Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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20 UCW FEBRUARY 11-17, 2015 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM If Liam Neeson's turn as Bryan Mills in Taken 2 verged on a parody of tra- ditional masculinity then Taken 3 (109 minutes) crosses the line into full-on caricature. He is ridiculously patriar- chal, treating his full grown daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace) like a fragile f low- er, stalking around her and her boy- friend with giant stuffed pandas like a creeper. What really sells the cringe- worthy treatment of his daughter, for me at least, is how much he channels his "good cop" character from The Lego Movie whenever he talks to her. It sounds like repressed madness is ready to pour from the heavens via his protective hands to make her safe, even if it means pumping her full of formaldehyde and enclosing her in plastic. Anyway, having run out of vaguely Eurasian migrants to slaughter by the handful on the other side of the world, Bryan Mills settles back into his easy chair to reconcile with his wife and kill people domestically. You see, Lenore (Famke Janssen) is tired of being the wife of a wealthy and powerful man, and has decided that being the wife of a sociopath with boundary issues is a much better deal. Of course, Mills manfully turns her down on the grounds that she is still married to Stuart (Dougray Scott), since mass murder is cool with his conscience but adultery crosses a line. After that compelling set-up, Lenore gets her throat slit, and Mills ends up on the run. This time it's really, really personal (unlike the last two films, in which it was sequentially personal and then really personal). Mills uses all his secret agent guy contacts to head underground and leave Kim secret coded messages right out of Alice in Wonderland. I am forced to wonder: what if someone else had grabbed the peach smoothie yogurt drink labeled "Drink Me Now?" What if the military grade emetic Mills put in the drink wasn't supposed to be administered to pregnant women? Oh yeah, for no particular reason Kim is pregnant, and despite her wealth and privilege this is sold as a potential impediment to her college education in order to generate some drama. To be fair, I suppose trying to manage a major in Being Utterly Useless and minoring in Not Being Able to Defend Yourself might interfere with writ- ing checks to a nanny. Having established that Kim will drink anything she's told, no questions asked, the scene shifts to college. Mills hastily finds the only bathroom in the world with a conveniently placed window and waits for Kim to magi- cally sense his presence and join him. The police catch on, Mills causes the entire building to panic and run with a smoke bomb. At some point there's a car chase filled with jump-cuts and close-ups followed by fighting, and then another sloppily lensed car chase. The next act begins with Mills waterboard- ing Stuart. Because if we stop waterboarding people we don't like, the terror- ists will have won, I guess? Anyway, Stuart seems to fold like wet cardboard after about 30 seconds of bravado in the face of the Man With Certain Skills. Apparently, some Russian dude named Oleg Malankov (Sam Spruell, The Last Ship) killed Lenore and now Mills is going to go and kill him. Because in an action movie, two wrongs always make a right. After a ridiculously com- plicated set-up, Mills enters Malankov's luxury suite and murder-kills every- thing with a pulse. I wouldn't want to spoil the ending for you diehard fans — but I do want to mention the completely ineffectual Inspector Dotzler (Forest Whitaker). At the end of the film, he is apparently not pressing any charges, ignoring the few dozen dead henchman Mills took out near the end of the movie, not to mention all the attacks on police and infinity-plus-one laws broken by Mills on his quest to illegally assassinate a foreign national. Now playing at Wynnsong 7, Market Fari 15, Carmike 12 and Patriot 14. Bryan Mills vs. the LAPD Taken 3 (Rated PG-13) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910.484.6200. Please join us for Better Health's 18 tH AnnuAl EvEning At tHE tHEAtEr HEAvy Hors d'oEuvrEs, livE sHow and cAsino gAmEs! wAynE Euliss in cAssAndrA vAllEry and V iva F ay V egas! V iva F ay V egas! Better Health has served our community for 57 years....bridging the gaps in healthcare by providing emergency financial assistance for medical needs, diabetes education programs, medical equipment loans, Eat smart, move more Kids childhood obesity prevention program and referral to health resources. Help us help our neighbors in need! saturday, February 28, 2015, 7pm-10pm Highland country club betterhealthcc.org • 910.483.7534 HigH rollEr cape Fear valley Health Anna c. cole, lPc Kimrey law, Pllc timothy d. 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