Before I go too far with this review of the Blu-ray Combo Pack release of director Dennis Villeneuve’s film Prisoners, I need to make a couple things clear. First, I’m a Hugh Jackman fan. I think he’s a very good actor who’s almost always a pleasure to watch.

Even in less-than-stellar movies, he usually stands out. That’s not to say Prisoners is one of those movies, it isn’t. It’s just so you know where I’m coming from.

The second thing I need to point out is my love of a adult drama. For a time Hollywood made a lot of these kinds of movies and they were often quite good. Occasionally, even excellent. Standouts in the past like The Fugitive, Jagged Edge and Presumed Innocent come to mind.

Plus, more recent films like Argo and Silver linings Playbook are also good examples. But most of the time the industry seems consumed with the need to make and market movies for kids and skimp on things like character or story. I worry about the future of adult drama.

Fortunately, a movie occasionally comes along that restores my faith, at least temporarily, that this art form will not be lost forever. Prisoners is one of those movies and it manages to deliver on almost every level.

There’s several things to like about the upcoming film Prisoners from director Denis Villeneuve. For one, it features a terrific ensemble cast including Hugh Jackman, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, and Viola Davis.

Second, the director’s previous film, Incendiaries, was quite enjoyable. For more reasons, you’ll just have to check out the trailer for Prisoners that’s just come out.

In the film, two families lives are upturned when their young daughters go missing together. Yeah, that’s probably not going to end well. The movie also stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a cop trying to pick up the missing girls’ trail, Paul Dano and Melissa Leo.

Look for it to arrive in theaters on September 20. Check out the trailer (which reveals some plot elements) after the break.

The somewhat annoying “shakey cam” used throughout the Open Road Films release End of Watch can’t completely kill our interest in this R-rated thriller. Writer-director David Ayer brings us a tale of two L.A. cops, played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena, as they go about their day.

Like it or not, he does it from the perspective of various hand-held, dashboard and security cameras. Not sure we’re in love with that. Oh well.

There’s redband trailer for the movie out today and ww’ve got it for you after the break because, well, it’s a redband trailer. The movie also stars Anna Kendrick, Frank Grillo, Cody Horn and America Ferrera.

It opens on September 21st.

When you’re in the news business and things move as fast as they do these days (i.e at the “speed of the Internerts”) sometimes a story will slip through the cracks. This is one of those stories.

A few days ago French video game publisher Ubisoft announced it is launching Ubisoft Motion Pictures to adapt its game franchises for film and TV. Heading up this new venture will be Jean-Julien Baronnet, former CEO of Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp., producer Didier Lupfer is in charge of production and development and Jean de Rivieres, former head of distribution at Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures France, will handle marketing and international sales.

Some of Ubisoft’s titles that could be movies include Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell. You also may recall Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was recently brought to the big screen by Jerry Bruckheimer, with Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead. Yeah, we kinda tried to forget that one too.

With this new division it will be interesting to see if the company can do a better job with turing its games into films than others have done. My guess is they probably won’t have much luck. Turning games into movies is very difficult, just ask all the people who’ve tried to do it.

In 2009, director Duncan Jones made a splash on the indie scene by bringing us a smart, trippy sci-fi film called Moon. The film was warmly received by critics, but fell short of being a commercial success.

Despite the fact that Source Code has all the trappings of a studio film (bigger budget, bigger stars, bigger advertising campaign) Jones has remained remarkably faithful to his indie roots. The result is the rare mix of a smart thriller with wide audience appeal. We’ve seen that audiences don’t always shy away from smart films (case in point, Christopher Nolan’s Inception); maybe we are finally starting to see the studios warm to the idea that smart and commercially viable are not necessarily mutually exclusive concepts.

Source Code proves that the two can concepts can co-exist in perfect harmony. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Captain Colter Stevens, who finds himself on a train in Chicago one day and is completely panicked to find out that he has no idea who the woman sitting with him is, and he doesn’t know how he got on the train. Before he can put the pieces of the puzzle, the train blows up.

Colter finds himself waking up in a pod-type device, listening to the soothing voice of Colleen (Vera Farmiga), a military officer who explains that he has been sent back in time (before the train exploded) to find out who placed the bomb on the train. They believe that another attack is planned, and the only way to stop it is to find the perpetrator of the attack on the first train.

Sci-Fi is the new action in 2011 as one of the bigger films, Duncan Jones’ Source Code has gotten it’s second, and International trailer. This is Jones’ second major science fiction release after last year’s thriller Moon. The film follows a pretty simple premise…for sci-fi nerds.

When decorated soldier Captain Colter Stevens wakes up in the body of an unknown man, he discovers he’s part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. In an assignment unlike any he’s ever known, he learns he’s part of a government experiment called the ‘Source Code,” a program that enables him to cross over into another man’s identity in the last 8 minutes of his life. With a second much larger target threatening to kill millions in Downtown Chicago, Colter relives the incident over and over again, gathering clues each time, until he can solve the mystery of who is behind the bombs and prevent the next attack.

A little bit Twelve Monkeys, a little bit Quantum Leap, with the charm of Jake Gyllenhaal and the unique guerrilla directing style of Duncan Jones. Check out the new international trailer after the jump, and catch Source Code in theaters on April 15th.

Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal) is your average all-American boy: born and raised in Chicago to a wealthy family of doctors, super intelligent, and ultra charming to all the ladies. “This is my Thai friend,” coos Lisa, one of his soon-to-be conquests, “I’m a little Thai-curious myself. She’s a little Jamie-curious” You can imagine where it goes from there.

Wait, that’s not what happens to everyone? Oh. Well, everyone makes mistakes. Everyone, that is, except Jamie.

Love and Other Drugs is based on the book Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman by, not surprisingly, the real Jamie Randall (whose real last name is Reidy), and it sits back in awe of its protagonist, who’s portrayed as close a thing we mortals shall ever get to seeing an actual god.

And so it’s no surprise that when he meets the woman of dreams, Parkinson-sufferer Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway), the conflict in their relationship is driven almost entirely by her reluctance to fall in love with anyone due to her condition. “I hope you’re full of shit,” she says when they decide to become purely physical lovers, “Blow it out your a$$,” I think.

Duncan Jones passed the writer’s strike test and managed to put out an amazing sci-fi thriller called Moon back in 2009. Now that things are back on an even(ish) playing field, Jones is getting another attempt to bend the minds of moviegoers with his newest psychological thriller, Source Code. Here’s the studio’s extensive synopsis.

When decorated soldier Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up in the body of an unknown man, he discovers he’s part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. In an assignment unlike any he’s ever known, he learns he’s part of a government experiment called the “Source Code,” a program that enables him to cross over into another man’s identity in the last 8 minutes of his life.

With a second, much larger target threatening to kill millions in downtown Chicago, Colter re-lives the incident over and over again, gathering clues each time, until he can solve the mystery of who is behind the bombs and prevent the next attack. Filled with mind-boggling twists and heart-pounding suspense, Source Code is a smart action-thriller directed by Duncan Jones also starring Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, and Jeffrey Wright.

From what we can see, consider this film Twelve Monkeys meets Quantum Leap, with a few Inception elements thrown in. Check out the full trailer after the jump, and catch the film in theaters on April 15th.

In Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Jake Gyllenhal stars as Prince Dastan, a former orphan who caught the eye of the king with a heroic deed, and was adopted into the royal family. Alongside his adoptive brothers he learns to fight like a warrior, but he is a bit scrappier that the other two, and can’t resist a good street fight from time to time.

He can nimbly traverse the city’s rooftops and his fancy footwork allows him to escape many a predicament that would have felled a lesser man. Prince Dastan is definitely supposed to be a throwback swashbuckler like Indiana Jones, or Richard O’Connell from The Mummy. Jake Gyllenhal almost pulls it off, but in the end, this story felt like a wanna-be Indiana Jones movie. Unfortunately, it comes up a bit short in every way.

The story begins when the Persian King believes that a neighboring kingdom harbors weapons of mass destruction, so they must invade and occupy the city. This will be Dastan”s big chance to to lead the army and prove his worth.

And so they invade the neighboring kingdom of Alamut under false pretenses. In Alamut, they encounter a beautiful, stubborn princess named Tamina, who takes a an instant dislike to Daston, but later, when Daston is accused of a committing a horrible crime, Tamina (Gemma Arterton, of Clash of the Titans) leads him to safety.

Earlier this week, we brought you three exciting new clips from the upcoming Disney blockbuster Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. We got our first look at the drama between Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Nizam (Ben Kingsley), as well as some of the immense action that the film plans to deliver.

Today, we’re bringing you even more. The screenplay comes from Boaz Yakin who was set to originally write the Batman Year One project directed by Darren Aronofsky. That film later became Chris Nolan’s Batman Begins. Also, the team of Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard helped move the Prince script along. They also wrote the script for Disney’s upcoming The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

In the clips today, we get our first look at Alfred Molina in the film, sporting a spiffy tan. Also, we get a bit more action and roof-jumping from Gyllenhaal’s Dastan, and a cool “Sand Trap” scene showing off some of the CG effects of the film.

Check out those clips after the jump. Catch Disney’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time as early as midnight tonight across the U.S.