Rocky Balboa, The Terminator, John McClane, Ivan Drago, Colonel Guile and Chuck Norris. These characters have all been portrayed by one of the many action heroes who get to shoot bullets through the screen again in the new action ensemble sequel “The Expendables 2,” directed by Simon West of “Tomb Raider,” and written by Sylvester Stallone and Richard Wenk.

In this action packed sequel, the audience gets to follow Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and his group of mercenaries for another mission. This time around, they must stop a group of terrorists led by Jean Vilain (Jean Claude Van-Damme) from reaching an area full of plutonium before Jean does.

Barney’s mercenaries become even more motivated to stop Vilain’s plans when they witness the aftermath of what Jean’s group of terrorists did to a local town when they refused to help Jean’s gang with finding the plutonium. The remainder of the film centers around Barney’s group of mercenaries trying to figure out how to stop Vilain for good, and how they must divide and conquer, as well as recruit the right people to get the job done right.

There are plenty of ‘80s homages and throwbacks throughout this well-made action film to satisfy any action movie fan’s ideal vision of the genre. The sequel also manages to provide more effective drama and more personal connections with its audience than the first film did. The fans of the first film who felt that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis were not given enough to do will be much happier with this film since they both are given a much larger role in this mind-blowing sequel. The fans might also really enjoy some of the new characters in the sequel like Maggie (Yu Nan), the first female expendable, and the sequel’s new villain, Jean Vilain.

Even though “The Expendables 2” more than likely will make the action-movie fans happy, it does have some flaws. Many viewers won’t like that the film tends to cheat at times, such as the characters not having access to certain things in one moment, and in the next second they randomly get that weapon, vehicle or device that they did not have a few seconds ago, but they randomly get it since the story required it for the current situation.

Fans of Jet Li or Randy Couture might be underwhelmed also since the two action heroes rarely get anything to do throughout this film, and Jet Li is only seen in the film for roughly the first 25 minutes or so. Also, Mickey Rourke’s character, Tool, from the first film did not come back for the sequel, which is too bad since Tool was a great comic relief and supporting character in the first film. Fans of Dolph Lundgren might also find the new miraculous smart half of his personality to be out of place for his character Gunner, since he was more of a goofball and troublemaker in the first film.

Overall, despite the film’s occasional flaws, “The Expend

ables 2” is a fun ‘80s action movie throwback that also manages to provide its viewers with some impressive action sequences.