Category Archives: Movie News & Opinions

Movie News & Opinions

‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ to Feature Cameo from Morbius?

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Total Film just reported that there may be another one of Spider-Man’s foes making an appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. We already have Electro in the mix (played by Jamie Foxx), but now it appears that everyone’s favorite living vampire Michael Morbius will be making a cameo as well. For those unaware of whom Morbius actually is here is a brief recap. He was a prize-winning biochemist who suffers a startling vampire like transformation when he tries to cure him self of a rare blood problem he has. Actor Asim Ahmad has the part and he tweeted this information recently about his role in the movie:

“Morbius is only mentioned in two pages, not a big part”  (The tweet appears to have been removed since…)

It seems that the role will only be as a cameo with the fact he is only featured for such a short length of time, but this may be an introduction for him to appear as a bigger villain in The Amazing Spider-Man 3 perhaps? This could just as easily be just a little fun piece thrown in to keep the loyal Spidey fans out there happy. At this point who knows?

spiderman 2 morbius asim

Another question you may be asking is “Who is Asim Ahmad?” It is a valid question, one that I asked myself. A quick look on IMDB revealed this little piece of information…

[box_light]Asim Ahmad’s career started while attending college in New York, studying acting and creative writing, and at the same time was interning at Marvel Comics. Showing his enthusiasm for the titles they published, he started writing for such comics as Daredevil and Ultimate X-Men. Once he graduated, he progressed from writing comics to helping rewrite screenplays based on Marvel’s characters, movies such as Blade, X-Men, Spider-man and Daredevil. Asim left Marvel in 2002 to concentrate on an acting career, appearing on stage in productions of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Tempest and Romeo & Juliet. Asim later then went into film and television productions, with works such as Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Inception, Rob Marshall’s Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides and Craig Gillespie’s reimagining of horror comedy Fright Night with Colin Farrell. In 2007, Asim had set up Solar Eclipse Films, his own production company, dedicated to make feature films, television shows, and video games. Solar Eclipse are currently in pre-production for a reimagining of The Hound of the Baskervilles, with Asim making his directorial debut.[/box_light]

On first glance I have to be honest, I did not really see him looking anything like the Michael Morbius I remember from the comic books. But considering the amount of work he has done for Marvel Comics in the past and his obvious love of the genre, I feel like it will be a good fit and it makes me think more and more that a larger role in The Amazing Spider-Man 3 movie may be on the cards in the future.

Morbius

Movie Trailers

Trailer Roundup: Pain & Gain, Gatsby, Bateman, and Will Smith…

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[tabgroup][tab title=”The Great Gatsby”]

The newest film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel of the same title stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby.  Nick Carraway portrayed by Toby Maguire becomes infatuated with the mystery and intrigue of Gatsby’s empire.  As more and more is revealed to him, Carraway finds the inner workings of Gatsby’s lavish lifestyle are pulling apart at the seams.

Joining DiCaprio and Maguire are the likes of Isla Fisher, Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton and Carey Mulligan.  This will be the second time Baz Luhrmann will direct DiCaprio since Romeo + Juliet.  Initially due out as a Christmas day release, this has been pushed back to a May 2013 release date so as not to compete with Django Unchained also starring DiCaprio.

Director:  Baz Luhrmann
Stars:  Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Isla Fisher, Jason Clarke, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, and Adelaide Clemens.
Release Date:  May 10, 2013

[/tab][tab title=”Holy Motors”]

This film captures all the lunacy of Monsieur Oscar.  This journey of what takes place during the night spans the distance of captain of industry, begger, assassin, monster, and family man.

Though Leos Carax initially wrote Kay M. for Kate Moss, the role was ultimately filled by Eva Mendes.  The singing role of Eva Grace was rewritten for Kylie Minogue when she was cast.

Director:  Leos Carax
Stars:  Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Eva Mendes, Kylie Minogue, and Michel Piccoli.
Release Date:  July 4, 2012

[/tab][tab title=”Identity Thief”]

I have never had my identity stolen.  However, if I had, I would hope the antics that would ensue would be as comical as what Identity Thief has lined up.  Jason Bateman is Sandy, a regular old law-abiding citizen who finds out his identity has been stolen.  His intention is to catch the thief to clear his good name.

I haven’t personally seen Mike & Molly, but Melissa McCarthy’s comedic presence in film is becoming fully apparent.  With a break out comedic performance in Bridesmaids, she is also in This Is 40, and rumored to be in The Hangover Part III.

Director:  Seth Gordon
Stars:  Jason Bateman, Amanda Peet, Jon Favreau, Melissa McCarthy, John Cho, Robert Patrick, Genesis Rodriguez, and Eric Stonestreet.
Release Date:  February 8, 2013

[/tab][tab title=”After Earth”]

Cypher and Kitai Raige (Will and Jaden Smith) crash-land upon an uninhabitable planet where every organism has evolved to overcome and destroy the human species.  In true Shyamalan form, this is the planet Earth 1000 years after all humans have been evacuated.

This isn’t Oblivion, this isn’t I Am Legend.  This is After Earth.  We are sure to be delighted by the on-screen chemistry of the Smith father/son duo that has truly impressed us in the past.

Director:  M. Night Shyamalan
Stars:  Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Isabelle Fuhrman, Zoe Kravitz, Sophie Okonedo, Kristofer Hivju, and David Denman.
Release Date:  June 7, 2013[/tab]

[tab title=”Pain and Gain”]

When Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) gets fed up with his station in life, he decides to recruit two other body builders to kidnap a man and claim his wealth.  Surprise twist, something goes wrong.  With a director like Michael Bay involved, the true question is how many explosions can be incorporated into a film that primarily takes place in a gym?

Though the comedic pauses initially seem a bit out of place, this could resemble Bad Boys II.  I don’t know about you, but I love me some Bad Boys II.

Director: Michael Bay
Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Rebel Wilson, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Ed Harris, Ken Jeong, Rob Corddry, and Tony Shalhoub.
Release Date: April 26, 2013
[/tab][/tabgroup]

Movie Trailers

Star Trek Into Darkness: New Trailer & More Mystery Surrounding Cumberbatch

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There’s been rampant speculation about Benedict Cumberbatch’s villain from Star Trek Into Darkness lately. Enough to drive a lot of people mad with the myriad theories, guesses, rudimentary evidences and inferences taken from brief shots from the teaser trailer released last week. Well it’s time to add fuel to that nerdy fire, because the first full teaser trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness has debuted, and it does more or less what the first teaser did, while playing up the villain aspect of the story more.

Is it just me, or does that first part with Captain Pike admonishing/warning Kirk come off like a bit… Superman-ly? It sounds very similar to the old Superman Returns teaser, with Jor-El narrating to Superman about who he could become and the worth he had and whatnot.

Of course they’re expressing opposite ideologies, one is a warning, and the other is an encouragement, but the intonation and cadence, along with the specific words said is similar. Moreover it seems to be really driving home the idea that Kirk has made some mistake, overlooked some detail, and it’s coming back to bite him in the ass via this new villain.

Which brings us to just who the villain is, anyway? I’ve previously speculated that I think it’s a double bluff for Gary Mitchell, and the teaser was there to make us think it’s Khan. Then again there’s been lots of what I’ll call misinformation and rumors spreading to keep us all guessing. That’s JJ Abram’s schtick really, and to be fair it works for him. A good example of this “misinformation” is the recent press blurb that identified Benedict Cumberbatch’s character as somebody named “John Harrison”. Researching that name leads yet another connection to Khan, as he was apparently a crew member who nearly suffocated when Khan took over the Enterprise in the TOS episode Space Seed. It seems to me like things are pointing more and more to it being Khan, which again lends credence to my theory about the whole thing being a big double bluff to hide Gary Mitchell. It really makes the whole thing confusing, and the reports of it being Gary Mitchell, or John Harrison, Or Khan, or some other new villain all contradict each other. The maddening thing is they could all be true in one way or another, depending on how the movie turns out. With the new timeline, all old things can be made new again, and who knows if it’s going to be a new character entirely, or perhaps some strange amalgamation character, and now Khan has Gary Mitchell-God Powers and goes by John Harrison.

Cumberbatch in Star Trek

In fact, I’m hedging my bets on that one. So far all we know for sure is that the character or Carol Marcus is in the film, who we know ends up being Kirk’s love interest, ends up having his kid, and of course, creates the Genesis Device, which was the big macguffin of which all of Star Trek 2: Wrath Of Khan was based. Aside from that though, we know Cumberbatch is a villain, and he’s pissed. Isn’t that all we need at the end of the day really?

That and an angry Khan with Gary Mitchell-God Powers. That sounds pretty awesome.

Movie Trailers

Warm Bodies: Trailer for Horror-Comedy Shakes Up The Zombie Genre

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Scheduled for a February 2013 release is a movie called Warm Bodies, starring Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer. First glance at the synopsis it seems to be little more than a zombie version of Twilight. Here is the plot overview from IMDB:

After a zombie becomes involved with the girlfriend of one of his victims, their romance sets in motion a sequence of events that might transform the entire lifeless world.

This is not the most ground breaking of plots, and the thought of yet another franchise like Twilight was not something I would be looking forward to at all.

Then the trailers came online and I had to reassess my view.

The film looks fantastic. There is an element of the zombie movie Wasting Away in here. In that movie the zombies could talk to themselves and be understood by other zombies, but humans just heard them as zombies. Here there seems to be some interaction between zombies just bouncing about the place which should be fun. There is also an element of Zombieland in there too, with the inner monologue of the zombie adding a new and exciting element. It seems quite funny with some nice comedic scenes (the zombie doing his monologue then getting lost while doing it springs to mind). I really like the fact that even the zombies have something they are scared of, these uber zombies who will eat anything.

All this adds up to quite a quirky looking film, which hopefully will add some new blood into the zombie genre instead of the standard brain eating creatures. If that does not sell you on the movie, then this should make you take note, you have Rob Corddry (Hot Tub Time Machine) as a zombie and John Malkovich (Red) as a zombie hunter! What a winning combination.

Warm Bodies zombie

Movie Trailers

Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘Pacific Rim’ – First Trailer

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After a five year hiatus from theaters, Guillermo Del Toro explodes back onto the scene with the first trailer for the highly anticipated Pacific Rim. Humans always expected aliens to come from the skies, so what happens when the aliens come from a portal in the ocean? We build giant mechs and kick their asses, of course!  Something about this reminds me of the old Godzilla movies…but with more insanity!

After the aliens destroy the coastal cities and leave much of humanity in ruins, a program is started to create giant mechs called Jaegers to combat the monsters. (Insert Jaegerbomb joke here.) But seriously folks, look at this trailer and tell me that doesn’t look like the next great summer monsterfest:

The film has an all star cast including Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman, Idris Elba, Burn Gorman and Clifton Collins Jr., already seems to be at a scope of epic proportions. (Side note: Charlie Day is in this? As in, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s” Charlie? I’m sold just on that alone.)

Pacific-Rim-Cast-Panel

Scheduled for release July 12, 2013, Pacific Rim promises to be a badass trip with insane special effects.

Movie Trailers

‘Man of Steel’: Up, Up and Official Trailer!

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Well, the moment we have all been waiting for is finally here! No, not Christmas. No, not the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. No, not the 9 minutes of footage from Star Trek Into Darkness playing before The Hobbit. I’ll just tell you, since there is obviously a lot of things we are all waiting for right now. It’s the release of the official trailer for Man of Steel! We have only really seen two teasers so far, with very little footage revealed, so this trailer opens everything up a bit more.

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