Tag: Bryce Dallas Howard

Reboots and Spy-Rings.

With summer coming ever earlier — are we really only two weeks away from Avengers: Age of Ultron? — the trailer machine is in overdrive of late. Among them…

Zack Snyder pours on the grimdark (and, as per 300 and Watchmen) lifts liberally from the visual iconography of The Dark Knight Returns) in the first offical teaser for Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Eh…I’ll definitely see it, but this seems to have the same tonal problems as Man of Steel. Not really one for the brooding demigod Superman — he should be more like how Chris Evans is playing Captain America over at Marvel — the last boy scout. And speaking of tonal problems…

FF is grimdark now too? To keep the rights from reverting, Josh Trank glooms up Marvel’s first family for Fox in the trailer for Fantastic Four, with Miles Teller (Mr. Fantastic), Kate Mara (Invisible Woman), Michael B. Jordan (Human Torch), Jamie Bell (Thing), Toby Kebbell (Dr. Doom, the Ultimate version apparently), and Reg E. Cathey (Basil Exposition.)

I like the casting here, but I’d like this a lot more if FF were being folded back into the Marvel universe (a la teenage Spidey — Andrew Garfield, we hardly knew ye.) As it is, this still looks like a money grab to me, albeit one with quality production values. And speaking of money grabs…

I can’t even with this Terminator: Genisys reboot or reimagining or whatever it is. Depending on what you think of Terminator 3, this is either the second or third time they’ve tried to wring more bling from James Cameron’s baby (and, Arnold, if you want to make bank reliving past glories, get moving on King Conan.)

All that being said, I wish actors like Emilia Clarke, Jason Clarke, Matt Smith, and J.K. Simmons all the best — Jai Courtney’s alright too, I suppose, but it sure seems like he came off the same bland-actor production line as Sam Worthington — so I was hoping this wouldn’t be a disaster. But the fact that this trailer seems to give away every single beat of the film (including, I presume, the main twist) while still feeling like a re-tread of T2, does not bode well. If you want to save yourself two hours/12 bucks, go ahead and click above.

Meanwhile, across the pond, Agent 007 is recovering from Skyfall Begins, and carrying his sorrows around with him again, in the teaser for Sam Mendes’ second Bond outing, S.P.E.C.T.R.E, with Daniel Craig, Monica Bellucci, Lea Seydoux, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Dave Bautista, Andrew Scott, and Rory Kinnear.

Waltz was born to play a Bond villain, and Bellucci an (age-appropriate for once!) Bond beauty, so this could be good fun if Mendes has the sense to let it breathe. We don’t need invisible cars and whatnot, but four films into the Craig era, they could stand to be a little less dour.

S.P.E.C.T.R.E, S.C.H.M.E.C.T.R.E…what about T.H.R.U.S.H? In a world where every past property from Full House to Galaxy Quest gets a reboot — including, one hopes, Twin Peaks — it’s Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin’s time in the sun in the first trailer for Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E, with Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, Jared Harris, and Hugh Grant.

I was more intrigued by this when it was a Steven Soderbergh film, but Guy Ritchie channeling Peyton Reed might be amusing.

But can we say the same for Peyton Reed channeling Edgar Wright? Paul Rudd suits up for Michael Douglas as the titular Avenger in the official trailer for Ant-Man, also with Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Michael Pena, Judy Greer, Patrick Wilson, Bobby Cannavale, and Wood Harris. This one might be a tough sell for Marvel, but fingers crossed they can work some Guardians magic for this. (And is Evangeline Lilly playing Wasp? Because that’s good casting, and she’s been AWOL over at the Avengers so far.)

Also on the reboot tip, Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World, and just like Crichton and Scorpy back in the day, Chris Pratt is now colluding with the former Big Bads, the velociraptors, to take down an even greater menace. Bryce Dallas Howard and two kids (Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson) are also in the mix, as are a collection of fine actors that will no doubt be treated like hors d’oeuvres: B.D. Wong, Vincent D’Onofrio, Omar Sy, Irrfan Khan, Jake Johnson, David Oyelowo, and Brian Tee.

Jurassic Park nostalgia somehow missed me — I was probably too old for the original film, which I found so-so — so I’ll likely be OnDemand’ing this at some point. But, hey, good to have these opportunities for Chris Pratt to work his scoundrel edge before donning the fedora. It’s not the years, it’s the mileage.

Want another top-secret, sinister spy organization at your multiplex? Ok, how about the Syndicate? Tom Cruise and various IMF agents of films past (Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Jeremy Renner) team up with Rebecca Ferguson to take down more Illuminati types in the trailer for Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, also with Alec Baldwin and Sean Harris.

I saw the trailer for this a few weeks ago during Better Call Saul and had no clue it was already in the can, much less coming out this summer. In any event, Brad Bird’s Ghost Protocol revitalized this franchise, so will lightning strike again here? The return of those goofy “perfect masks” from the De Palma and Woo outings don’t inspire confidence.

Finally, and speaking of Brad Bird, he’s left IMF to explore Tomorrowland with George Clooney, Britt Robertson, Hugh Laurie, Judy Greer, Tim McGraw, Raffey Cassidy, Chris Bauer, Kathryn Hahn, and Keegan Michael-Key. Given Bird’s mostly stellar track record in the past, I’ll probably catch this at some point, tho’ hopefully it sidesteps the weird Ayn Randisms of The Incredibles and Ratatouille.

Prognosis Fair.


I promised myself I would stop writing six-to-eight-paragraph movie reviews here if one-to-four paragraphs sufficed. Jonathan Levine’s 50-50 is an excellent film to launch the new occasional brevity.

In short, this is a solidly successful attempt at infusing a cancer dramedy with Knocked Up-style Apatowishness — the lowbrow humor, the wry observations, the bromance — and it’s totally fine for what it is. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character here is mostly indistinguishable from his turn in (500) Days of Summer — he’s the good guy bad things happen to — and Seth Rogen’s character here is mostly indistinguishable from, well, Seth Rogen. Given this, your mileage may vary.

My main problem with 50/50 is that it telegraphs its characters’ arcs from the beginning. Gordon-Levitt’s original girlfriend, here played by Bryce Dallas Howard, is just a little too unsympathetic from Jump Street — you know she’ll be out the door by Act 2 — while Anna Kendrick’s helpful therapist is so gosh-darned winsome that it’s no surprise she eventually ends up taking her work home with her. 50/50 would’ve been more interesting, I think, if Howard’s character was a reasonably sweet individual who was just overwhelmed by the burdens of the situation. But that’s now how we’re playing it here.

Otherwise, 50/50 has its moments — I particularly liked JGL’s two stoner/chemo buddies, Phillip Baker-Hall and Matt Frewer (getting typecast as a cancer patient?) And, when the film grows darker in its third reel, it feels reasonably well-earned. All in all, 50/50 is a perfectly benign fall date movie.

Strange Trips.

In the teaser bin, superspy Angelina Jolie (again?) gets befuddled traveler Johnny Depp in over his head in the trailer for Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Tourist, also with Paul Bettany, Rufus Sewell, Timothy Dalton, and Ralf Moeller. (Not exactly The Lives of Others, is it? And this soon after Salt, Jolie feels like a red flag.)

Meanwhile, Matt Damon sees dead people in the trailer for Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter, also with Bryce Dallas Howard, Jay Mohr, Jenifer Lewis, Cecile De France, and Richard Kind. Eh, maybe — This definitely looks like a potential schmaltzfest.

Terminator X’ed.

“This is John Connor. We’ve been fighting a long time. We are outnumbered by….zzzz” Well, I’ve been doing my darnedest this year to skip the Big Summery Movies that are pretty obviously subpar. (Hence, no Wolverine or Angels & Demons reviews here — Not after X3 and The Da Vinci Code.) But, in a moment of weakness, I did happen to catch McG’s Terminator: Salvation a week or so ago. And…well…if you figure this is a fourth movie in a twenty-five-year-old franchise about time-traveling killer robots, and it was made by a grown man who calls himself “McG,” it’s mostly harmless, I guess. (And let’s face it: The zinger ending notwithstanding, Terminator 3 wasn’t much to write home about either.) Still, if barely passable as a mindless, incoherent, two-hour explosion-fest, T:S gets considerably more disappointing when held against the Cameron Terminators. And, particularly coming as it does after Star Trek, T:S feels at best like a blown opportunity, and at worse just a blatant, Transformers-style cash grab. As a younger John Connor was once wont to say, “Easy money.”

The year is 2018 — yes, only nine years from now — and, as foreordained since the very first Terminator back in 1984, John Connor (Christian Bale) and the scattered remnants of Humankind are battling for survival against the mechanized minions of Skynet. (And, with an air force and nuclear subs at their disposal, the humans are actually doing quite a bit better than we all ever expected.) But, wait…first, it’s 2003, and death row inmate Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington, soon of Cameron’s Avatar) is being given the hard sell by a cancer-ridden doctor (Helena Bonham Carter) to donate his body to science…namely, good old Cyberdyne Systems. (And with Worthington forced to deliver groaners like “Now I know what death tastes like” after a farewell kiss, Dead Man Walking this isn’t.)

Anyway, Marcus signs the dotted line, which undercuts a good bit of the drama when he awakens fifteen years later, after Judgment Day, and has no idea what’s going on. (Ok, all the trailers had already blown that particular spoiler wide open anyway.) In any event, Marcus soon falls in with a resourceful teenager, Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), and his — I kid you not — mute child companion (Jadagrace). As this unlikely trio venture through Southern California avoiding androids — they mostly come out at night, mostly — John Connor and his crack military team attempt to find his future father, figure out why Skynet is now taking so many human prisoners, and deploy a possible game-changing sonar device that seems to work as a universal Off switch. Will it work, and cripple Skynet for good? Well, considering we still have eleven more years before the (future) events of the first film, it’s safe to say there’s probably gonna be a few snags…

Even if you’re not all that cognizant of the Terminator backstory, it won’t take long to realize that the story we were expecting to see — John Connor sends his father, Kyle Reese, on a doomed mission into the past — is not being told here. In that sense, Terminator: Salvation plays a lot like another unnecessary-feeling sci-fi prequel to the prequel, The Phantom Menace. (That goes double once you start thinking of Marcus, Connor, and Reese as the Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Anakin of this outfit respectively.) And, like Menace, the stakes here feel surprisingly low, mainly because we know a lot of these characters have a future (or, in Reese’s case, past) date with destiny, and that it isn’t being covered here mainly so that the powers-that-be can make some extra coin at some point in the future.

The problem is, after a movie this poorly written, who’s going to bother showing up? I know it’s useless to continue railing about the same sad old thing, but, really — how does a script this shoddily written ever get off the ground? Isn’t there any sort of quality control that goes into making a $100 million+ flick? I already mentioned one of the many horrible lines scattered throughout this movie, but that’s just that the tip of the iceberg. Every character in this movie is a one-note affair, from the Big Three down to folks like Bryce Dallas Howard (the supportive hug-giver), Common (the GI with a dead brother), and Michael Ironside (the skeptical higher-up). The leaps of logic required throughout this film make time travel seem eminently plausible. (Why isn’t Skynet’s “asset” activated sooner? How did Bale get on that sub? How are the robots missing that not-so-secret army base? Does that gimongous Transformer people-grabber thing have a stealth mode or something?) At one point, to get it across that Marcus is a stand-up guy, we actually have an interlude involving a gang of rapists out of Deliverance — I mean, how lazy can you get? And the climax — in which all the main characters run around Skynet HQ without much purpose — just makes no sense at all. (Nor does the ending, or, for that matter, the original ultra-dark ending, which for all its bravura would’ve screwed up the timeline something fierce.) And I did mention the mute kid, right? Hoo boy.

So, what’s good? Well, despite the pitiful writing, the three main characters are all pretty watchable, even if Bale spends the entire movie in raspy monotone mode. (I like Bale as an actor quite a bit, but those folks who say he’s “slumming” it by making this movie clearly never sat through Reign of Fire or Equilibrium. The man, power to him, has never been above slapdash genre outings.) Sam Worthington isn’t given much to do but act pained and stoic, but he has presence, and I could see him being a A-lister if given the right material. And Anton Yelchin’s star continues to rise after Star Trek — he’s easily the most appealing figure in the movie, and comes across as a more feral and dangerous version of Elijah Wood. (Dare I say, he’s Bilboesque? Well, maybe.) Finally, there’s a surprise cameo of sorts in the latter third that’s good for a solid fifteen seconds of real movie thrills, before it too degenerates into badly-thought-out nonsense. But in the grim post-Judgement Day future, I guess you take your movie moments where you can find them.

Also, the lighting? So not professional.

The Future isn’t Bright.

In the trailer bin, those confounded, robotic death merchants of the Skynet corporation have the temerity to wander into John Connor’s eyeline in the Sam Worthington-centric teaser for McG’s Terminator: Salvation. (I’ll probably see this come May, but I’m still not really seeing the point — Well, I guess the ten bucks accompanying my fanboy due diligence probably is the point.) And Six Feet Under‘s Ben Foster awakens to a very Event Horizon-ish situation in the far reaches of space in the new trailer for Christian Alvart’s Pandorum (I can’t say the words “from the producers of Resident Evil” instill much in the way of confidence, but Dennis Quaid used to have a pretty good eye for appealing, low-budge genre projects — Enemy Mine, Dreamscape — so here’s hoping.)

In the future, there will be robots.

Post-apocalyptic California is a barren, nightmarish place, and poor Bruce Wayne still needs a lozenge, in the full trailer for McG’s Terminator: Salvation, starring Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Bryce Dallas Howard (and not, sadly, Charlotte Gainsbourg), Common, and Moon Bloodgood. Hmm, ok. I’m still not seeing much of a reason for this film existing, but it doesn’t look terrible, I guess.

Just Like a Woman…we think.

What’s stranger than Christian Bale as John Connor in McG’s forthcoming Terminator trilogy? How about the one and only Charlotte Gainsbourg reprising Claire Danes’ character from the third film? Uh, really, what are y’all doing in this hackmeisterly cash-grab?

Update: Order is restored: Gainsbourg is out, and Bryce Dallas Howard is in. That sadly makes more sense.

Tangled Up in Black.

Sam Raimi’s Spiderman 3, which I saw a week ago, before this recent illness descended in earnest, is — as you likely already know — a disappointment. Both undercooked and overstuffed, it oftens feels like a Sequel-By-Numbers, the creation of a boardroom of comic-book-ignorant Sony suits who sat down and watched the splendid Spiderman 2, brainstormed for two hours about what its main selling points were, and tried to add 20% more of each to Spidey 3. The end result, as Joseph II might say, has too many notes. There occasionally seems to be a decent, heartfelt Sam Raimi Spidey foray struggling to get out in here somewhere, but it’s mostly wrapped up and powerless against the black suit of the corporate bottom line. I highly doubt this film will be the end of Spiderman, after that outrageous opening weekend take, but it does sadly suggest that it may be time for Raimi & co. to escape Spidey’s web and take a break from the franchise.

In true comic-book fashion, Spiderman 3 begins basically where the last installment left off, with Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson (Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, both of whom seem bored) in love, his secret identity out to her. But, just as our friendly neighborhood webslinger begins to contemplate wedding bells in his future, a slew of supervillains rise up to disturb Spidey’s domestic peace: The Green Goblin II (James Franco, putting in his best work of the series), who’s also aware of Spidey’s identity and is out to avenge his father’s death; The Sandman (Thomas Haden Church, good with what he’s given), who’s out to find his daughter some quality affordable health care (good luck! Even fantasy has limits); and, most troubling, Venom (ultimately, Topher Grace, a likable actor that sadly doesn’t work here), an oozing alien symbiote that first draws out Spiderman’s dark side before congealing with his biggest rival at the Daily Bugle, photoshop expert Eddie Brock. Eventually, Spidey must find a way not only to beat back this rogues’ gallery before doom befalls Ms. Watson high above Manhattan, but also come to terms with his darkest impulses, grapple with his deepfelt desire to cut a rug in a jazz club, and make Mary Jane feel important and special despite her withholding secrets from Peter most of the movie for unexplainable reasons. Can he pull it off, Spider-fans?

Maybe so, but the movie sure can’t. If that litany of villains put you in mind of the later installments of the Batman franchise, Batman Forever or Batman and Robin, you’re in the right ballpark. Basically, Raimi has too many balls in the air this time around (I haven’t even mentioned Gwen Stacey, who’s also in here for some reason), and the film just can’t do justice to all of them. The Sandman in particular is given short shrift — much time is devoted to giving him a backstory, but it gets dropped halfway through and never amounts to much. Meanwhile, other important plot points, such as how Spidey’s enemies decide to gang up on him, are handled perfunctorily, apparently to make room for more wet blanket Mary Janeisms or badly-conceived comedy involving J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons). By the end of the film, when Harry Osborne’s butler becomes Basil Exposition and Spiderman runs around without a mask in front of hundreds of cameras, the carelessness taken with this installment of the franchise becomes manifest. Raimi would likely have done better to leave Venom out of this episode and saved him for the next one (and, indeed, circumstantial evidence suggests that Venom was foisted on him by Sony — Raimi wanted the Vulture.) As it is, though, Spiderman 3 is a swing-and-a-miss — not as bad as X3, mind you, but definitely the worst outing thus far in the Spidey franchise. ‘Nuff said.

Bruce and Brock.

Trailers I’ve missed lately: John McClane goes up against Seth Bullock, with Kevin Smith and Mac Guy along for pained comic relief, in the new trailer for Live Free or Die Hard (which I caught with Grindhouse last Friday — review forthcoming), and Topher Grace prays for vengeance in the impressive final trailer for Spiderman 3.