Day 19: Lists are Easier than Actual Entries
It’s an exciting time to be a geek, as the coming summer movie season is glut with comic book flicks or geek friendly flicks.
Hulk - Aside from a great cast, Ed Norton, John Hurt, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, we know very little about this movie other than it’s being directed by the guy who did the Transporter 2. Now, that might sound like bad news, but think back to the original movie. Now picture the Hulk spending an entire movie spin kicking helicopters and elbow dropping tanks. It’s for the best.
Wanted - A far, far, far, cry from the comic. The source material deals with the reality that super heroes were real, and in 1985, died as every single villain on Earth banded together as an army to wipe them out. The villains re-wrote reality, and now secretly run the world. A young man, a door mat with no ambition discovers that his father was the greatest assassin the world had ever seen, and upon his death his fortune was left to his son, as was his place in the super-villain fraternity. It’s the hero’s quest in reverse as the main character discovers his super power is making people die, and reveling in it. It’s called “high concept.”
The movie, however, is about the main character joining a guild of assassins who work for the mythic Fates, and killing people to preserve the balance of good and evil in the world.
You know folks, there’s changing the story, but honoring the spirit, and then there’s “fuck it.” This is “fuck it.” Honestly, why pay all that cash for the rights to the comic, when this could have been called anything else? Curvebullet, Morgan Freeman is Yoda, Assassiny, Juno 2, Drive ‘n’ Shoot ‘n’ Titties, FartCrash, and that’s just all off the top of my head and for free.
The director has an interesting style, and I’m looking forward to this movie as an action flick, and not an adaptation. James MacAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Common, and Morgan Freeman all star, and that is not an insignificant cast, so chances are this will at the very least be entertaining. FireGunFire. I just came up with that one, too.
The Dark Knight - Everyone who made Batman Begins is back, so chances are good this will also be great. Hopefully the director will pull back the camera for the fight scenes as we already get that Batman’s scary and we don’t need the camera in his armpit to prove that. With two villains announced, and rumors that the Scarecrow will be back, let’s hope Nolan keeps the focus on Batman, and doesn’t pull a Tim Burton and only give a shit about the villains.
And for the elephant in the room, Heath Ledger’s last complete movie will be colored by his performance and vice-versa. He locked himself in a hotel for six weeks to get into the mind of the character and create a back story that will not be a part of the movie, but something for him to draw on in his performance, and if you don’t think that’ll grow into some kind of weird urban legend. According to interviews the Joker will probably be chilling as a real effort was made to play Mr. J as a psycho, and not a scene chewing ham like in the first movie.
Hellboy 2 - I’m hoping this will be like the second X-Men movie. They seemed to get the spirit right, but getting the origin out of the way was clunky, and ate up a lot of time, but in the second we get to hit the ground running, with characters we already know well, and just get to have fun with the character, and the story, and deal with a great scenario. Del Toro loves his creatures, and given that the plot is about the Kingdom of Magic and Myth invading our world, there should be lots of awesome fights and kick-ass monster designs. Plus, Del Toro is going to do something from HP Lovecraft next, so this’ll be a nice little warm-up for Chtulu.
Iron Man - This and Dark Knight are the two I’m most looking forward to, and a lot of that has to do with everyone on board seeming to really want to do something great. Robert Downey Jr. is a great fit for a character who’s brilliant but flawed and overwhelmed by his vices. Seriously, who else could play a guy that’s incredibly gifted, but hampered by alcoholism? Granted, they probably won’t mention the booze love in the first movie, but as a nerd I know it’s there.
I think I’ll go outside and try to meet a girl.
Favreau seems to be able to mix up his shooting style, giving us Elf and the vastly underrated Zathura each having a distinct look and feel. Looking at the previews, he seems to really want to make a unique and spectacular movie. Like Wanted, and Dark Knight this movie is stacked with great actors: Downey Jr., Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Terence Howard. This could be the best Marvel movie since X2.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Indy looks old, and don’t buy Shia as his son, but Harrison Ford could sit in costume, with the theme playing in the background, talking about social security, and I’d still see it twice. Raiders of the Lost Ark is pretty much a perfect movie. From the acting, to the story, set design, action, hell, even the script structure is a model in how to write a proper movie. I love the whole trilogy, even Temple of Doom, and I totally lied in the above entry where I said Iron Man and Dark Knight are the two I’m most excited about. It’s not even close. If this movie sucks I’ll be inconsolable. And not crying-in-the-dark-in-my-room inconsolable, more like look-out-he’s-got-a-harpoon-gun-why-does-he-have-a-harpoon-gun-in-a-pet-store-oh-no-he-found-another-harpoon-gun-why-are-there-so-many-harpoon-guns-here-that-makes
no-sense inconsolable.
Matt