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Movies

Trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine

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The first official trailer to the upcoming (May 2009) Wolverine movie has just been released.

I was especially glad to see some scenes from Wolverine’s childhood in the 17th century that was superbly described in the 6 issue limited series “Origin” (2001-2002). I just hope that they also have enough character development of Rose, which had a great influence on his early years. On the other hand, there are so many good Wolverine stories that all made a big impact on him before meeting X-Men (remember Mariko?), and it would be hard to fit them all in and still do them justice.

I think they are focusing too much on modern day characters in the trailer (Sabretooth, Gambit, Storm, etc.), and I would prefer if most of the movie would revolve around his beginning as a child, and the time up until (and of course including) Weapon X – In Canada this time, not the United States! Cramming as many mutants as possible into this one will not make it better, quite the opposite! A focus on the actual story of James Howlett (or Logan, as you might think his name is) would instead be more engaging.

Even so, I still have a good feeling about this one.

Trailer: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Movies

Movie mini review: Hercules in New York

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Hercules in New York is a movie from 1970 starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (under the name Arnold Strong) as Hercules. Tired of Olympus, he goes against his father Zeus’ will and travels to New York where he befriends a timid pretzel salesman and an aristocratic young woman and her father.

Adventures arise, and we see Arnold fighting thugs, gangsters and the worst fake bear on film (a man in a bear suit who walks and looks more like a gorilla than a bear).

The acting is incredible stiff, especially from Arnold (this was his first movie) who has absolutely no feeling whatsoever when he is speaking. In the original theatrical version, they actually had a voice actor dubbing over his audio track. The original soundtrack with Arnold’s voice wasn’t reintroduced until the DVD release, by the time Mr. Schwarzenegger was already a well known actor. Speaking of sound, this has to be one of  the worst sound mixes in a major (if you can call it that) movie ever. The scenes in Olympus is shot in a park in a city, and you can hear heavy traffic and car horns in the background. There is a loud hiss/buzz in many scenes which suddenly disappears and comes back – this is from when the director was shouting something to the actors and only that sound was cut out. This is particularly obvious when a scene is cut back and fourth between two angles. When this happened, the camera was also out of focus from time to time.

The props are terribly done; when Zeus is throwing lightning, the lightning arrow is made out of bent concrete steel rods. The makeup is also very bad, and Zeus’ fake beard is obviously made from wool.

All in all, this is a lousy movie. But that doesn’t make it unwatchable – quite the opposite! Me and my friend Martin (with whom I watched this movie) laughed a lot and were grinningly shaking our heads even more.

Hercules in New York is a perfect example of a movie that is so bad that it becomes good, almost on par with Batman: The Movie from 1966.

Highlights: Arnold in Hercules in New York

IMDb: Hercules in New York

Movies

New Watchmen trailer

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Nice, a new Watchmen trailer has been released!

For those of you who didn’t know, Watchmen is a 12-issue comic book by Alan Moore, who among other things also wrote V for Vendetta, From Hell, Batman: The Killing Joke and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Visually they got just about everything right – The Comedian’s wry smile, Rorschach’s mask, the power in Dr. Manhattan’s origin etc..

However, the first trailer gave me much more of a wow-feeling. But that might just be because the characters I had previously read about in the Watchmen comics (which I highly recommend, by the way) for the first time came to life.

Read the original Watchmen comic book limited series, see the trailers below and you too will long for March 6th.

Trailer: Watchmen (Trailer 2)

And in case you missed the first one, here it is as well.

Trailer: Watchmen (Trailer 1)

Update: A new Japanese trailer has also been added in a separate post.

Movies

Movie mini review: Alien vs Predator – Requiem

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I just watched Aliens vs Predator – Requiem. I knew that it would be bad. I even knew that it would be really bad, but in spite of my better judgment, I decided to watch it anyway.

And man, it sucked.

The script was lousy and the acting horrendous. The Strause Brothers who directed this has previously worked almost exclusively with special effects, and watching this movie it comes as no surprise. Because they sure can’t direct people.

The story in short:

WARNING – SPOILERS AHEAD

After the first AVP movie, one Predator gets infected by an Alien. The result is for some strange reason that is never explained an Alien-Predator hybrid. For some other reason that is never explained, the ship carrying this hybrid is returning to earth, along with a bunch of Alien facehuggers. One single Predator tries to stop them all, but also kills some humans in the process for some reason. A town where you get to see four minutes each of a bunch of two-dimensional characters is attacked by a swarm of Aliens (who has now proliferated) and the hybrid. Instead of actually stockpiling the food (humans) for eating and such, they just seem to kill everybody at random for some reason. People die, including most of the ones you have been introduced to. The government finds out, tells the people to gather in the center of town and drops a nuke. Everybody dies, except for four people in a chopper who for some reason decided to fight their way up through an Alien-infested hospital to get to the chopper on the roof instead of simply driving out of town with the perfectly good armored car/tank they just had. The end.

In short: Alien vs Predator – Requiem is a movie that really, really, really sucks. Hard. And not in a good way.

If you have any good memories that you don’t want to ruin from previous Alien (or Predator) movies, avoid this at all cost.

Aliensnail vs Predatorsnail - Requiem

Movies

Movie mini review: Kung Fu Panda

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Kung Fu Panda is an animated movie from Dreamworks, starring major voice actors as Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu.

The main story revolves around Po, a clumsy panda who dreams of being a kung fu master while having to work in his fathers noodle shop. After some curious circumstances, he is given the opportunity to learn kung fu by a grumpy kung fu master. Without spoiling to much of the story, a big threat is later revealed and unexpected things happen.

I didn’t have the highest expectations, and was maily expecting a slapstick parade. I was pleasantly surprise how good the movie was. Granted, there was a fair deal of slapstick in the movie, but (almost) never too much. There was also a more serious side about not fitting in, not wanting to be yourself.

As a fan of eastern cinema, I have watched a fair deal of kung fu movies (as well as practiced kung fu myself). It was a delight to see so many clichĂ©s and homages as they could fit into the movie, most executed with a twist. The voice acting is most of the time very good (though I didn’t think Angelina Jolie really fit the role as Tigress).

On a whole, Kung Fu Panda is a warm, engaging and very enjoyable movie. Recommended.

Trailer: Kung Fu Panda

p.s. Martial art turtles rock. d.s.

Movies

Movie mini review: Bye Bye Monkey

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Today I saw a movie from 1978, starring a young GĂ©rard Depardieu. It is French produced, but takes place in a semi-futuristic New York and everyone speaks English.

The story centers around GĂ©rard’s character (also named Gerard), finding and taking care of the child of the now dead King Kong. This, along with the fact that it was labeled as Comedy / Drama / Sci-Fi, was enough for me to want to see the movie.

I was deeply dissapointed. There is no real red line in the movie to follow, nothing to look forward to and the whole thing is utterly unengaging. The script is meager and staggly, the dialoge is strange and stiff, most of the acting is plain bad and the DVD transfer is low quality (especially the sound where the S sound are often distorted).

During most of the 113 minutes I just waited for it to be over. Avoid if you can (shouldn’t be too hard).

Movies

Movie mini review: Hell Ride

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A few days ago I had the pleasure of watching Hell Ride, the Quentin Tarantino-produced, Larry Bishop-written-and-directed biker movie.
It’s a good mix of sex, drugs and violence – the kind of movie you’ll enjoy watching with a few friends and a few beers.

Larry Bishops character Pistolero is leading the motorcycle gang Victors, where Michael Madsen and Eric Balfour also has their allegiance. The rival gang, Six-six-six (led by the character played by Vinnie Jones) is basically out to eliminate the competition, and hard feelings arise. Throw in a 32-year old murder, a safety deposit box with three keys, David Carradine and Dennis Hopper, and you get yourself a Hell Ride.

It’s not a great movie. But it’s a darn good and entertaining one.

Trailer: Hell Ride

Movies

Movie mini review: Let the Right One In

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Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to see Tomas Alfredson’s screen adaption of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s superb novel.
It is a drama about a harassed 12-year old boy (Oskar) making friends with what he thinks is a girl (Eli). It soon obvious to the audience that Eli is in fact a vampire. Sounds cheesy? It ain’t. It is a gripping film which gets into your skin. Never boring, always keeping the pace. Since I read the book two or three years ago, I knew about what was going to happen. However, I still found it exciting and didn’t want it to be over.
There were a few scenes however that I sorely missed from the book – mostly the flashback where Eli’s origin from the 18th* century is explained. The scar is shown in the movie, but there is no explanation for it. Several main characters are also missing or radically reduced, but since the movie already spans almost two hours, it is understandable that didn’t incorporate them into the screen version. But it did make me want to read the book again.

To cut it shourt: Let the Right One In is the best Swedish movie that I have seen in many years.
The book is (as in most cases) better than the movie, but I am still very happy with the adaptation.

* Don’t remember exactly, +/- a century.

Trailer: Let the Right One in