Marvel is ready to make this May’s release of Iron Man 3 something to remember with four special edition 3D glasses for the film. The pairs include Iron Man, Tony Stark, War Machine and Iron Patriot. There will be a small extra for the glasses which will bring the total cost of a nighttime showing of Iron Man 3 in IMAX 3D with DBOX seats and special glasses to around a cool $47.50.
I don’t see why more movies don’t take advantage of this honestly. I would have went to see Lincoln in theaters if they offered special 3D glasses with beard attached.
Legendary film composer John Williams has thrown his hat in the ring and gone on record saying he would like to work on the next set of Star Wars films. He said this found on jwfan.com:
“We’re about to play Star Wars [audience interrupts with cheers] and each time we play it, I’m reminded of the first time we played it decades ago. Neither I, nor George, nor anyone else involved thought this would go far or in a few years there would be a sequel and I’d have to revisit the themes…and years later another trilogy. Now we’re hearing of a new set of movies coming in 2015, 2016…so I need to make sure I’m still ready to go in a few years for what I hope would be continued work with George…[more cheers].”
I hope by continued work with George he meant Disney and J.J. Abrams since George Lucas is probably at most going to be an advisor on the next set of films. We all know Abrams is a huge Star Wars fan and getting John Williams would seem like a no brainer, but let’s not also forget his relationship with composer Michael Giacchino who has worked with Abrams on Alias, Lost, Fringe and 2009’s Star Trek. He also won an Oscar for his score of Disney’s Up. Fanboys would cry bloody murder, but I am pretty sure they would get over it. And who’s to say that having some new blood wouldn’t yield greater returns?
John McClane is back again for his fifth adventure, this time teaming up with his grown-up son to take on a group of political radicals in the heart of Russia. There is just one problem with this; A Good Day To Die Hard is not really much fun and as a Die Hard fan it hurts a bit to watch.
As this Die Hard opens up we see that John McClane’s son Jack has gotten himself arrested for murder and is facing Russian justice so he heads off to Moscow to try and help out his “misguided” son. Truth being that Jack is in actuality a C.I.A. agent that has placed himself in his situation to rescue a Russian prisoner and get him out of Moscow in return for a mysterious file.
One of the best things the first three Die Hard’s did so well was great setup and character development. A Good Day to Die Hard abandons all this and literally within the first fifteen minutes McClane has found out where his son is, said goodbye to his daughter, had a taxi ride with a singing Russian, survived a courthouse bombing and is chasing down Jack and the Russian baddies through the streets of Moscow while causing rampant destruction. While you watch this it feels like you are about 30 minutes ahead of what your watch says. While that may work for standard action movies these days, for a Die Hard movie it seems like lazy filmmaking. There is no character development at all to this film. But we will get to that a bit later.
Photo courtesy tumblr.com
When Live Free or Die Hard was released back in 2007 it was the first in the series to abandon the “everyman” John McClane. That is one of the reasons the first three movies in the franchise worked so well. He was a cop. He made mistakes. He was a smartass and he had a sh**y family life. It was just that he was in the wrong places at the wrong (or right) times. LFODH set up McClane as almost indestructible. Like a bald, American James Bond who could take out helicopters with taxis. A Good Day to Die Hard continues this formula and even goes more over the top with some of the things that should break any normal man, but this McClane barely has a limp.
The sad part about this is that Willis can play the role of John McClane in his sleep. He does it here. The swagger, the chuckle, the smart ass comments. It’s all here, but the characters and script around the character are so very weak.
Pacing and character development are two of the serious offenders like I mentioned earlier. The movie’s breakneck speed, which may help action movies these days, is a detriment to a Die Hard movie. There is no time to develop any of the characters like Jack or the villains because the movie is too busy going from one explosion set piece to another. I really feel sorry for Spartacus alum Jai Courtney as Jack McClane. He is a great actor and could have worked a whole lot better as Willis’ son….if he had more to work with.
The presence of a memorable villain is non-existent. While I was not a big fan of Live Free or Die Hard, I did think that Timothy Olyphant’s role was a good one and worth remembering. This go round there are so many multiple Russian who all have there own agendas that by the time the main villain is revealed (20 minutes before the movie ends mind you), you really have given up even remotely caring about why he is there.
This is by far the shortest of the Die Hard’s. Where most run right at two hours or a little over this entry clocks in at only 97 minutes. Which is easy to see why when you watch the movie and see that there was not much material to work with and abandoned all hope of making you care about the players.
Photo courtesy inquisitr.com
I hope A Good Day to Die Hard does well in theaters which may sound weird given what I have just written, but here me out. There is still good material left for the John McClaine character. I have no doubt there is. I hope that A Good Day to Die Hard does not make people jaded towards the franchise. They just need to scale back the super-hero John McClane and get back to what made the first one so great. Develop a memorable villain, good setup and put in a worn down NYC cop who just happens to be there trying to do his best.
A Good Day to Die Hard is disappointing and not because of Willis. He was made to play John McClane, but the McClane character has got to get better and more realistic aspects working for him. If this was a normal run of the mill action flick it would be on the decent side, but being this is Die Hard we are talking about there is a higher standard that this needs to reach. Now I am going to celebrate the franchise’s 25th anniversary by watching the first three entries.
It looks like Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movie just bulked up big time.
Jason Mamoa, star of Game of Thrones and the reboot of Conan the Barbarian, has reportedly been offered the role of Drax the Destroyer on the intergalactic team. The casting appeared to be down to Dave Bautista, Brian Patrick and Isaiah Mustafa and Mamoa. Mamoa nailed his screen test and Marvel offered him the role on the spot.
Drax the Destroyer is Arthur Douglas, a human whose family was killed by villain Thanos. His spirit was placed inside a powerful body and given powers to combat the the villain.
[amazon_link id=”B007REV4YI” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Skyfall[/amazon_link] has just seen its home release and with 1 billion dollars in box office revenue and sterling reviews the wheels are already in motion for the 24th picture in the Bond franchise. And if you loved Skyfall (as well you should) the news that Sam Mendes may return should excite you.
The Daily Mail is reporting that Mendes is “75% sure” he is returning to the world of 007. He has been in talks with Skyfall and Bond 24 screenwriter John Logan about where to go next and try and followup what may be the greatest Bond movie ever.
I do know that casting the villain role will be damn hard considering that Javier Bardem absolutely knocked it out of the park in Skyfall and should have gotten an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor.
When Marvel was bought up by Disney (in what used to be a big deal until the Star Wars sale took over) you knew that this would happen eventually. Blogger Phil Postma has taken scenes from various Pixar movies and created shots of the characters not just of Marvel heroes and villains but from the DC universe as well. They range from Magneto, Batman & Robin, Spider-Man and even Phoenix. There are at least four or five that I would not mind having framed up and adorning some wall space.
And before you ask, yes it is kind of weird seeing Merida from Brave as Poison Ivy. Very…very….weird.
So as if I wasn’t already excited enough for Bryan Singer’s return to the X-Men franchise, today brings this bit of information. Singer has brought on Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage for a role in X-Men:First Class. Rumors abound that he will play Puck, a member of the Alpha Flight team. For those unfamiliar, Alpha Flight is Canada’s version of The Avengers which included member like Northstar and Sasquatch.
Of course these are all just rumors and there are any number of characters that Dinklage could be in line to play. If the Puck rumor does pan out it would certainly seem like Mark Millar is hard at work in his new job to try and expand 20th Century Fox’s Marvel universe.
X-Men: Days of Future’s Past releases on July 18, 2014 and stars Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart, Jennifer Lawrence and Peter effing Dinklage.
UPDATE!!!
Reports are now confirming that Dinklage is being cast to play a villain in the First Class sequel, so the dreams of Puck fans everywhere may be thwarted. Sorry Canada.
Hey! It’s a new Iron Man 3 poster and I think after seeing it we can agree on one thing:
Thank God they replaced Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle.
The new one-sheet focuses on Cheadle’s Iron Patriot complete with sunset sky and flying debris that is required in every action movie poster by the secret Hollywood pact of 1984 which Michael Bay adheres to in the strictest possible way.
DC Collectibles is ready and set to unleash a full line of 1:6 scale statues for Zack Snyder’s huge Superman revival, Man of Steel. Below you can see a very good look at Michael Shannon as Zod. He is looking very non-Terrence Stamp and all badass. Other statues which you can see are Superman himself played by Henry Cavill, the mysterious Faora played by Antje Traue and Jor-El who is obviously played by Russell Crowe who comes with a Kryptonian gun and not a phone to assault people.
Prices have not been revealed for the statues and will be released this spring.
In news that really didn’t surprise anyone, Disney is damn sure going to get their $4 billion worth out of the Star Wars license.
In other news that may surprise, the rumored standalone Star Wars films that will center on stories outside the new trilogy are officially happening with Empire scribe Lawrence Kasdan and Sherlock Holmes writer Simon Kinberg working on the scripts.
But we already heard about that. I hear you exclaiming.
I know that. The surprising part is that it has been found out that one movie will focus on a young Han Solo and his origin story and the second will center on everyone’s favorite Sarlacc dinner (yes, I know he didn’t die technically) and bounty hunter Boba Fett.
The Boba Fett movie would either take place between A New Hope and Empire or between Empire and Return of the Jedi. Either way, as long as they get as far away from the horrible orphan boy clone in Episode 2, then we will be good to go.
On the Han side of things, we don’t know if this will be how he met Chewbacca or if the Wookie will even be involved. The most fun aspect of this new Han-centric movie has got to be the casting. Let’s take for granted that a script by Kasdan or Kinberg is going to be pretty good. Now who do you find to take over an iconic role this large? And do you try to get Harrison Ford to come back? Maybe have Han reflecting back on days gone by as he sits on his intergalactic rocking chair.
