The Expendables 2 Opening Scene Analysis

 The Expendables 2 Opening Scene Analysis (Action)



Sound is very important within an action film as the constant use of diegetic sounds help set the tone of the movie and helps add emphasis to the mood and atmosphere for the audience. Non-diegetic music is used to reflect the narrative events of the film such as the attempted breakout of a man being tortured in the opening scene. Diegetic sound is used in the dialogue between the characters in the different armed convoys, it reveals to the audience the close relationships between the main characters and helps the audience relate to the characters more, this shows that the action genre often relies on more than one character to help carry the plot of the film and they often are very closely bonded.

An establishing shot is used to show the audience the setting of the opening scene which in this case is a desert village, this establishes where the narrative is going to take place. A close-up shot is used to show the characters different thoughts and opinions of the events unfolding around them, and also helps allow the audience to understand more of the connections between the characters as you can here the dialogue between the characters. A two-shot is used of the characters played by Jason Statham and Jet Li to show the relationship between the characters. A tracking shot follows the action of the armed convoy as it moves along the desert to reveal to the audience the direction and speed in which they are travelling which helps immerse the audience in the films world. This engages the audience in the array of gunfire and violence and may allow the audience to relate this action movie to others.

The main characters are introduced in the opening scene when it zooms in on the armed convoys, the audience recognises that they are the main characters through the use of their dialogue between eachother and the wide array of camera shots that they are involved in.

Certain enigmas are used in the opening scene of the Expendables 2 such as the puzzles about the characters bonds outside of the current event which is happening, this makes the audience curious as they wish to find out more about the characters and allows them to easily become immersed in the situation the characters are placed in. The audience wants to know what will happen to the characters after they successfully break into this stone building with their armed convoy and this allows them to relate more to the characters if they feel a sense of familiarity with the characters due to the dialogue between the characters and how they look out for eachother.

In the opening the audience can see that the characters are wearing some sort of military uniform, this hows the audience that they may have some sort of training and so they have skills in army related missions in their lives. They also happen to wear the uniforms in a messy fashion which infers to the audience they may be ex-military due to some sort of discharged from duty. The uniform often shows the muscle of the main characters (Stallone, Statham etc) to show the masculinity of the film, this is typical of the action genre as they tend to make the characters very muscular and this helps the audience to relate these characters to others from previous movies in the action genre.

Noticeable cliches are used in the opening scene as they use an extensive amount of gunfire and heavy duty vehicles to help emphasise the action genre qualitites in the film, this engages the audience as they recognise these features and can predict what is going to happen in the story.

The Expendables 2 Opening Scene