Here’s something I never thought I’d see, an action movie poster that offers a witty take on Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic painting, The Last Supper. The Expendables 2 marketing campaign has gone down said route and delivered such a thing. Stallone, of course, plays the Jesus figure.

It isn’t an exact match to da Vinci’s controversial work (conspiracy theorists see all sorts of things in it), so there’s no point looking at who the betrayer might be, though Dolph Lundgren’s character turned bad in the first one.

Stallone handed over the directing reins to Con Air’s Simon West for this much anticipated sequel. It’s ‘much anticipated’ because the first one promised so much and delivered on a smidgen of that promise. Let’s hope West can inject some winning Con Air lunacy into proceedings and make this a movie to remember.

The Expendables are back and this time it’s personal… Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren),Toll Road (Randy Couture) and Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) — with newest members Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) and Maggie (Yu Nan) aboard — are reunited when Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) enlists the Expendables to take on a seemingly simple job. The task looks like an easy paycheck for Barney and his band of old-school mercenaries. But when things go wrong and one of their own is viciously killed, the Expendables are compelled to seek revenge in hostile territory where the odds are stacked against them. Hell-bent on payback, the crew cuts a swath of destruction through opposing forces, wreaking havoc and shutting down an unexpected threat in the nick of time – six pounds of weapons-grade plutonium; enough to change the balance of power in the world. But that’s nothing compared to the justice they serve against the villainous adversary who savagely murdered their brother. That is done the Expendables way….

UK Release Date: 17th August
US Release Date: 17th August

Source: Collider