The five best action movie references in The Expendables 2

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Rex Features



From the moment Sylvester Stallone brings down a helicopter with a motorbike seconds into the opening scene, it's clear that The Expendables 2 is even more ridiculously over the top than the first film. The scale of the action is astonishing (enough extras die in the first five minutes to fill the entire cast of most films) but Stallone and co's return - this time directed by Con Air's Simon West - is also far funnier. This series isn't just a bombastic, claret-soaked fist-bumping slaughter-fest but a love letter to the classic action films that helped make stars of the enormous cast, now including Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme as well as the likes of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Li, Lundgren and Willis. Here's just a few of the references we spotted amongst the incessant machine gun fire...

  1. When Chuck Norris' character Booker - his name is a reference to the actor's own Good Guys Wear Black from 1978 - the cast drop in a few Chuck Norris Facts. "I heard you got bitten by a king cobra," says Stallone. "Yeah," replies Norris. "But after several days of excruciating pain, the cobra died."

  2. When Arnold Schwarzenegger borrows a gun from Terry Crews' character Hale Caesar, Crews responds, "If I don't get this back, your ass is terminated."

  3. The former Governator, after a particularly exhaustive killing spree, turns and says: "Who's next, Rambo?!"

  4. Stallone asks Norris "I thought you were the Lone Wolf?" - a nod to 1983's Lone Wolf McQuade.

Norris' response? "Sometimes it's fun to run with the pack."

  1. When Schwarzenegger announces "I'm out of ammo. I'll be back", his fellow Planet Hollywood investor Bruce Willis replies, "You've been back enough. I'll be back!" Returning the favour, Schwarzenegger shouts out "Yippee-ki-yay!" Eyes (and sadly not credits) roll.

The Expendables 2 is out on 16 August.