescreen presentation with 5.1 Dolby Digital audio. Extras will include the following:

• Audio commentary with director Simon West
• "Gods of War: Assembling Earth's Mightiest Anti-Heroes" featurette
• "Big Guns, Bigger Heroes: The 1980's and the Rise of the Action Film" featurette
• "On the Assault: The Real-Life Weaponry of The Expendables" featurette
• "Guns for Hire: The Real Expendables" featurette
• Deleted Scenes
• Gag Reel

Suggested retail is set at $39.99 for the Blu-ray and $29.95 for the DVD. Amazon's current pre-order pricing is set at $27.99 for the Blu-ray and $20.97 for the DVD.

Stay tuned for more news, and be sure to check back for our review of The Expendables 2 on Blu-ray this November!

R.L. Shaffer is a writer for IGN. He loves a good '80s throwback! Be sure to follow his Twitter, Facebook and MyIGN for quotes, rants, reviews, news and more!

Source : ign[dot]com

The Expendables 2 Touches Down on BD, DVD

Ready for some hardcore ass kicking? Well, you're in luck! Lionsgate Home Entertainment will bring the smash-hit sequel, The Expendables 2, to Blu-ray, DVD and Digital Download November 20, 2012, just in time for Thanksgiving!

While not as a big of a hit in the U.S. as the first feature, the star-studded sequel was a huge success overseas, grossing nearly $300 million worldwide.

The Expendables 2 will come to Blu-ray and DVD fully loaded with bonus features. The Blu-ray will boast a 1080p hi-def transfer, with 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. The DVD will feature an anamorphic widescreen presentation with 5.1 Dolby Digital audio. Extras will include the following:

• Audio commentary with director Simon West
• "Gods of War: Assembling Earth's Mightiest Anti-Heroes" featurette
• "Big Guns, Bigger Heroes: The 1980's and the Rise of the Action Film" featurette
• "On the Assault: The Real-Life Weaponry of The Expendables" featurette
• "Guns for Hire: The Real Expendables" featurette
• Deleted Scenes
• Gag Reel

Suggested retail is set at $39.99 for the Blu-ray and $29.95 for the DVD. Amazon's current pre-order pricing is set at $27.99 for the Blu-ray and $20.97 for the DVD.

Stay tuned for more news, and be sure to check back for our review of The Expendables 2 on Blu-ray this November!

R.L. Shaffer is a writer for IGN. He loves a good '80s throwback! Be sure to follow his Twitter, Facebook and MyIGN for quotes, rants, reviews, news and more!

Source : ign[dot]com

It Would Be a Van Damme Shame if You Missed Any of These

Did you miss any of our Greatest Hits reels for the superstars of The Expendables 2? Here they all are, in one handy location. It's one shot of triple-distilled testosterone after the other, so line up those glasses.

Cop a roundhouse kick to your adrenal gland with this video tribute to Chuck Norris' greatest hits, kicks and 'splosions.

A celebration of the kicks, splits and goofy dance moves delivered by the Muscles from Brussels.

The Yippee Ki-A to Z of Bruce Willis' action hero career.

Tracing the cinematic history of the raspy-voiced British action hero.

A look back at the careers of the two titans of action movie excellence.

Source : ign[dot]com

Expendables 2 Runs Over Premium Rush at Box Office

As expected, The Expendables 2 remained the box office champ for the second weekend in a row. This was a particularly anemic weekend at the domestic box office, where none of Hollywood's new releases cracked $10 million.

The Joseph Gordon-Levitt bike thriller Premium Rush was dead on arrival, debuting near the bottom of the Top 10. The biggest box office surprise was the anti-Obama indie documentary 2016: Obama's America, which only played in a third of the cinemas as Hollywood's new releases.

Here are the weekend estimates via Rentrak:

1. The Expendables 2 $13.5 million
2. The Bourne Legacy $9.3 million
3. ParaNorman $8.5 million
4. The Campaign $7.4 million
5. The Dark Knight Rises $7.2 million
6. The Odd Life of Timothy Green $7.1 million
7. Premium Rush $6.3 million
8. 2016: Obama's America $6.2 million
9. Hope Springs $6 million
10. Hit and Run $4.7 million

The long delayed horror flick The Apparition debuted in 12th place with $3 million, but it was only playing in 810 locations.

Listen to Keepin' It Reel to find out how we did with our box office predictions!

Source : ign[dot]com

Chuck Norris: No Expendables 3 for Me

Action icon Chuck Norris says he has no intention on returning for The Expendables 3.

Norris made the declaration during a red carpet interview with Access Hollywood at the premiere of The Expendables 2. Scrub forward to about 1:15 in the video below for Chuck's full response (thanks to Latino-Review for the head's-up):

Now check out the video below for our Expendables 3 dream cast!

Source : ign[dot]com

The Expendables 2 Tops the Box Office

The star-studded action sequel The Expendables 2 opened atop the weekend box office, bumping last weekend's champ The Bourne Legacy to second place. The Bourne Legacy fell 55% from its opening last weekend for a current domestic cume of $69.6 million. Newcomers ParaNorman and Sparkle, the latter featuring the final screen performance of the late Whitney Houston, both debuted in the Top 5.

Here are the weekend estimates via Rentrak:

1. The Expendables 2 $28.8 million

2. The Bourne Legacy $17 million

3. ParaNorman $14 million

4. The Campaign $13.4 million

5. Sparkle $12 million

6. The Dark Knight Rises $11.1 million

7. The Odd Life of Timothy Green $10.9 million

8. Hope Springs $9.1 million

9. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days $3.9 million

10. Total Recall $3.5 million

Listen to Keepin' It Reel to find out how we did with our box office predictions!

Source : ign[dot]com

Stallone vs Schwarzenegger: Battle of the Trailers

With cinema’s greatest action heroes going toe-to-toe in The Expendables 2 this week, the powers that be decided it would be a good time to launch the trailers of two action movies starring the two biggest stars of them all last night.

Bullet to the Head is an ‘80s action throwback that stars Sylvester Stallone, while The Last Stand is an '80s action throwback that stars Arnold Schwarzenegger.

So with these two long-time rivals going head-to-head, we thought we’d pit their trailers against each other in a winner-takes-all deathmatch. So read on to find out if Sly or Arnie comes out the other side victorious.

THE PLOT

Bullet to the Head

Sylvester Stallone stars as a New Orleans hit-man who teams up with a New York City cop to bring down the killers of their respective partners.

The Last Stand

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a small-town sheriff who is forced to put his life on the line when a drug-lord enters his jurisdiction while making a break for the border.

THE ACTION

Bullet to the Head

The trailer kicks off with a near-naked Stallone – save for a pair of boxer shorts – kicking the proverbial out of someone poor unfortunate soul in what looks like a bath-house. There follows several montages of quick-fire punch-ups and bodies falling from tall buildings alongside shots of cars blowing up. Lots of shots of cars blowing up.

The Last Stand

Arnie’s film kicks off with a spectacular car stunt involving lots of guns and bullets and continues in this vein, with The Last Stand clearly featuring more than its fair share of car chases, including one involving a school bus. Schwarzenegger himself gets thrown through a door before putting the beat down on one of the baddies, and it concludes with the money shot – Arnie firing a shotgun with purpose, Terminator-style.

THE DIALOGUE

Bullet to the Head

Stallone does tough: “You know who I am? A problem solver. I take out the trash.”

Stallone does racist: “What are you going to do – bring out some kung fu from the homeland?”

Stallone makes a threat: “I swear to you when I get this guy, it’s going to be bad.”

Stallone does funny: “Are we gonna fight, or are you planning on boring me to death?”

The Last Stand

Schwarzenegger gets it wrong: “It’s my day off – should be a quiet weekend.”

Schwarzenegger does serious: “I’ve seen enough blood and death – I know what’s coming.”

Schwarzenegger makes a threat: I’m not going to let that guy come through our town without a fight.”

Schwarzenegger does funny: “How are you sheriff?” “Old!”

THE CO-STARS

Bullet to the Head

Christian Slater, looking like he’s about to get a bullet to the head.

The Last Stand

Johnny Knoxville, looking like he’s channelling his character from The Ringer.

THE STARS

Bullet to the Head

Stallone is looking as tough as he’s ever been in Bullet to the Head, cracking bones and gags with the effortlessness of an experienced pro. Judging from the top-less brawl he’s still in good shape, while the tag-line reads ‘Revenge never gets old,' and from this trailer it appears that neither does Sly.

The Last Stand

Schwarzenegger is looking a little creaky in this one, although that might be because the trailer plays upon his aging sheriff enjoying the quiet life in a small town. That said, once he gets that murderous look in his eye and starts shooting the place up to protect his patch, it’s a bullet-ridden joy to behold.

THE WINNER

Got to be Bullet to the Head, with Sly’s vengeful hit-man narrowly defeating Arnie’s aging law-man on the anticipation front. But that’s just our opinion - let us know in the poll below which trailer you like best, and look out for The Last Stand in cinemas next January and Bullet in Feb.

Chris Tilly is the Entertainment Editor for IGN and hopes Arnie doesn't read. His idle chit-chat can be found on both Twitter and MyIGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

The Expendables 2 Review

With Con Air's Simon West taking over the directing reins from Sylvester Stallone, The Expendables 2 is the star-studded, action epic many fans had hoped for with the first film. The plot is simple enough: The titular mercs (Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Randy Couture and new team members Liam Hemsworth and Yu Nan) lose one of their own during a mission overseas.

They then seek bloody retribution against the sinister Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and his private army, who also just so happen to have access to six tons of weapons-grade plutonium! The Expendables will have to call in some help from fellow, long-in the-tooth badasses -- Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger), CIA operative Mr. Church (Bruce Willis), and the enigmatic Booker (Chuck Norris) -- to get the job done.

The action lover's dream team doesn't disappoint in The Expendables 2, a sequel that's bigger, bolder and more badass than the original. This isn’t a great movie in the by-the-book sense, but it's loads of dumb fun and an old-fashioned action flick that works as a nostalgia trip for fans of the muscle-bound shoot ‘em-ups of the ‘80s and ‘90s.

The film’s action is non-stop, from the team’s opening rescue of a kidnapped Chinese billionaire to a climactic airport battle pitting the entire lineup against Van Damme and his henchmen. The much-hyped mano-a-mano brawl between Stallone and Van Damme is as brutally awesome as you’d hope, with the former showcasing his boxing badassery and the latter his still formidable kickboxing skills. Indeed, Van Damme is arguably the best one in the movie. He makes for a wonderfully sleazy bad guy – the film has a villain named Vilain! – and Van Damme really seems to be enjoying himself throughout.

Hemsworth brings some heart and not-too-saccharine nobility to his role as Billy the Kid, the young heir apparent to Sly’s Barney Ross, while Yu Nan holds her own with the testosterone-heavy ensemble. The funniest (and most meta) parts of the movie are the scenes with Norris. The movie has great fun playing on Norris’ now comedy fodder mystique in a role that’s a direct nod to his characters from Lone Wolf McQuade and Good Guys Wear Black. Norris’ character here is a one man army-meets-deus ex machina.

Willis seems to rouse himself from his now-predictable sleepwalking through movies long enough to have a nice, tense scene with Stallone early on, and it’s an undeniable hoot to see him and Arnold in action together (especially their funny Smart Car gag). That said, their jokey nods to their most famous movie lines are groaners that fall flat.

Surprisingly, Schwarzenegger is pretty rusty here; his comedic timing is off and he seems like he needed a few more takes to be more like his old onscreen self after so many years away from movies. Lundgren gets a few moments to shine here, with the movie managing to work in a few nods to his impressive academic background, and Statham has a few thrilling knife fight scenes.

As said earlier, The Expendables 2 isn’t a great movie by any stretch – there are some dramatic scenes that play as unintentionally funny, the characters are all paper-thin, and Stallone’s delivery makes Bane sound positively eloquent – but you’d have to be a real tightass to not enjoy seeing Sly, Arnold and Bruce finally kicking ass together on the silver screen. The Expendables 2 certainly ends this summer movie season with a helluva bang.

Source : ign[dot]com

Harrison Ford in Expendables 3 Talks

With The Expendables 2 about to hit cinemas worldwide, producer Avi Lerner has been discussing a potential threequel, with some very big names apparently in talks.

Speaking to Total Film, Lerner said “We’ve approached Clint Eastwood to be one of the guys. We’ve got a character in mind for him. We’re talking to Harrison Ford. Wesley Snipes when he comes back from prison. I’ll give you one more name – we’ve got Nicolas Cage.”

And if that weren’t enough testosterone Lerner also has plans for one of the stars of the original who failed to return for part two.

“We’re going to bring Mickey Rourke back, if he won’t be too crazy. I like Mickey. And of course, all the existing stars [will return].”

Which includes the superstar likes of Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jason Statham and Jet Li.

So are there any other action stars you’d like to see added to the Expendables rosta?

Chris Tilly is the Entertainment Editor for IGN and is all about Rowdy Roddy Piper for Expendables 3. His idle chit-chat can be found on both Twitter and MyIGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

The Expendables 2 Videogame Review

When you and your bros go to watch The Expendables 2, the goofy Willis/Schwarzenegger/Van Damme trailers will have prepped you for what to expect: explosions, one-liners and cheese. When you go to play The Expendables 2 Videogame, the goofy title screen with its low-res text and lackluster animations will have prepped you for what to expect: explosions, a Stallone sound-a-like, and a four-player shooter that's just mediocre.

Through four chapters packing drop-in/drop-out online/offline co-op, The Expendables 2 casts you in the roles made famous by Sly Stallone, Jet Li, Terry Crews and Dolph Lundgren. Each character has a different armament (a pistol, SMG, shotgun and sniper rifle, respectively), and it's up to you to take them from Point A to Point B killing everything that moves (also known as enemies who are all dressed the same).

“

The Expendables 2 just doesn't click as a package.

It's your standard top-down arcade shooter. Rather than picking up power-ups, you pick up AKs and rocket launchers. There are collectable Expendables icons that fill in a meter and let you pull off Signature Kills, where the camera zooms in and shows your character impressively slitting a throat or blowing a dude away from pointblank range. Sometimes, you climb in a helicopter and shoot at ground troops via an onscreen reticle.

And then, you repeat this. Over and over again. If you're just looking to blow stuff up, it isn't a bad time; it just isn't an impressive time. The voice acting will make you chuckle (though Crews and Lundren lend their pipes), the story is non-existent, and the action turns to chaos in huge fights. Whereas Dead Nation and other top-down shooters put a laser sight on every weapon, The Expendables 2 doesn't. Stallone's shots just fly off into the distance; they're helped towards enemies in that direction, but picking off enemies on top of train cars and in elevated towers can be troublesome when you're on the ground.

However, that's really only an issue if you're playing on the Hardcore difficulty. Casual difficulty is nerfed to the point that I'd just run into the middle of enemy groups and start meleeing without a care in the world. On Hardcore, you're taken down quickly if you don't use cover, but taking cover feels weird in a run and gun arcade shooter.

The carrot on the end of the stick is that The Expendables 2 gets easier as you play. You kill stuff and earn XP that you can spend on upgrades for your weapons and attributes; but even these are basic and unsexy. If you want to throw an additional $3 into the game, you can max out all the characters before you even fire your first shot.

In-game, The Expendables 2 looks fine -- it's a bit barren when it comes to environments and textures -- but the general package and ambiance feels so cheap. All the fonts used for text in this game are jaggy, and the menu system has no flair. This is the most rudimentary looking game in terms of presentation I've played in my 5 and a half years at IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com