Weekly rewind: January 24
BY MICHAEL SMITH World Scene Writer
Thursday, January 24, 2013
1/24/13 at 6:01 AM
For expanded review, visit tulsaworld.com/movies.
"The Last Stand"
Rating: 
(on a scale of zero to four stars)
Arnold Schwarzenegger is back as a leading man at the movies after several years of running California, and not much has changed.
Stuff blows up, and bad guys are blown away. The English language is murdered, as well, with "I'm the sheriff" becoming "I'm duh sheriff" and "Oh, Jesus" definitely sounding more like "Oh, cheeses."
"The Last Stand" possesses the mind of a B-movie with regard to its level of violence, and the heart of a Western - a bad man and his gang is coming through town en route to Mexico, and Sheriff Ahnuld and his deputies are all that stands in the way of his escape.
I think we all know how this is going to go down when a Mexican drug cartel leader eludes FBI custody in a souped-up Corvette, the finale of an elaborate escape that looks like it came straight out of a 1980s action movie.
So does Eduardo Noriega's self-obsessed villain, as a young cartel hothead who in the opening minutes is shown to be the kind of sadistic wacko that we know we will all relish watching the Governator beat the snot out of late in the movie.
Equally as predictable is that the sheriff's deputies will be a motley crew of colorful characters, including the town drunk (Rodrigo Santoro), a one-liner sidekick (Luis Guzman) and a gonzo vintage-weapons freak (Johnny Knoxville). When he brings a World War II-era swiveling, ammunition-feeding machine gun to the party, the picture is complete.
Schwarzenegger has always enjoyed great success in bringing audiences to the point of a willing suspension of disbelief, and the writers seem to embrace this packaging as much as the big guy's co-stars.
Now showing
| Movie | Rating (on 4 scale) |
| Argo | |
| The Impossible | |
| Zero Dark Thirty | |
| Django Unchained | |
| Lincoln | |
| Wreck-it Ralph | |
| Monsters Inc. 3-D | |
| Silver Linings Playbook | |
| Flight | |
| Life of Pi | |
| Rise of the Guardians | |
| Broken City | |
| The Last Stand | |
| Hyde Park on Hudson | |
| Les Miserables | |
| Jack Reacher | |
| Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 | |
| Skyfall | |
| Gangster Squad | |
| This is 40 | |
| The Hobbit | |
| The Guilt Trip | |
— MICHAEL SMITH, NOUR HABIB and ROBERT EVATT, World Scene Writers
Associated Images:
"The Last Stand," starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, possesses the mind of a B-movie in its level of violence and the heart of a Western. Courtesy
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