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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Chuck Norris Doesn't Sleep, He Waits The Expendables 2 (Rated R) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS As a special treat, I will begin this review with the Twitter sum- mary: Aging action guys wearing lots of makeup blow stuff up and also Thor, Jr. and a Pretty Girl are there. See how much time that saved? Maybe I had to sit through the movie, but thanks to my abil- ity to succinctly sum it up, you don't have to spend more than a few moments thinking about whether you want to see it or not. However, it really shouldn't even take that long. Did you like The Expendables? Then you will probably like The Expendables 2: Electric-Spendaloo (103 minutes). Sadly, I did not care for the first film, so now there's a total of 206 minutes that Sylvester Stallone owes me back. Barney Ross (Stallone) is possibly wearing even more make- up this time around and he totally ignored my advice to lay off the Botox. In fact, he has clearly managed to convince half the remaining cast to join him for a Botox party or five. Bruce Willis, Ah-nuld Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris all resemble plasticized Ken-doll versions of themselves. Of the five, Willis at least managed to maintain some facial mobility, although if his career is reduced to throwaway cameos in crap like this I expect him to sink into a collagen fueled malaise any day now. The whole crew is back for the sequel, complete with stupid names. Christmas (Jason Statham) is still buddy-buddy with leader Ross and still dat- ing Lacy (Charisma Carpenter). Yin-Yang (Jet Li) is still a walking, talking punch-line to a joke at which nobody is laughing. Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) is still a pointless spear carrier and Toll Road (Randy Couture) is still an even more pointless spear-carrier. Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) is still big and dumb sounding, although apparently he has always secretly had an advanced degree in something science-y. The film, knowing its target audience, begins with beatings and explosions Mission complete, Ross is tapped by CIA operative Church (Willis) to go to Albania and get something secret from a crashed plane. He is ordered to take technical expert Maggie Chan (Yu Nan) to the party and protect her on pain of death and dismemberment. The group successfully retrieves the super-secret thing, only to be ambushed by international man of mystery Jean Vilain (Van Damme). He and his boyfriend (Scott Adkins) have a plan that involves forcing enslaved Albanians to dig up weapons-grade plutonium so they can sneak it through airport security and sell it to somebody. and action-hero quips galore. The team of mercenaries is work- ing a job that involves driving a big truck through Nepal to res- cue Trench (Schwarzenegger) and an unnamed Chinese billion- aire. The boys do their thing, relying on their new team member Bill the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) for sniper support. He has a girl back home and a sad story about why he left the military and he is going to quit after this one last job. He is pretty clearly a marked man despite lacking a red shirt, so start placing your bets on exact time of death. The team decides to stop them because this time it's personal (or some- thing) and they wander through Eastern Europe with bullets blazing. Luckily, each time they are in an inescapable situation a Deus Ex action-hero swings by to save their bacon. For example, midway through the movie a velvety-voiced Booker (Chuck Norris) shoots up a bunch of guys while whispering delicate zen-like words of wisdom into the ears of our heroes. Overall, I've got no real issues with the film. It knows what it is and it has no aspirations to be anything else. Now showing at Wynnsong 7, Carmike 12 and Carmike Market Fair 15. HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upand- comingweekly.com. Mon-Wed 11am-12am | Thu-Sat 11am-2am | Sun 12pm-12am 411 Hay St. | Fayetteville, NC 28301 | 910.426.565 www.wetwillies.com WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM SEPT. 26 - OCT 2, 2012 UCW 37 Best Club DJ Tommy King