I make no apologies for being excited about The Expendables 2, regardless of how over the top and absurd it might look.  Actually, I'm excited because of that, not in spite of it.  So now that we've got a look at the first clip from the film, I'm happy to say that it's more or less what you would have expected if you were a fan of the first film.  It features Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) trading bullets, explosions and one-liners with a gang of mercenaries.  Lucky for the expendable duo, they brought backup.

Simon West's The Expendables 2, also starring Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Liam Hemsworth, Yu Nan, Chuck Norris, Scott Adkins and Jean Claude Van Damme, opens August 17th.  Hit the jump to check out the clip.

Here's the first clip from The Expendables 2:

Here’s the synopsis:

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….

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