{"id":1003,"date":"2010-08-23T15:04:46","date_gmt":"2010-08-23T19:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underbellyofsunshine.com\/?p=1003"},"modified":"2010-08-23T15:19:06","modified_gmt":"2010-08-23T19:19:06","slug":"caricature-of-a-caricature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underbellyofsunshine.com\/?p=1003","title":{"rendered":"Caricature of a Caricature"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before I start I just wanted to share a strange thing I saw this morning. I totally wish I had a camera with me so I could just show it to you because a picture is worth a thousand words and I doubt you want to read a thousand words about … the SKY!<\/p>\n

Seriously though, this morning it was just freaking me out. It looked like something out of Independence Day<\/em> (you know the part where the ships are descending through the clouds before they aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t revealed? That part.) or the coming of the rapture. There were these dark streaks of cloud across the sky. They were black and ominous but between them were soft white fluffy clouds lazing in the early morning sun. Peeking through were these angelic rays of light as if the heavens were descending on the earth. Between all that were spots of this surreal blue that didn’t seem natural.<\/p>\n

I kept thinking to myself, that is so photoshopped<\/em>. Thanks xkcd<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anyways, you know how 2 weeks ago I was up in arms about choosing which movie to see? The epic choice between Scott Pilgrim vs the World<\/em> or The Expendables<\/em>? I ended up choosing Scott Pilgrim<\/em> because it looked like nerdy fun, I was invested in it after reading all the books, and The Expendables<\/em> was sold out. Well, I made the right choice and unnecessarily wasted my money on Friday.<\/p>\n

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The Expendables<\/em> is the name of a group of mercenaries hired by governments, companies, and anyone who can afford them to do the jobs that no one else wants to do. Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Ying Yang (Jet Li), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), Toll Road (Randy Couture), Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), and Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), their fearless leader, makes up this epic team. They are hired by the mysterious Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) to take down General Garza (David Zayas), the tyrannical leader of a small island nation. Soon after they take the job they find out the general is not truly in control, he is taking orders from James Munroe (Eric Roberts), and ex-CIA drug lord.<\/p>\n

This was supposed to be Sly Stallone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s action movie opus, a throwback to the glorious 80s. He had all the essentials, a ridiculous number of action stars including the people above there was also Steve Austin, Mickey Rourke, and an appearance by Arnold Schwarzenegger, lots of explosives, and a crap load of money. Unfortunately it was a lot less stellar than expected. The opening, bloody and crazy violent, scene was the beginning that I expected. It made you want to see more but it was downhill from there. There was way too much heartfelt talk between Stallone and Statham, Stallone and Li, and Stallone and Rourke. Do you get the pattern?<\/p>\n

For a flick of this capacity there was just was too much sentimental chatter that seemed insincere and forced. I am not expecting Oscar winning performances from any of these people but they could at least do me the honor of trying. Stallone had a hand in writing the script and apparently wanted to show the softer side of people who shoot things and blow things up but it just didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work. The problem isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the fact that this dialogue was included it was the fact that they seemed to take themselves way too seriously and it failed. And not in a it-is-lame-but-I-can-laugh-at-it way, it was just tiring.<\/p>\n

There were also characters that weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t used in the movie. It was 80% Stallone and Statham, 10% Stallone and Rourke, 5% bad guys and 5% everyone else. You are introduced to everyone at the beginning of the movie but they just kind of disappear until the action starts. There is also Giselle Itie who plays Sandra, the General\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s daughter. She doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really do anything. Her acting is wooden, she flounces around in skimpy clothes, and she is kind of a but-her-face. Charisma Carpenter is in there too as Lacy, Christmas\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 love interest. She has the same problems as Itie except for the but-her-face thing (I think at least). There characters are thrown in there as a flimsy attempt at sentimentality.<\/p>\n

The action itself works out to be just alright. The opening gun battle is great and there are some really amazing hand to hand combat scenes but all the other stuff falls flat. There are explosions, gun battles, and car chases that come across just \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 meh. There is no other way to describe it. There was no exhilaration behind them, no intensity, the sequences were anticlimactic.<\/p>\n

I have to say, Stallone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face in this movie scares me. He looks like a caricature of himself. He has this permanently peaked brow like he is constantly surprised, his weird lip thing is excessively pronounced, and his skin looks like it is melting. It is really freaky. And, I also have to say, Willis totally aged the best. He isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t scary looking and he still manages to look like himself.<\/p>\n

The Expendables<\/em> is a real disappointment to the action movie lover. I know it was supposed to be a throwback to the movie genre of the 80s but that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean it should seem like it was actually made in the 80s with better picture quality. It is a waste of money to see in the theatre but it is alright as a rental or whenever it comes on TV. At lease in those forms you can get up, walk away from it and come back for the good parts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Tra<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I start I just wanted to share a strange thing I saw this morning. I totally wish I had a camera with me so I could just show it to you because a picture is worth a thousand words and I doubt you want to read a thousand words about … the SKY! Seriously […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underbellyofsunshine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underbellyofsunshine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underbellyofsunshine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underbellyofsunshine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underbellyofsunshine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1003"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/underbellyofsunshine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1006,"href":"https:\/\/underbellyofsunshine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions\/1006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underbellyofsunshine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underbellyofsunshine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underbellyofsunshine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}