Of course, "The Expendables 2" is all good fun and games and recycled catchphrases. Until somebody gets hurt. A lot of somebodies.

When you're filling the screen with every big-screen action star of the past 25 years and every one of them needs his own body count, you see the problem. You run smack up against the Maximum Mayhem Threshold.

"Expendables 2" is a sillier wallow in excess, a too-cute trip down '80s Action-Film Lane with one past-his-expiration-date action hero too many for its own good.

It's a "Road Runner" cartoon for the bloody-minded, a wise-cracking cavalcade of carnage that hurls bullet-proof heroes at the huddled masses of villains, defies the laws of physics and treats us to so much bloodshed that it's only natural that some of it should spatter on the lens.

Irresponsible as a first-person shooter video game? You bet. But it holds together, more or less, right up to the moment Chuck Norris and his dyed beard make their preposterous appearance.