In what could be called a bit of sci-fi synergy, original Robocop actor Peter Weller is reportedly joining the cast of J.J. Abrams upcoming sequel to Star Trek. While no other details are available at the moment as to what type or size of role Weller will be taking on in the film, you can be assured it will probably not be that of a robot or cyborg.

Of course, now that Weller is being cast in the film, speculation as to his role can begin in earnest, even without any “official” word. That’s just part of the fun. In addition to him most likely not being any sort of robot, bad or otherwise, It’s likely Weller will not play Kahn Noonian Singh — even if that role also doesn’t go to Benicio del Toro.

Weller will more likely take on a smaller yet pivotal role as a Starfleet officer or recognizable alien species who helps (or hinders) Kirk and company’s fight to destroy the greater evil threatening them and Earth. We have nothing to base that on of course, just spitballing here and trying to fill some column inches. That’s just how we roll. Who do you think Weller should play?

Paramount will release the Star Trek sequel May 17, 2013. Weller joins recently announced new cast members Alice Eve and del Toro and the returning Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, John Cho and Simon Pegg.

When you think of hot female assassins/badasses, who comes to mind? For me it’s a cross between Anne Parillaud in the original La Femme Nikita, Uma Thurman’s The Bride in Kill Bill, Devon Aoki as Miho in Sin City and Yvonne Strahovski as Sarah in Chuck.

Put all those together and that would be a potent mix indeed. Now, it seems, we may be able to add Zoe Saldana to that mix.

Why? Well today, Sony Pictures has released a trailer for Colombiana, which stars Saldana as a stone-cold female assassin. To illustrate the point, we’ve got the trailer for the film to share with you.

Colombiana was written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen and directed by Olivier Megaton (who has a perfect name for an action director, don’t you think?) Check out the trailer after the jump.

And no, that pic above is not from the movie. It’s from The Losers, but I like it — and so should you.

Who’s your favorite female baddass?

Continue Reading →

Not that this news will do much to silence the haters but James Cameron has reportedly agreed to make sequels to Avatar his next two films. Cameron will begin working on the scripts for the two films early next year.

According the the article, the director hopes to start production later in 2011 but won’t make the decision on if he will film both sequels simultaneously until after he completes work on the scripts. Obviously, Cameron is pretty excited about the prospect of returning to the world of Pandora.

“In the second and third films, which will be self-contained stories that also fulfill a greater story arc, we will not back off the throttle of ‘Avatar’s’ visual and emotional horsepower, and will continue to explore its themes and characters, which touched the hearts of audiences in all cultures around the world,” Cameron said. “I’m looking forward to returning to Pandora, a world where our imaginations can run wild.”

With worldwide box office of over $2.8 Billion, it’s hard to argue with Avatar‘s mass appeal and sequels were to be expected. With the technology pretty much perfected now and the visuals of the world established, we can only hope that Cameron will spend a bit more time on the characters and story (And Sam Worthington’s “acting”) with these next two films, which will hopefully make them a bit easier to watch.

Currently, Cameron and Fox are looking at a December 2014 release for Avatar 2 and a December 2015 release for Avatar 3. Of course, we’ll bring you all the news on these sequels as it comes to us.

I did you a favor and refrained  from making a pun out of the film’s title in my headline, though I had to physically restrain myself from doing so. From acting to editing, to continuity and dialogue, this film was an awful mess.

I’ve grown to  enjoy and look forward to comic book adaptations over the last year. Watchmen and Kick-Ass were some of my favorite films of the last twelve months, so I went into The Losers (based on a comic by Andy  Diggle) with an open mind and high expectations.

Things went swimmingly well  for the first five minutes  or so, but then the movie had its first action sequence, and director David Sylvain embarks on a torrid love affair with ill-advised editing.  He loves slow-motion. He loves the fast edit. He loves the stop/go/stop again editing. Most of all, he just loves to edit the holy living crap out of any scene he can get his hands on. As long as the camera is moving erratically, he is like a kid in a candy shop, and it ruins the movie.

The editing tricks become the primary focus of the movie, and once you start noticing them, they will plaque you incessantly until the conclusion of the film. There is just no need for a lot of it.  For instance, there is a kinda-sorta hot love scene between Zoe Saldana and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

Continue Reading →

All week long, we’ve been bringing you clips from DC and Warner’s newest comic-to-film adaptation, The Losers, which hits theaters everywhere today. In most of the clips, there has been some stellar action sequences, from what seems to be a pretty action-packed film. Nothing, however, can compare to today’s clips.

We won’t give too much away, but there are the following elements in both clips: a rocket launcher, a sniper, bad guys, a motorcycle, and a jet. Of course, the believability in certain parts of the film can be chalked up to science fiction, but that’s the beauty of calling a film a “comic book movie”, there are no limits.

The film, based on the Vertigo series by Andy Diggle, stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Idris Elba, Chris Evans, and Zoe Saldana, and will be kicking off what looks to be a military-themed summer blockbuster season.

Check out the two new clips after the jump, and be sure to check out The Losers in theaters everywhere today. Plus, look for our review of the film coming up later today.

Continue Reading →

While we’d like you to believe that there is some pretty good story behind Andy Diggle’s original Losers comic, so far we’ve only been showing you some of the shooting, exploding, and punching sequences, so it’s a difficult point to make.

The original story is about a group of special ops CIA agents who are betrayed by their handler and go rogue. In their first mission (which is what the film mostly covers), they go to take down their nefarious ex-handler (played by Jason Patric) and the company he works for. You can understand where the explosions and gunfights fit into there, so our point is proven.

Check out another new scene from the flick after the jump, in which the now sheild-wielding Chris Evans plays his regular smart-ass character, which he’s best known for. The film also stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Idris Elba, and Zoe Saldana. The Losers hits theaters everywhere Friday.

Continue Reading →

Things are picking up as we draw closer to the national theatrical release of Warner Bros. newest DC/Vertigo comic adaptation, The Losers. We’ve had a new clip for you every day this week, and things get a bit more touching this week, as Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Rogue (Idris Elba) make up after a fight.

There are many doubts on how Losers will do, considering that it’s only one of a handful of similar films getting released this summer. The A-Team, MacGruber, The Expendables, and even Tom Cruise’s Day and Knight all seem pretty similar in one way or another. Warners, however, seems to believe the film will kick off the blockbuster season with a bang. Hey, they could be right.

Check out the newest clip after the jump, and be sure to catch Dean Morgan, Elba, Chris Evans, and Zoe Saldana in The Losers everywhere this Friday.

Continue Reading →

This week sees the release of several new movies and TV shows, some for the first time ever on Blu-ray. Of the ones coming out this week, we’re excited for a few of them in particular.

These esteemed examples of entertainment include Crazy Heart, Batman, Batman Returns, Fist of Legend, the first season of Merlin, the DVD release of the classic Battleship Potemkin and  an obscure direct t0 dvd movie called Crimes of Fashion featuring Big Bang Theory‘s Kaley Cuoco and Megan Fox. And, of course, the non-3D Blu-ray release of Avatar hits stores this Thursday (pictured above with Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana).

Movies

Avatar ~ Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver (Blu-ray and DVD)

Battleship Potemkin ~ Alexander Antonov, Vladimir Barsky (Blu-ray)

Batman ~ Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson (Blu-ray)

Batman Returns ~ Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Christopher Walken (Blu-ray)

Cheech & Chong’s Hey Watch This! ~ Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong (DVD)

Crazy Heart ~ Jeff Bridges (Blu-ray and DVD)

Crimes of Fashion ~ Kaley Cuoco, Megan Fox (DVD)

Continue Reading →

Who doesn’t love “shoot ‘em up” films? They’ve been instant favorites for their targeted male audience members since the days of John Wayne in The Searchers. Things haven’t really changed in half of a century, as we prepare for even more stuff to get shot at in this week’s release of The Losers.

Yesterday, we brought you two new clips starring some of the bigger names of the film such as Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chris Evans, Idris Elba, and Zoe Saldana. Today’s clip may only feature Zoe and Whiteout’s Columbus Short, but it does, however, feature a helicopter lifting a SWAT truck off the ground using a giant magnet. That do anything for you?

Check out the action-packed clip after the jump, and be sure to catch Warner Bros’ The Losers in theaters everywhere this Friday.

Continue Reading →

This weekend, Warner Bros. will be kicking off this year’s epic summer blockbuster season with…you guessed it, a comic book film. Though this story isn’t a traditional comic book story. There are no capes, no costumes, just spies and renegades blowing stuff up in The Losers.

The film follows the Vertigo comic by Andy Diggle about a Special Forces team for the C.I.A. who are betrayed by their handler and left for dead. They decide to take revenge, uncovering a much bigger plot. It’s a regular who’s who of sci-fi and comic book film actors with Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen), Zoe Saldana (Star Trek, Avatar), Idris Elba (Thor), and of course the ubiquitous Chris Evans, who’s in Fantastic Four, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and now the titular lead in Captain America.

Check out the first two clips from the film, in which you get a sexy-ish fight scene between Dean Morgan and Saldana, and some fun banter between Elba and Evans. We’ll be bringing you tons of new stuff for the film this week, and be sure to catch The Losers in theaters everywhere this Friday, April 23rd.

Continue Reading →

For those of you waiting to see the teaser for The Losers that was supposed to drop today, forget about that. The full trailer is now online. And full trailers are always cooler than teasers.

In this trailer you see the gang in all their glory plus there’s lots of explosive, comic book inspired mayem. And really, who doesn’t love that? Based on the highly regarded comic book series by Andy Diggle and Jock, The Losers is directed by Sylvan White and features Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Idris Elba, Chris Evans, Oscar Jaenada, Columbus Short, Zoe Saldana, Jason Patric and Holt McCallany.

It hits theaters on April 9, 2010. Until then, check out the trailer after the break. For the HD version, head on over to MSN.

Continue Reading →

Well, it certainly didn’t suck. That’s me, eating a little crow.  For months I have snickered about the colossal disaster I was sure Avatar was going to become. Admit it, you thought so too. How on earth could you not be pessimistic after seeing the early trailers?

Alien creatures a hue of blue so intense it would make papa smurf puke, and waxy humans that would beat any of Robert Zemeckis’s early efforts for “most soulless rendition of a human being” did not exactly instill confidence in me. Then came the daunting news that the movie weighed in at almost 3 hours. Add the driving time in and the Avatar screening took up almost half a day. I disliked the movie before I even slipped on the  exquisite 3-D nerd-spectacles that I so love.

A funny thing happened when the movie began. I was captivated. I rarely looked at my watch, and the three hours kept me glued to my seat. I became completely immersed in the alternate reality that James Cameron (Titanic) created, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Now, I am not jumping aboard the fanboy express like 90% of the critics I know. This  is not the end-all, be-all of epic movies.  I don’t think that it will “change the way we watch movies forever”, and I hope it doesn’t quite frankly.

As a stand alone experience, I absolutely recommend Avatar, but I won’t be going to the theater for repeated viewings. Avatar is innovative and visually spectacular, but its story and woeful dialogue keep it from being a truly great movie.  However, I will give James Cameron props for once again delivering a truly ground-breaking experience.

Continue Reading →