Damn you Hot Toys. I have done very well as a nerd collector to not spend $200+ on your amazingly detailed figures with interchangeable heads and hands and various accessories. Even though I have given serious thought to many including your Agent Coulson, Loki and Jack Nicholson Joker, but now you have gone and finally crossed the line with your Brandon Lee Crow figure.
I have to have it.
It will find a place on my wall of collectibles and while people may look down upon me for the hurt I will put on my bank account for it, he will stand there proudly nevertheless. I will just simply look at my wallet and say, “Can’t rain all the time”.
Check out the rest of Hot Toys beautiful collection here.
I know there are more than one of you wondering how a second Wolverine movie even got made considering the complete abomination that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine and you would be right to think that. The movie made money, but is universally reviled by most comic fans and let’s not even start on Deadpool fans. The simple answer is that Wolverine is the most bankable of all of the X-Men, so that is why director James Mangold was given the helm and the character has been given a second chance to make a first impression.
You would think the surprising part is the fact that there is another Wolverine movie given what I just said. That’s not the truth. The surprising part is that The Wolverine is actually really good.
Director James Mangold and screen writers Mark Bomback and Scott Frank have decided to take the character on a personal journey based on one of the greatest Wolverine stories ever written by the legendary Chris Claremont. Not only is Claremont’s Japanese epic the basis for The Wolverine, but there are plenty of nods to other historic stories in the Logan/X-Men universe including Fatal Attractions and Old Man Logan. When you notice these it becomes clear that some care was taken with the character this time instead of just having him wrestle The Blob, fight the shittiest Deadpool ever and deal with bad CGI.
The Wolverine takes place after X-Men: The Last Stand with Logan playing the part of mountain man recluse living his life as a Grizzly Adams look-a-like and deep in despair over having had killed his love, Jean Grey. There really is no reason to watch X-Men 3 to catch up (or any reason to watch it at all) because that is the only main part that connects to this movie. He is content to spend his days drinking whiskey and listening to the radio while dreams of Jean haunt him. A young Japanese woman named Yukio (Rila Fukushima) tracks him down and requests that he come to Japan with her so that her employer, Yashida, be given the opportunity to say goodbye and thank Logan for saving his life in World War II when the bomb hit Nagasaki. Through some coaxing he boards a plane for the Land of the Rising Sun.
Meeting Yashida becomes more complicated than anticipated when he informs Logan that he has the ability to transfer his healing ability to another and can allow Logan to live a normal life. And yes, you guessed it, Yashida would like it transferred to him so he can keep on living. Needless to say Wolvie declines with a simple “you don’t want what I got”, but that is not quite good enough for the dying man and has his associate Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova) implant a device in Logan that robs him of his ability to heal correctly. It is still too late for Yashida as he passes and control of his corporation passes not to his son, but his granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto). This puts a target on her back as the Yakuza try to kidnap her at her father’s funeral. Reluctantly, she allows Logan to help her flee and during their escape and hideout the two form a relationship. Eventually the Yakuza gets their tattooed, grubby mits on Mariko and Logan has to figure out a way to reverse what has been done to him and save his new found love.
Like I said, this isn’t On The Waterfront.
What The Wolverine manages to do well is pacing. The slow parts do not drag on for too long and the dialogue is believable for a action movie like this. It is always interesting, for me, to watch the Japanese culture clash with anything different. Of course, the different this time is a self-healing mutant with adamantium claws that calls everyone “bub” and it completely works. You can never adapt Claremont’s story perfectly and there is plenty to point out that has been altered, but the central heart of the story is still there.
The set pieces are handled well including a Yakuza shootout at a funeral which leads to a chase throughout the street of Tokyo and ends with a fight on top of a bullet train which you may have seen in the previews. As over the top as the train scene is, it is still handled with a deft hand. The fighting never really gets too over the top or for the lack of a better term, comic book-y, until the final moments of the movie and it is in the final 15 minutes of the film where the train doesn’t fly off the track, but it begins to wobble like someone put a penny on the rails.
The final showdown, while wrapping up the story, left a little to be desired when compared to all the good the story had set up in the first 90% of the film. Yes, there is a nine-foot tall robotic Silver Samurai and you have already decided whether you hate this decision or not. For me, I was not hot on the idea, but it received a pass from me because of a very guessable reason. I am not saying the end ruins the movie…far from it. It is just a decent end game to a very good movie.
The Wolverine has surprised me more than any other movie this summer. Going in with blinders on, not wanting to remember the horrors of X-Men Origins is the best way to view this. It is far and away better than its should-have-been aborted offspring. It also holds up on its own as a singular movie including Jackman’s best performance as Logan due to a much better script than he has ever had for the character. If this had been the first movie for Wolverine, we would be talking about what an amazing future the character has in his own set of movies, but with the stench of Origins hanging this feels like an apology to fans and a hope that maybe there is more in store for “The Ol’ Canucklehead”.
Microsoft has revealed the pricing for the Xbox One controller and all of its various accessories. The controller will retail for $59.99 while the play and charge kit will run you $24.99. Buying the controller together with the play and charge will cost $74.99. The chat headset retails for $24.99.
So if you are planning on getting an extra controller and play and charge and don’t want to use the Kinect to voice chat (who the hell does?) be prepared to fork over an extra one hundred bucks on launch day.
Pre-orders are being taken on all of these items on Amazon.
The Wolverine opened up at number one just like everyone thought it would, but its $55 million take was on the lighter side of expectations with studio estimates leaning more towards a $70 million opening. While initially this would be considered a disappointment, The Wolverine pulled in $86 million from the foreign box office and with a budget of only $115 million, the film is already sitting at almost $150 million after one weekend of release. The gross was on par with 2011’s [amazon_link id=”B004LWZW4C” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]X-Men: First Class[/amazon_link] which opened with $55.1 million.
The Conjuring held over amazingly well in its second weekend. Normally horror movies fall off the face of the Earth in their second weeks, but the James Wan-directed feature managed to pull in $22 million. After two weeks the $20 million film has grossed almost $100 million worldwide.
At the Star Wars Celebration in Europe, it was announced that John Williams would return to score the music for Star Wars Episode VII. There really was little doubt that the legendary composer would be returning to the galaxy far, far away, but there were very few out there (me) that was holding out a little hope that J.J. Abrams collaborator, Michael Giacchino, would get a shot at bringing something new to the franchise.
Don’t get me wrong, I am glad to have Williams back on board, it just would be nice to get some new blood infused in the franchise. With Disney planning at least four more Star Wars movies, maybe there is plenty of film to go around for other composers.
Williams can’t do all of them…can he?
Here is Williams talking about returning to the franchise:
Sony has revealed that, while the [amazon_link id=”B00CMQTVQO” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]PS4[/amazon_link] will come equipped with an impressive 8GB of GDDR5 memory, only 4.5GB of that is available to game developers.
3.5GB is reserved on the system to run Sony’s new OS with a 1GB of “flexible memory” that can be pulled from the OS to use for the games if needed upping the total to 5.5GB. So, in response, the internet community has done what they do so well and jumped off the deep end in response with some morons in comment threads saying they will cancel their pre-orders because of this.
Why?
No game is going to need most of the 8GB on the system. Hell, most games will be good with less than the 4.5GB and very few, I am assuming, will need to stretch into the extra memory. Developers have a sh**ton of space to work with and, if anything, the 3.5GB reserved for the OS on the system will mean that we will get a much better experience than we are used to with the PS3, including the ability to play while downloading and a much better running PSN.
Slow down, bleeding hearts. Take a breath and everything will be alright.
Ryse: Son of Rome gets to me. I can’t explain it. I want to play this damn thing. Yes, we can all get into the whole “it looks like a game full of QTE’s” argument, but Ryse simply looks fun as hell.
Crytek has just released a video that takes a look at the motion capture for the game and how the power of the Xbox One will be able to bring powerful performances to the game like never before. Even if you are not planning on getting Ryse there is no denying it is a beautiful game.
[amazon_link id=”B00CMQTU74″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Ryse: Son of Rome[/amazon_link] is a launch day title for the [amazon_link id=”B00CMQTVMI” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Xbox One[/amazon_link].
In an interview with MTV, director Joss Whedon gave some insight on his sequel to [amazon_link id=”B0083SBJXS” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]The Avengers[/amazon_link], Age of Ultron. He said that Black Widow will still be an integral part of the second film:
“Natasha is a huge part of the sequel, because you do want to concentrate on the people who don’t have their own franchises. Although she’s in ‘Cap 2,’ [and] she’s great. She was the most fun for me because she’s not a hero, you know, and it’s something that I read—and I feel bad that I can’t remember who wrote the book—but it’s in one of the books explaining, ‘These guys are heroes, you are a spy. It’s a different thing—it’s a different skill set—and you don’t have their moral high ground or any of that good stuff.’ And that just makes her so interesting to me. So yeah, the stuff I’ve got going on with her in the second one is killer.”
I know many people have had problems with the Black Widow character, but Whedon can put as much ScarJo on screen as he wants and I will thank him for it.
The director is also excited about having Hawkeye be a full member of the team this go round:
“It’s very much a global Avengers film. A lot of the movie has to do with their place not just in America, but the world. Part of the fun for me, definitely this time around, is writing Hawkeye. He did get possessed pretty early by a bad guy and had to walk around all scowly for most of the movie, so now it’s nice to actually have the character there and see him interact with the other guys.”
Knights of Badassdom has been completed for two years. I am guessing that it was looking like straight-to-home fare, but now that Peter Dinklage is a household name with Game of Thrones, it is looking like there is money to be made. The thing about KOB is that the cast is actually pretty damn good with Dinklage, Steve Zahn, Summer Glau and Danny Pudi.
Check out the trailer. I got a few chuckles out of it and any time Summer Glau is on screen it is medically proven to add four minutes of life to any man.
I am genuinely excited about NBA Live 14. I have never been able to latch onto the 2K game and yes, I realize that I must be one of the minority. Live used to be a yearly buy for me going all the way back to NBA Live 95 on SNES, to NBA Live 97 on my Sega Saturn and on into the PS2 days. So it hurt me to see the franchise fall so hard on its face the past five years.
Now after false starts and cancellations weeks before release, EA is set to bring back NBA Live to the PS4 and Xbox One. I am not expecting it to beat the 2K series or even compete, but I hope that it will be a fun restart to the series.
Today, the cover for the game was officially unveiled with Cleveland Cavaliers star Kyrie Irving. There is also a short announcement clip below using the game engine to introduce Irving to the masses.
[amazon_link id=”B00CYS5GEQ” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]NBA Live 14[/amazon_link] will be a launch day title for the [amazon_link id=”B00CMQTVMI” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Xbox One[/amazon_link] and [amazon_link id=”B00CMQTVQO” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]PS4[/amazon_link].
