The Teen Titans.

In today’s trailer bin, director Matthew Vaughn borrows a little bad reputation from Freaks & Geeks to make the case for his adaptation of Kick-Ass, with Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz, Nicolas Cage, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. (So far, so good — from all indications, Moretz’s Hit Girl will steal the show.)

Meanwhile, Sam Worthington takes on big scorpions and sundry other Kraken-like things in the very 300-ish trailer for Louis Leterrier’s Clash of the Titans remake, also with Alexa Davalos, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Danny Huston, Gemma Arterton, Pete Postlethwaite, Jason Flemyng and Mads Mikkelsen. Frankly, it sorta lost me with the lousy aggro-whiteboy rock, but ya never know. And “Titans Will Clash!“…ugh. Who were the ad wizards who came up with that one?

Teen Superheroing, Don’t Do it.

Four character one-sheets pop up for Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of Mark Millar’s Kick-Ass, with Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse (a.k.a. McLovin’), Chloe Moretz (late of (500) Days of Summer, and that certifiable Mark of Quality, Nicholas Cage. “The action-adventure…tells the story of average teenager Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), a comic-book fanboy who decides to take his obsession as inspiration to become a real-life superhero. As any good superhero would, he chooses a new name — Kick-Ass — assembles a suit and mask to wear, and gets to work fighting crime. There’s only one problem standing in his way: Kick-Ass has absolutely no superpowers.“

Lord of the Flies.

“The project would represent a chance for Cronenberg to return to a film that helped establish his career, but to do so in the effects age, using techniques that weren’t possible nearly a quarter-century ago.” Um, ok. Apparently caught in a feedback loop of some kind (I blame those pesky transporters), David Cronenberg looks to remake his remake of The Fly. No word on whether Jeff Goldblum or Geena Davis will be involved…Frankly, I’m not seeing the point.

The Journey is the Reward.

“Corridors make science-fiction believable, because they’re so utilitarian by nature – really they’re just a conduit to get from one (often overblown) set to another. So if any thought or love is put into one, if the production designer is smart enough to realise that corridors are the foundation on which larger sets are ‘sold’ to viewers, movie magic is close at hand.” By way of Lotta, Den of Geek‘s Martin Anderson sings the praises of the sci-fi corridor. Lots of great eye-candy here.

Avengers, Defenders, Mousketeers.

“‘We believe that adding Marvel to Disney’s unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation,’ said Disney President and Chief Executive Robert A. Iger.” Spidey, meet the Mouse: Disney buys Marvel for $4 billion.

And, in very related news, Fox announces another Fantastic Four reboot, with — true to Fox form — the hackmeisterly Akiva Goldsman at the helm. “Though Marvel Entertainment owns and finances properties like ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Thor,’ Fox controls ‘Fantastic Four’ in perpetuity — as long as it continues making the films. Fox has the same arrangement on Marvel Comics properties ‘X-Men,’ ‘Daredevil’ and “Silver Surfer.“

Only a Prawn in Their Game.

Neil Blomkamp’s inventive genre mishmash District 9 is a strange and compelling critter alright. On its surface, just as 1988’s Alien Nation was basically a sci-fi revamp of In the Heat of the Night, this is first and foremost the central “E.T.s as undesirables” conceit of Alien Nation as filtered through the sad story of South Africa’s real-life District Six.

Here, the aliens in question — having arrived in a stalled ship under horrifying refugee conditions and been deemed “Prawns” by the disgusted human population — are festering in a slum outside Johannesburg, where they are mostly starving, causing trouble, indulging drug addictions (in their case, cat food), and/or getting exploited by the local (Nigerian) criminal element. Our protagonist in this tale — after you see him at work, you wouldn’t really call him “our hero” — is one Wikus van der Merwe (newcomer Sharlto Copley), a eager-to-please bureaucrat for Multi-National United (MNU), who on account of family connections is tasked with supervising the relocation of District 9 to what amounts to a tented concentration camp, farther away from humankind. (Wikus’ other appointed task: to acquire for the Halliburton-like MNU as much alien-tech as possible for the multinational’s very profitable weapons division.)

But there’s more to District 9 than just a socially-conscious apartheid fable (and describing it as follows will give away some mild spoilers.) The head of the film, its first forty minutes or so, feels like a Paul Greengrass movie such as Bloody Sunday: a grim, gripping tale of social and political injustice (and, as per the Bournes, powerful and sinister multinationals) told in naturalistic, faux-documentary style. But the thorax of District 9 delves deeper into old-school David Cronenberg territory, with all the gooey orifices, transformational anxiety, and throbbing gristle that usually portends. (There’s a touch of Blomkamp’s mentor, the Dead Alive-era Peter Jackson, here as well — particularly in those ruthless energy weapons.) And, by the time we get to the abdomen, we’re suddenly watching a George Miller or Jim Cameron-style actioner, with more than enough visceral excitement to keep the antennae twitching.

All stitched together, District 9 is quite a remarkable feat of summer sensation. In the end, I’m pretty sure I enjoyed the more self-contained experiences of Moon and The Hurt Locker more. And I might quibble here and there with Blomkamp’s execution — the lapses back to documentary-style talking heads at times feels like cheap and easy exposition, and cute kid plot-devices are cute kid plot-devices no matter the species involved. But, unlike Terminator: Salvation and (I presume) its Hasbro-minded competition this summer, Blomkamp’s District 9 actually manages to deftly recombine familiar sci-fi elements into something that feels new and original. In short, it’s the clever, gory, mildly thought-provoking, and indisputably kick-ass action thrill-ride genre fans have been waiting for all season.

Space Oddity.

Granted I tend to be a sucker for these sorts of films, which are far too rare nowadays. (If you don’t count Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which is kind of its own rare beast, the only recent, halfway-decent ones I can think of offhand would be Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca and Shane Carruth’s Primer.) Nevertheless, I found Duncan Jones’ low-key, hard-sci-fi rumination Moon to be really, really great — exactly the sort of small-budget “big think” science fiction production that it feels like you used to see a lot more of back in the day. (Silent Running, Outland, even stuff like Capricorn One and Soylent Green.)

Not much stuff blows up real good in Moon, which seems to have irked a few critics out there — Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle called it “agonizingly, deadeningly, coma-inducingly, they-could-bury-you-alive-accidentally boring.” and Peter Rainer of the Christian Science Monitor argued “It just may be the most boring movie ever made – period.” (Note: don’t click through to those reviews if you know nothing about the movie — they gave away a key plot point, which I knew going in, but which is probably best left as a surprise.)

But, frankly, those guys are bonkers — I don’t normally say this of critics, because, obviously aesthetic opinions will always differ. But I can’t believe, particularly in this economy, these guys are actually still paid to write about film. (In his review, Rainer also says 2001 is “the greatest boring movie ever made,” which suggests, to say the least, that we come at the hard sci-fi genre quite differently.) Well, whatever. Sure, I probably saw this film under ideal conditions for the subject matter — by myself at the 11:45pm showing — but I was riveted by it. And if you’re a science fiction fan (or a fan of Sam Rockwell, who’s showcased here to great effect), Moon is a must-see.

If I’m talking more about the critics than the movie here, it’s because Moon feels like a film it’s best to know very little about going in. I will say this: In what seems like the near-future, some sort of miracle energy source has been discovered in the sunlight encased within lunar rock. As such astronaut Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is finishing up a three-year solo stint on the far side of the moon, monitoring four big lunar harvesters for some Big Energy Company. With no one to keep him company but Gertie, the resident HAL 9000-like AI (Kevin Spacey), and the very-occasional time-delayed message from his wife and daughter, Sam is getting dangerously close to cracking out of sheer loneliness. (If you ever played old Infocom games, you’ll remember the occasional warning: “Talking to yourself is a sign of impending mental collapse.” — If so, Sam here is in a heap of trouble. Let’s just say the protein pills clearly aren’t working so hot.)

In any event, one day (or is it night?) Sam, suffering from delusions at this point, inadvertently wrecks his moon jeep while making his rounds. He awakens in the base several hours — or days — later, being tended by Gertie. But how did he get back from the accident? Why is Gertie now keeping him on lockdown? (Very possible answer: He’s “got to keep the loonies on the path.”) And who’s that rascally robot talking to when Sam’s back is turned — or is he still just hearing voices?

If this sounds like I am Legend with a robot instead of a dog, well, it starts out that way. But, soon, Sam finds himself facing one of those classic science fiction quandaries, and the mind games begin in earnest. What I found particularly impressive about Moon is that never once does Sam seem to do anything just to move the plot forward — everything here seems surprisingly well thought-out. I only have one minor complaint, and that is, at the very end, [Spoiler — Highlight to read…and see the movie first!] why send the harvester to knock out the jamming tower as Sam-Prime is leaving the station? I know he’s trying to help out Sam-Prime-Prime and every iteration thereafter, but doesn’t it ruin all the secrecy the Sams have been trying to establish for the past hour, and won’t it assuredly be fixed by the repair guys who just showed up?

That quibble aside, Moon is a rare treat for hard sci-fi fans, and suggests there’s a lot more to Duncan Jones than just “David Bowie’s kid.” If you get a chance, definitely check it out. (And remember: There is no dark side of the moon, really. As a matter of fact, it’s all dark.)

Days Bygone and Egon.

“He’s cool. He’s jolly. The funny thing is that when I first met him [the Dalai Lama], the Tibetans were all familiar with Groundhog Day, but they didn’t understand the Dalai Lama speech in Caddyshack. They’re like, ‘The Dalai Lama does not play golf.’ I said, ‘I know, I know. But if he did…’“

As part of the Year One roll out, GQ publishes a wide-ranging and worthwhile interview with director Harold Ramis, one that pauses to consider Animal House, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, Meatballs, and the strange headspace of Bill Murray. “Everybody has a Bill Murray story. He just punishes people, for reasons they can’t figure out. He was a student of Gurdjieff for a while, the Sufi mystic. Gurdjieff used to act really irrationally to his students, almost as if trying to teach them object lessons.“

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.

Ancients of Asgard.

Casting fills out for Kenneth Branagh’s Thor — there’s a phrase that should stay weird for awhile — with the titular hero to be played by Chris Hemsworth (recently George “Papa” Kirk in Star Trek) and Branagh veteran Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Well, they both look the part, at least. So far, so good.