All the mess with Watchmen has finally been sorted out and it's on track to be released here on March 5th. Can't wait to see it, and the final poster has been previewed today.Check out the official site at http://watchmenmovie.warnerbros.com/
Well I don't know what to make off this one. I still don't think it was a good idea to go back and mess with the Original Series characters. It's not just the characters we love, it's the people that were those characters. And you can't go an recast Kirk, Spock, Bones, etc and have me love those characters. I'm not sure I want to see those characters as someone else. Also, I'm not thrilled with the modifications to the ship design, the fact the morons are building the ship on Earth (which goes against canon - the first of many things), and I really don't like the iPod-like bridge. Sooo, I'm having mixed feelings about this trailer. I'll watch it a few times, and see if my feelings changes towards it. Why don't you do the same?
The full trailer for Watchmen is finally released. I'm still excited to see the movie, but I think the previous trailer with the Smashing Pumpkin's song worked better. Still, can't wait to see the finished movie. It looks great!
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Plot Synopsis:
Batman has escalated his war on crime and is relentlessly pursuing the city's mafia elements. With the help of Jim Gordon and the new District Attorney, Harvey Dent, they are attacking the criminal syndicate's money holdings. The Joker pulls a daring heist on a mob owned bank. The criminals are becoming desperate, with problems from both Batman and the Joker.
Lucius Fox is investigating a business partnership with Mr Lau's company in Hong Kong, but suspects that his business dealings might not be legitimate. During the investigation, an accountant at Wayne Enterprises stumbles on the funding for Applied Sciences and discovers the plans for the Tumbler. He tries to blackmail Lucius. Lucius laughs off his suggestions that Bruce Wayne is Batman.
Mr Lau arranges to have all the syndicates money stored in a secure location. The Joker offers to help the syndicates by destroying the Batman in exchange for half the money. Lau returns to Hong Kong, and the police realising the connection between Lau and the syndicates are powerless to retrieve him. Batman travels to Hong Kong and abducts Lau, returning him to the Gotham police. Harvey Dent then has all the crime syndicate members arrested and prosecuted.
The Joker begins targeting the Police Commissioner, Harvey Dent, and the Judge responsible. He kills the Commissioner and Judge, but Harvey is rescued by Batman when the Joker attacks Bruce's charity function. Batman saves Rachel after the Joker drops her out the penthouse window. Bruce hopes that Rachel will continue to wait for him, as he thinks he will soon be able to set Batman aside and let Harvey Dent take over the war on crime. However Rachel has moved on with Harvey.
The Joker threatens to kill more people unless Batman reveals his identity to the public. When Jim Gordon is killed, Bruce considers giving in, but Alfred tells him to endure and continue on. Harvey comes forward as Batman, and is arrested by the police, hoping to lure out the Joker. Rachel is angry with Bruce for allowing Harvey to take the blame for Batman.
When Harvey is transported to the Gotham jails, the Joker attacks. Batman intervenes but the Tumbler is destroyed after catching a missile in the engine. Batman escapes after the remains of the Tumbler converts and releases the batpod. He pursues the Joker, disabling his truck by flipping it over with cables. He then faces down the Joker, and with the help of Jim Gordon captures the Joker. Jim had faked his own death to protect his family.
With the Joker in jail, the crime syndicates have Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent abducted by some crooked cops. Jim Gordon is promoted to Commissioner. The Joker antagonises Batman, but eventually tells him that he has Harvey and Rachel in separate locations chained to barrels filled with gasoline. Batman can only save one of them. Batman goes to save Rachel and Gordon goes to save Harvey, but the addresses the Joker gave them are reversed. So Batman saves Harvey but Rachel is killed in the explosion. The left side of Harvey's face is badly burned.
The Joker escapes. When the lawyer from Wayne Enterprises goes to the media and say's he will reveal who Batman is, Joker intervenes and says he will destroy a hospital unless someone kills the lawyer within an hour. When citizens try to kill the lawyer, Gordon moves them to another location. Bruce discovers who the crooked cops were, and intervenes to save Jim and the lawyer's life.
Harvey (now 'Two Face') starts to go crazy and after some taunting by the Joker at the hospital, gets revenge on everyone who had anything to do with Joker's plan and Rachel's death. Joker destroys the hospital. Batman realises that the Joker has played them all from the start.
When Joker traps two groups of people on city ferries; one group of convicts and another of citizens, he tries to provoke them into killing each other with the detonators and explosives he's placed on each boat.
Batman uses Fox's cell-phone sonar technology to wire all of Gotham's cellphones together in an effort to locate the Joker. Lucius is angry that Bruce is using the technology to undermine everyone's freedom to privacy. He agrees to help this once, but will leave the company if the technology remains there. Batman eventually finds and captures Joker again. After a tense stand-off on the boats, neither group kills the other. The Joker is disappointed he cannot provoke people into chaos, but taunts Batman by telling him how he has failed, since Joker has corrupted Harvey.
Meanwhile, Harvey has kidnapped Gordon's family and taken them to the place where Rachel died. He blames Gordon because some of his officers (who were escorting Rachel and Harvey when they were abducted) were working with the Joker. Batman arrives saves Gordon's family, in the process causing Harvey to fall to his death.
Batman tells Gordon that Gotham does not need to know that their hero, attorney Harvey Dent became this monster, and that the only way to honor his memory is to say that Batman committed the murders Two-Face did, making Batman a wanted criminal. With Gordon as the commissioner and head of the Major Crimes Unit, Batman recommends that the city look to their police force for protection, so the Batsignal is destroyed.
In the aftermath, Gordon tells his son about the heroic figure that watches over Gotham, a Dark Knight named Batman.
Wow this looks really good. It looks like they've remained faithful to the graphic novel, and after the job Zach Snyder did on 300, I reckon this is going to be something pretty special. Check it out or get the trailer from Apple.
Here's the latest piece of viral marketing from Warner Bros - the awesome new poster for Dark Knight. That's a nice piece of artwork. I'm really looking forward to the next Batman installment. It's a great time for comics movies, Iron Man will be out soon, then Dark Knight, Watchmen, Incredible Hulk. It's all good!
This looks so awesome - I'm definitely going to see this. Check out the trailer first, then go to the movie site and check out the goodies on there.
Now this looks more like it. If they'd made the first one R rated instead of that PG-13 abomination it would have been much better. This one looks awesome! They've actually given us blood this time, and kick-ass combat scenes. Finally an actual movie for adults! Now as long as the studios don't screw it up, it should be great.Check out the trailer at www.avp-r.com
Please make this movie someone? If it looks this good now, imagine what it could be with some serious time, money and effort behind it. View it before its gone!
And here's the first one in case you missed that before.
The Halo movie had better get made, because if the stuff Weta keeps showing off is any indication, it would be freaking awesome! Check out this amazing Warthog they've put together, along with the authentic looking Marine guy. This looks just like the game, only better! I can't understand why Microsoft wouldn't just pony up the cash to get this film made. If it was done right, and done well (not like Doom!), it would be a license to print cash. Check out the original link here.
Went to see Die Hard 4.0 last night. I was surprised it wasn't a complete abomination, as some of the reviews had suggested as much. I'm still disappointed though that they shot for a PG-13 (bizarrely it was rated M here though). It's a Die Hard movie, so you expect buckets of blood, and swearing, and violence. Bloodless violence seems a bit pointless, and John McClane is supposed to swear like a sailor, so the character didn't seem the same - more sorta generic cop. Otherwise, the film was fine. The story wasn't as bad as everyone made out, although I think it lost a lot of tension by having the characters roaming about over such a large area - it wasn't as intimate as having McClane in a building with terrorists, or the airport even. There's a lot of travelling from A to B to C, something happens, move to E. Still the action sequences are pretty amazing, although they skirt the line of believability a few times. Overall, I could recommend it. It's entertaining enough, but I'll be waiting and hoping that the DVD comes out with an R-rated adult cut containing the swearing and blood that it so rightly deserves to be included in this series.Plot Synopsis:
A diverse group of hackers are employed by a group to run "testing" on the national infrastructure. After there work is completed they are eliminated by their employers. John McClane is asked to pick up a hacker who is wanted for questioning by the FBI. He arrives to find Mathew Farrell, but comes under fire from the hit squad sent to eliminate Farrell. They escape after a short fight.
The next day, America comes under attack by the employers of the hacker team. The cause city wide traffic problems, disrupt the infrastructure and cause terror across the country. McClane makes contact with the FBI, but by this point, they're too busy to deal with Farrell. They ask him to transport him to the FBI building for interrogation. McClane comes under attack again by the terrorists who have been monitoring communications looking for Farrell. The terrorists chase them into a city tunnel, then they cause traffic chaos by diverting traffic into the tunnel and directly in McClane's path. John destroys the hit squads helicopter with his police car.
They go on the run, then McClane and Farrell start to screw up the terrorists plans, confronting them at a power station. They figure out the terrorists plans, and after a visit to Warlock's command center (another hacker), they capture a video link image of the mastermind behind the plot; Thomas Gabriel, who was an ex-hacker who worked for the US Government. He told the officials that the system was vulnerable to interference, but they wouldn't listen and destroyed his reputation. He plans to rob the US Data Repository of all financial data, so he can hold the city to ransom.
Gabriel kidnaps McClane's daughter Lucy, after John kills his girlfriend at the power station. McClane confronts the terrorists and interferes at the data store, but Gabriel escapes with the data and Lucy. John pursues them in the terrorists truck, but they divert an F-35 and use it to attack the truck. McClane manages to destroy the plane, and catches up with Gabriel. During a confrontation McClane is shot but kills Gabriel, and Farrell heroically helps save the day too.
Awesome film! Great fun. Really really enjoyed it. Sure you can pick holes in some of the plot, and there are times where some slightly shonky dialog is uttered ("there's more than meets the eye ... to you"), but its just such a lot of fun, who cares! It was certainly the funnest film I've seen in a long time. I saw this on the imax screen in the city, and it's freaking awesome! Definitely have to see it on the big screen, and the surround sound channels are all blazing away. There's more comedy in it than I expected, and we found ourselves laughing more than I have in some comedies I've watched lately. But the CG robots are fantastic - who cares if Optimus has flames on? - once again Industrial Light and Magic's effects are superb!The story is pretty good, okay it deviates from the canon, but nothing too bad. It's very busy and there is a lot going on, so you will have to stay focused to keep track. I agree with some other reviews that a couple of characters are a bit redundant. Jon Voight's character in particular seems to be there just to spout exposition, and he doesn't seem very into what he's doing - he just phones in his performance. Jon Turturro was another character that seemed a little out-of-place - his secret government agent becomes crazier and more unstable the more you see him, descending into parody by the end. I know that's the kind of character he usually plays, but he seemed a bit loony to work for the government (or maybe that's the point?).
Just don't take it too seriously, and you should have a good time. It's giant freaking robots fighting - what's not too like! I might even see it again.
Plot Synopsis:
Somewhere across the universe living machines on the planet Cybertron are warring over the AllSpark, a device that can give machinery life. The AllSpark cube is lost in space, and ends up on Earth where it is pursued by Megatron.
At a US army base in Qatar, a mysterious helicopter enters their air space, and is forced to land at the base. The helicopter changes into a giant robot that destroys the base. It attempts to gain access to the military computers, searching for specifications and information. The soldiers attempt to oppose it, and it deploys another robot that burrows under the sand. Some of the soldiers manage to escape.
Sam Witwicky gives a presentation to his class on his great grandfather who was an explorer in the Arctic who eventually went mad. His presentation turns into a sales pitch so he can sell his grandfather's artifacts to make some money to buy a car. His father takes him to buy a car, and he ends up buying a crappy old yellow Camaro after all the other cars on the lot self-destruct.
The Pentagon is alerted to the attack in Qatar, but aren't sure if there were any survivors. Analysts are given samples of the data signals that were transmitted when the server was hacked. They try to figure out what could have caused it. The army believes it precedes an attack by foreign military powers.
The Camaro starts behaving strangely - helping Sam impress Mikaela, and helping to seduce her by selecting romantic songs on the radio. It eventually takes off during the night and Sam follows it. He sees his car transform into a robot, and send a signal into the sky. Sam calls the police, and is attacked by junkyard dogs. The camaro saves him, but Sam is arrested by police who arrive believing he's broken into the junkyard.
Aboard Air Force one, a small infiltration robot disguised as a radio, transforms and begins hacking into the computers on the plane. At the Pentagon, the team intercepts its break in, and as it starts to upload a virus, they disconnect the main servers. One of the analysts takes the data to her hacker friend, who discovers the words Project Iceman and Witwicky in the stream. They are then arrested by government security agents. The robot gets off the plane, and is met by Barricade, disguised as a police cruiser. They go looking for Witwicky.
The fleeing soldiers in Qatar are attacked by Scorponok in the desert. They manage to call in an air strike, and succeed in damaging the robot. They evacuate Qatar back to the US with some data on the base attack, and a section of Scorponok's tail.
Sams car eventually returns. Sam flees from the camaro, terrified of it. He runs into Barricade who has been searching for him. Barricade demands the Sam hand over his grandfather's glasses, which are the key to finding the AllSpark. Bumblebee intervenes and fights Barricade. Sam runs into Mikaela, and they are both pursued by Frenzy. They disable Frenzy and escape with Bumblebee, but Frenzy converts into a copy of Mikaela's cellphone and they inadvertently take him with them. Mikaela accidentally insults Bumblebee's appearance, and he scans a newer model Camaro and upgrades himself.
Bumblebee takes the pair to Griffith Observatory where they await four more Transformers that fly in overhead and crash to the ground. The protoforms scan in new appearances, and rendezvous with Bumblebee. Optimus Prime (semi truck), Ironhide (humvee), Jazz (pontiac solstice), and Ratchet (rescue vehicle). They introduce themselves, and Optimus explains what is going on. Sam's grandfather had stumbled across Megatron frozen in the ice and had accidentally activated his navigation system, burning the AllSpark's location into the lense of his glasses. The Autobots need those glasses to find the AllSpark before the Decepticons can, otherwise they will make all the machinery on Earth come to life and take over.The Autobots return to Sam's house to search for the glasses. Lots of comedy ensues as the Autobots attempt to clumsily hide in Sam's backyard. Government agents arrive and take Sam and his family into custody. The Autobot's rescue Sam and Mikaela, only to be attacked again by a secret government division, Sector Seven. They capture Sam, Mikaela, and Bumblebee. During the fight, the glasses are dropped, and they are retrieved by Optimus Prime.
The group are taken to Sector Seven, based at Hoover Dam. They discover that the government has Megatron and the AllSpark stored away there for research. Frenzy escapes and releases Megatron, then summons the Decepticon forces.
An epic battle starts at the Hoover Dam and moves into a nearby city, resulting in the deaths of Bonecrusher (beheaded by Optimus Prime), Devastator (destroyed by Bumblebee and the military), Blackout, Jazz (torn in two by Megatron). Bumblebee is incapacitated when his legs are blown off by Starscream's attack.
Sam (Shia LaBeouf) takes the Allspark to the top of a building, where Megatron tries to take the AllSpark from him so he can it to transform Earth into a technological world and rebuild his Decepticon army. Sam signals the military to take the AllSpark from him but the helicopter is attacked and destroyed by Starscream. Megatron then tries to attack Sam, sending him off the building, where Optimus just manages to catch him as he falls. The three fall to the ground, and Optimus asks Sam to push the AllSpark into his spark, which would kill him but also destroy the AllSpark.
Optimus and Megatron engage in an all out battle to finish each other off. Sam forces the cube into Megatron, and the surge of energy wipes out the AllSpark and kills Megatron. All of the Decepticons are thrown by the military into the worlds deepest oceanic trench.
Bumblebee stays with Sam and Mikaela. Optimus Prime, Ironhide, and Ratchet stay with their human allies. Optimus sends a message to the stars, hoping to reach other surving Autobots.
After the credits, Starscream is seen escaping Earth's atmosphere. Barricade and Scorponok are also presumed to have survived.
As a special treat this weekend we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean : At World's End. We were going to see Spiderman 3, but after all the negative reviews and comments from people we know who've been to see it, we decided to wait for the DVD on that one. Pirate's 3 was vastly superior to the previous installment. As I suspected, it suffered from the first half (Dead Man's Chest) containing most of the plotting and exposition, while World's End suffered none of that, and rocked along at a reasonable pace with plenty of action and adventure.Captain Jack had his character returned to his full glory, and while it seemed he was an out-of-control fool for most of the film, by the end it became clear that there was a plan in motion all along, and he is rather clever in fact.
Captain Teague, Jack's father, is only in the film very briefly, but Keith Richard's is an effortlessly cool pirate lord.
All the character have their own individual resolutions to their stories which is good. There are no redundant characters as such, and they're all interesting in their own way. I found myself looking out for Jack the monkey, or the little crew member quite a bit.
This movie also seemed a lot funnier and we laughed a lot more than the previous one. Overall, a vast improvement. I really hope that if they do another movie, and it was left open at the end for more adventures, that they do the movies as standalones, rather than shooting one extra long film that gets chopped into two installments. I suppose I'll have to go buy Dead Man's Chest on DVD now, since I fully intend to purchase At World's End when it becomes available.
A small warning though if your planning on taking small children, it is over 3 hours long, and your butt will be numb by the end, especially if you have wriggly children on your lap. Also, it's probably worth watching the second film again, because it helps to understand what's going on in this one, unless of course your memory is really good.
What's good:
- Captain Jack in Davy Jone's Locker
- Jack the monkey is pure gold
- The maelstrom battle
- The escape from Singapore
- Jack's mental health issues
- The pirate meeting
- The shocking ending of one major character
What's bad:
- Lots of doublecrosses can get confusing
I'm going to break away for a moment from my usual DVD reviews and actually review a movie. We don't often go to the movies, mostly because of the excessive pricing, but we treated our daughter to the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie last night. It had some good bits, but I'll agree with most people that it wasn't as good as the first one. Personally I feel the pacing was a bit off. It had some really exciting, thrilling sequences, but there was lots of exposition, and it dragged a bit in places.I suspect the problem is possibly that it's part one of a two-parter. I don't know whether it was originally written as two parts or one complete script that was cut in two, but its mostly all exposition and setup, and really only comes together towards the end of the film. My wife complained that while it had some good bits, it was mostly boring. I'd be interested to see part two (or part three in the series) when it comes out. I think most of the action and resolution will be in the last movie. Personally, I think it should have been written as one complete movie with some threads into the next.
Something else that strikes me as a bit odd, and I've seen it commented about in other forums, so it's not just me - Captain Jack seems odd. It's nothing that Johnny Depp is doing, as usual he's fantastic, but instead of Jack being a great pirate pretending to be a fool, he's the other way round this time. In the first film it was almost like it drunken idiotic behaviour was merely a distraction so that others would assume he wasn't a threat, but really he was. This time he just seems to lurch from disaster to disaster, bumbling along, and just narrowly escaping. I guess it just seemed strange for the character. Another friend commented that perhaps it was because Sparrow was deathly afraid of Davey Jones. Perhaps he's right?
I suppose it didn't help that we were only able to get into a late session and we were pretty tired by the time it finished - nearly midnight! I'd probably still buy it on DVD when it comes out, but I don't think i'll pay theatre rates to go again. Perhaps I would enjoy it more in the comfort of my own home when I'm fresh and alive.
What's good:
- Captain Jack - even as a fool he's still good fun
- The undead monkey
- Davey Jones and his crew
- The Kraken
- The cannibal island sequence
- The fight over the chest sequence
- The Voodoo Witch - dirty, but strangely sexy all at the same time
- Lots of exposition - can drag on a bit
- Some sequences don't serve much purpose - seem to be in it just for the sake of it
- The new governor - his scenes are mostly exposition - not that interesting. Hopefully it'll play into something more later.
