"Tron" Returns

Comic Con is underway and I get to be a mopping little nerd and stay on the other side of the country from it. The first bit of news I've got is some that will interest some friends of mine and baffles me. It'll interest my buddies because, well, they're fans of the original movie. It baffles me because, well, unlike them I thought the original flick was pile of crap.

That said, the title rings true. The long awaited sequel to "Tron" has had footage unveiled at this year's Comic Con, and guess who's back? A bearded Jeff Bridges supposedly reprising his role as Kevin Flynn.

According to the teaser the film is titled "Tr2n." Before Disney sprung this surprise on Comic Con goers rumors of a second "Tron" movie were already floating around with a 2011 release date. That sounds like a long way away, but considering that the movie hasn't even started filming I would guess that this teaser was filmed simply to announce that its coming and nothing more. I would also guess the title will be changed after it makes it further in to production. In addition, the movie will be featured in digital 3D.

Beyond this very little is known. I'm wondering if this really is a sequel and Jeff Bridges is playing the same character, OR if it's a remake and Jeff Bridges is simply playing some other character. Either way I think this material is kind of beneath him. I will say this much: It'll be interesting to see the visual difference between this and the 1982 cult movie.

With no official date I'm saying 2010 at the earliest, 2011 at the latest.

REVIEW - "Get Smart" (2008)

What is with comedies these days? I pondered this as I waltzed out of “Get Smart.” Yeah it had a few laughs, but it was hardly a great comedy and there were some gimmicks, jokes, slapstick—Whatever you want to call it, that simply weren’t funny. I definitely see the talent that was in the movie and I tried to enjoy it for what it was, but it was forced. It was clenched by the fact that I desperately wanted to laugh, but didn’t find the movie all that funny. Hopefully “Get Smart” does more for you, but there’s simply too little wit to be sampled from this film.

Steve Carrel plays the 2008 incarnation of Maxwell Smart, a man who gets promoted to field agent for Control after most of the agents are killed by Chaos. His new partner, Agent 99 (Anna Hathaway), is skeptical of his experience in the field; but the two press on to battle the forces of Chaos and their plan to terrorize America.

The story is simple and very much like the 1960s television series that the film is based off. The similarities end there. Steve Carrel plays a much different Maxwell Smart and Anna Hathaway plays a less friendly Agent 99. I considered this a good start because copying the original actors, Don Adams and Barbara Feldon, is pointless. Those actors did their thing a long time ago and it was good. Carrel is allowed to do his own thing here and the result is better than I expected. I feared too much of “The Office” would slip in to this movie, but he actually turns the character in to something new. Is the new Smart smart enough? Actually, yes. That’s also a downside.

The film’s material doesn’t do very much to capture the essence of Maxwell Smart. Smart was never really aware he screwed up in the television series and when he did he wrote it off with believable professionalism. In this film Smart plays a guy who actually does know what he’s doing from time to time, but when he screws up it’s a typical moment of embarrassment-turned-comedy. Case in point: Maxwell Smart allows hundreds of beads to drop on the floor and rolls his eyes at his buffoonery. Later it helps him when villains slip on the beads and are rendered unconscious. “I set that up.” Says Smart, with the utmost lack of confidence. The original Smart would have been completely confident that he set up a trap and would have believed it himself as well.

I’m not criticizing the way Carrel played the character, simply that he never touched what Maxwell Smart is. The irony to his name is that he thinks he’s brilliant and he maintains that even when he messes up. In this film, such humor is gone and Smart is a typical “Oops! I did this wrong, now laugh at me,” character. Not that there was that much to laugh at anyway.

Yes, I enjoyed the dart scene in the airplane washroom. I found the suicide banner to be hysterical, and Smart’s final solution for defeating Agent 23 was funny and very well set up. The problem with this list is the simple fact that I’m able to pick apart certain scenes I found amusing and line them up. Nothing was consistent— There were times I laughed, yes, but there were also times I was bored or even shaking my head at how unfunny a certain joke was. I even sat there wondering why there was such an explosive action sequence in the film. Why do we need to see a car chase on railroad tracks with an airplane hovering over it? The television series never had this. Have audiences’ attention spans become so short that an action sequence is thrown onscreen when we need it the least?

As I write this I still contemplate why so many comedies, such as this one, don’t fulfill me. In this case in particular I find it interesting that, in an attempt to create good humor, a studio remade a television series that actually was funny and then failed to reach its comedic level. What does that say about us? Is this generation filled to the rim with such bad humor that we’re going to have to settle for Seth Rogen’s filth and more Happy Madison productions? Or, like a joke that’s too smart for some people, do we simply not get what good humor is? I eagerly await the movie that gets me chuckling to the point of tears again. When all the Sandlers, Ferrells, Rogens and Carrels are gone, what will be next?

*1/2 out of ****

Poll Results - What Has Been Your Favorite Movie This Summer As of July 10th?

Well, as I expected, "Iron Man" moped the floor with all the other movies that had been released before July 10th. But now we get in to some interesting territory. "The Dark Knight" has been released and at a new recording breaking 155 million for the weekend it seems "Iron man" will be dethroned. In the meantime, Iron Man's victory is as follows:

Iron Man - 22 Votes (59%)

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - 1 Vote (2%)

Speed Racer - 1 Vote (2%)

The Happening - 0 Votes (0%)

The Incredible Hulk - 2 Votes (5%)

Wall-E - 4 Votes (10%)

Wanted - 3 Votes (8%)

Hancock - 2 Votes (5%)

Other - 2 Votes (5%)

"Wall-E" a brilliant film came in a not-so-close second and some movies that I didn't even think would get a vote were. (Like "Speed Racer" and the vastly underrated "Narnia." I'll have a new poll up soon.

"Boondock Saints 2" Story Revealed

It's been a while since Troy Duffy announced that the sequel to the cult hit was green lit. Now, in typical Duffy style, the director of the film has given fans a lengthy preview of the film on a radio show. Here's what was caught from it:

You kind of wonder what has happened to the brothers… They have been living way back in the valleys of Ireland with their father on a family run sheep farm, way beyond the reach of technology or men. Way out there. It’s been sort of a bucolic existence, hard working pioneer-esque type stuff. They have long hair and beards, and stuff like that. You get the sense that they’ve been hibernating to come back. And there is an event that transpires in Boston. A priest murdered in a church and the body is rigged to make it look like the Saints did it. The one guy that the brothers and father have contact with is Il Duce’s brother. So he gets the first notion of this, puts his jeep in gear and tells the brothers what happened. And without even thinking of it the boys are up and out of there … they cut their hair, digg up their rosaries, strap on their guns, and they’re gone! And Dad has to stay back because something is wrong with him, and you can tell he doesn’t have much time left. So when the brothers smuggle themselves back to the US, back to Boston, in a very understandable way. And one of the guys they meet along the way is a Hispanic American named Romeo. And Romeo ends up becoming like the third brother or saint, fourth I guess if you’re gonna consider Billy. He’s a lot more of a bad ass than Rocco was. But his comedy is that he wants to be a lot more a part of this. So there is a lot of humor that comes from that. He’s hopefully going to be played by a friend of mine named Clifton Collins, who was in Capote and Frankie Flowers in Traffic.”

“When they land they basically start killing everything that they think is responsible for that priest’s death. And Romeo has a connection to the Hispanic underground in Boston, which over the last ten years has become pretty exceptional. That is how they are finding their information this time, instead of from Rocco in the first one. So, we’ve got some great set pieces, some big gun play and new types of stunts. But, right off the bat, we have the same three detectives back. And they are confronted … because Williem is not going to be in the second one… He is dead right off the top, and his protege, she is named Unis Bloom, she is a George peach. She’s got that doc holiday accent, super super sexy. So she’s the one going after the saints and now working with these three officers. And she’s FBI. Now immediately, the cops from the first film, they were all in on it. They helped the saints at the end of the day, they crossed over to the dark side. And they don’t know if she knows or not. That’s something we play with throughout the film. There is no love interest by the way. A lot of people hear there is going to be a female lead in Boondock and think there is going to be some kind of love interest… don’t worry about that… That’s not happening. It’s a way to throw a curb-ball at the audience.” … “So for my money, you can’t just give them everything they loved from the first one. You have to give them a new story. She is that new story. She is one hell of a firecracker. She starts going with the cops, and this helps preserve something I loved about Boondocks 1, and fans have remarked about. Billy’s character Il Duce is the third act. He blasts the story wide open. And because we’re keeping him in Ireland, he gets to do the same thing here. He comes back in the third act. The brothers, everything you think is going on, isn’t going on. Here’s the guy that did this. And it ends up being an old guy who has a connection to Billy. And you sort of figure out where this has all been going. And we go into a period flashback and we explain how Il Duce got to be Il Duce.” … “all the way to the point where he makes the first version of that leather vest.”

"The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day" is expected to go in to production this August. (If of course a looming actors' strike doesn't shut it down first.)

TRAILER - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Teaser)

Worst. Teaser. Ever. There's noting to get excited about. There's nothing in this teaser to motivate you to see the film-- For those who went to see "The Dark Knight" in Imax for this trailer... You got duped. You got duped hard and badly. A line from Dumbledore and the same logo we've seen in the last five movies is not a teaser. It's moving billboard.



This November, I expect to see more than a logo Warner Brothers.

If gets taken down (and I don't know why it would, it has nothing) let me know. But trust me, you're not missing much.

New Trek Teaser Poster

Although there's no Trek panel at Comic Con, a new poster was released featuring some of the characters. Eric Banna's villian rumored to be named Nero, James T. Kirk in the lower right hand section, Spock in the lower left and Uhura in the upper right. Not bad, but nothing spectacular. It's quite a tease though.

TRAILER - Terminator Salvation (Teaser)

And it is very much a tease. I don't really like how the trailer wants to be "Cloverfield" when obviously the movie is not. The brief cuts distract from any excitement. Give us something to actually look at. I liked what little we hear of Bale though. And the music is, of course, legendary.

EDIT: I've already had to replace this with a new link in just a few hours, so help me out if this goes down.



Still not feeling it. Maybe I'll think otherwise come next year.

REVIEW - "The Incredible Hulk" (2008)

In 2003 Ang Lee’s “Hulk” was released to the world with mixed reactions. Some felt it was a smart movie that took the character to a more believable height. Others felt it was a massive insult to the character and a poor comic book adaptation. Regardless, Marvel felt it was necessary to hit the restart button on the Hulk. The result is not a massive film that will blow people’s minds, like “Iron Man,” but it does give the Hulk a little more direction than the previous movie. Unlike Ang Lee’s film, this movie gives the Hulk some intelligence and a character of his own. The result leaves a prominent question within the film: Does Bruce Banner still exist within the Hulk? Or is the Hulk a completely separate being using Banner as a host?

The movie is hardly an origin story. It only shows brief flashback’s to Bruce Banner’s initial transformation and escape. Banner, played by co-writer Edward Norton, is shown hiding from the U.S. military’s darkest and most secretive division. General Ross (William Hurt), the person behind Banner’s alter ego, is obsessed with finding the man he considers “property of the U.S. government” and prodding the secrets of the beast out of him. The hunt forces Banner in to desperation and his search to get rid of his “Hulk” leads him back to ex-love interest Betty Ross. It’s a race for General Ross to find the Hulk, and for Banner to get rid of it.

Rather than using the Hulk as an uninteresting, soulless piece of CGI, (i.e. Ang Lee’s film) the big guy takes on a personality of his own. He even says a couple of words! (Fans will dig that.) Although, with the advent of a distinct Hulk there’s still an uncertainty that Banner is conscious within. He notes it feels like he’s experiencing an acid trip during the transformation— He remembers very little. Betty believes there’s still an inkling of Banner when the Hulk takes over; from there the possibility of controlling the beast is mused over until the very last shot of Norton. Does he end up controlling it? It’s an interesting cliffhanger and worth exploring for any future installments.

In the meantime we have Banner, a man struggling to keep the beast caged and scouting the world for a way to get rid of it. The Hulk is seemingly mindless and destructive in contrast, but his care for Betty indicates the possibility that Banner may have some influence over the beast. It’s important to treat Banner and Hulk as two characters in this film because that’s how the script treats them. It’s absolutely riveting the way this movie portrays the main character(s). The way it works makes them so much more interesting; I just wish it were explored further.

Betty’s character is decidedly underused in this movie compared to the version in Ang Lee’s film. Though it’s a disappointing move, she’s onscreen enough to make a difference. One of my favorite scenes is when she sees Bruce at a restaurant for the first time in years. The way the scene is shot is so shockingly well done that I have to wonder how many takes it took to get the perfect reaction from Liv Tyler and Edward Norton. These two never seem to lose chemistry with each other. Yes, there are a few cheesy scenes concerning the couple, but nothing unhinges the belief that they love one another. (No matter how unrealistic their irrational decisions are in this movie.)

Of course the big difference between this film and Ang Lee’s is the villain. While Tim Roth always makes a good villain, I felt that his inclusion is where the movie falls to pieces. Why did General Ross decide to test the super soldier serum on him? He hardly knows the guy. And while the character’s physical transformation throughout the movie was interesting, his obsession with becoming stronger was poorly fleshed out. It’s not like William Hurt didn’t do a fine job as a heartless General Ross anyway. But of course it’s way more fun to watch two Hulk-like monsters slugging the crap out of each other and I must admit that if there is an action sequence to see this summer it is Hulk vs. Abomination. It’s not too long, it’s not too much, but it’s a lot of fun!

In the end that’s what it really comes down too; “The Incredible Hulk” is fun. I enjoyed the look in to Banner/Hulk’s characters a lot, but the jokes, the action and the characters’ mingling personalities are what make this thing. Hulk’s battle against military vehicles, including helicopters, was astounding. And Banner’s free fall to the final battle is as exciting as it is funny. (Although the CGI isn’t top notch, it doesn’t really distract from the film either.) I also might as well mention Robert Downey Jr.’s cameo as Tony Stark. Just as I predicted, he alluded to the Avenger movie slated for a 2011 release. Marvel fans rejoice.

“The Incredible Hulk” isn’t incredible, but it’s quite good. I’ve heard a lot of stuff was cut from this film and the DVD will feature a director’s cut of some sort. It’s just a rumor, but an exciting one as far as I’m concerned. “The Incredible Hulk” is a very fun, and thoughtful, piece of summer action. It’s no “Iron Man,” but it’s proof that Marvel knows what they’re doing.

*** out of ****

Wanted 2: Ready and Set

Is it surprising? The movie is heading for $180 million at the box office and it was made on a budget of $75 million. I've yet to see the film, but fro my understanding it was made with the idea that it could be a franchise starter.

It seems there's some speculation if the same principal actors will return for a sequel, but producer Marc Platt has revealed that his intention is to return director Timur Bekmambetov and writers Michael Brandt and Derek Haas.

"The writers are at work already, and those creative discussions are taking place," said Platt.

Fans of "Wanted" rejoice I suppose. I for one still need to see this flick...

"The Flash" In Development Hell

Recently there was some catch-up played on the current condition of a future Flash movie. Slashfilm reports that producer Charles Rovan had a few words to say on the project:

“We had hoped to be able to get a new draft going before the writers’ strike and we weren’t able to,” Rovan admitted. “And since the writers’ strike, we just haven’t been able to find the right creative compatibility between what we’re looking for and a writer and you know, we’re a little bit dragging our feet, we’re just waiting to see what’s going to happen with this actor’s strike, you know.”

I've been wanting a Flash movie for a long time here, but as it stands I may not see this movie until I'm 80. The character has a lot of drive and I'm interested to see how he translates to the big screen. Flash is one of my favorite DC characters next to Batman, who's simply my favorite super hero in general. Hopefully one day....