Tag Archives: Michael Fassbender

Movie News & Opinions

Big Casting for ‘Days of Future Past’, as Patrick Stewart & Ian McKellan Sign On!

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X-Men: Days of Future Past continues to move forward in a very interesting direction with more casting news today. Joining James McAvoy (Xavier) and Michael Fassbender (Magneto) for the First Class sequel, will be none other than Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, who first brought the characters to the big screen. Bryan Singer announced the news through Twitter this morning, as well as officially announcing the returning cast from X-Men: First Class:

Continue reading Big Casting for ‘Days of Future Past’, as Patrick Stewart & Ian McKellan Sign On! →

Movie News & Opinions

Tom Hardy to Play Sam Fisher in the Upcoming ‘Splinter Cell’ Movie

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Tom Clancy games were some of the most popular shooters in the early days of this console generation, back before Call of Duty stormed in and beat everything else from the genre into non-existence. Among the Clancy-approved series were Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon and, of course, Splinter Cell. As Sam Fisher, an elite agent of the fictional Third Echelon branch of the NSA, players infiltrated terrorist cells using only stealth tactics and a small kit of advanced gadgetry. In its heyday Splinter Cell was beloved and one of the best-selling franchises out there. The games are still around, but the popularity and quality of Sam Fisher’s more recent missions have waned considerably.

But hat’s not to say that interest has completely dropped off. There’s still enough gas in the tank that Ubisoft Studios is in the process of starting up a Splinter Cell movie, and according to Geek Exchange Ubi has now successfully wrangled The Dark Knight Rises co-star Tom Hardy to play the part of Agent Fisher. This is a huge get for Ubisoft, who also recently announced that Michael Fassbender will star in their Assassin’s Creed adaptation. With both films featuring high-caliber stars they’ll likely draw an audience, but hopefully the show of talent on camera is reflective of the talent behind it; despite the fact that studios have been converting video game properties to the silver screen for over thirty years, there has yet to be one worth watching. Ubisoft’s own Prince of Persia has arguably been the best of them so far, but it wasn’t exactly a critical success either.

Tom Hardy has been one of my favorite actors to watch since I stumbled upon Bronson a year or two ago. Following his somewhat minor role as Eames in Inception his career has taken off (Rubbing shoulders with Christopher Nolan should have that effect), and the English actor has found himself among Hollywood’s elite ever since. The guy just can’t act badly, and he rarely picks a wrong movie. He also grows a fantastic beard.

I wonder about his casting in this though. The last Splinter Cell game I played was 2005’s Chaos Theory, and at least to that point, Sam Fisher was not a particularly nuanced character. He’s a rough and tumble proficient killer which fits Tom Hardy’s repertoire for sure, but Fisher is a middle-aged man with greying hair and a two-years-past-retirement attitude. It will be interesting to see how much of that is retained in the movie, as well as the rest of the series canon. I always prefer a more distant approach – retain the characters and the setting but create a brand new plot. Video games are lacking in those as a rule, and the only thing less exciting than a fetch quest in a video game is a fetch quest on a movie screen. But this is all speculation. As production nears and more details come to light we’ll stay on top of it.

Movie News & Opinions

‘Metal Gear Solid’ Movie Announced!

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Out of the thousands of Metal Gear fans in the world, I’m probably one of the few hundred or so that thinks the entire series is a brilliant masterpiece. The series, while popular, has gained notoriety and fame for being infamously convoluted, while still having gripping set pieces, unique characters, and of course, lengthy cut scenes. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots, was probably 2/3 cut scenes in its entirety, and is probably one of the few games where the cut scenes out number the length of all the game play by that 2 to 1 ratio. However, having played the Metal Gear series since I was a youngster, I’ve always been fond of Snake and his adventures, and the universe of  intrigue, paranoia, espionage, and occasional batshit insanity that makes up the Metal Gear Solid franchise.

One of my favorite past times for the last 12 years has been playing “Cast the Metal Gear Movie” with my friends, but it was always in vain, because for the longest time Hideo Kojima, Metal Gear’s creator, never seemed interested in a movie, or at the very least, was wary of making one, or letting one be made. Well no longer! At the 25th Anniversary Metal Gear Solid Event, plans were announced for a movie to be made.

Believe it or not, Hideo Kojima is nearly 50 years old. There must be something in the water in Japan.

While there is no direct quote from Kojima himself, Avi Arad, CEO of Marvel Comics, looks to be included in the project, possibly in a producer role.  Avi Arad is behind a multitude of comics movies that you’re no doubt familiar with, and one look at his body of work goes to show the guy knows how to get projects off the ground and running. He even had this to say about the Metal Gear movie:

“For many years I fought to bring comics to theaters. Comic books are now the biggest genre in cinema. Videogames are the comic books of today…We will take our time and tell the story with all the nuances, ideology, cautionary tales needed.”

Via [Examiner]

I appreciate the guy’s enthusiasm, I really do, but when you’re responsible for turds like Man-Thing, or the more recent, The Amazing Spider-Man, it makes me worry. However, his work on the very successful and well made Marvel Avengers franchise lays some of that worry to bed. Mostly, I’m just excited to see some of my favorite video games characters finally realized on-screen. Way back when, I remember sitting through the very cinematic end credits of Metal Gear Solid, for the PS1, and thinking about how great a movie it would make. Now that there’s at least 4 games that tell the main story, not counting any of the spinoffs or side stories, it’s a story so epically long in length and depth, you’d need at least 3 movies to accurately adapt the entire series. What with every movie now being legally required to be three movies long, there’s a possibility somebody could actually adapt a story that suits the format of being made into a superfluous trilogy. Either way, unless you focused on one particular game, you’d end up with a really confusing film on your hands.

Metal Gear? Confusing? Never!

My suggestion, if I was producing, would be to plan for one movie, and a prequel. You adapt Metal Gear Solid, try to keep it as faithful as possible, because that story is near perfect. Perhaps you add in a subplot and role that plays up Big Boss’ part, (Played by Sean Connery, of course), and then make a prequel movie, that’s an adaptation of the truly perfect Metal Gear Solid 3. While MGS4 has the best action set pieces that would actually adapt into a movie perfectly, it’s almost completely made of up plot threads and characters who were previously introduced, and it’s story would be so lost and muddled by trying to be condensed, with its 9+ hour running time of cut scenes.

Well, no matter what, I’ll be looking forward to hearing more about the project, and I’ll finally get back to realistically speculating who would play Snake in a movie.

Michael Fassbender perhaps?

Movie News & Opinions

Michael Fassbender Will Star In “Assassin’s Creed”

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Assassin’s Creed is one of those magnificent games that manages to pack together a high concept, dense, and intricately woven story, with heavy mythology and symbolism, and still manages to be a commercial success. I suppose the difference between games and other mediums, is that with a game, you can skip the story if you like, and focus solely on the killing and whatnot. You’d be doing yourself a huge disservice, as the AC storyline is one of the better science fiction stories being told in gaming, or any media today.

The first game is initially about you being the descendant of an ancient league of assassins, reliving your genetic memories via a virtual reality machine that can access historical details otherwise obscured or lost to time. The repercussions of your discoveries, and the true intent of the scientists putting you through these experiments is what soon becomes captivating, along with the seemingly anachronistic parallels between the past and the present. Eventually the back story becomes the main story, and in the games sequels it’s expanded greatly, and really makes you wonder just what the hell is going on.

So with much optimism, I’m glad to say that Michael Fassbender, who some of you might recognize as David from Prometheus, or Magneto from X-Men: First Class, has been cast in the lead role for the film. It’s not confirmed if he’ll actually be playing Desmond Miles, the lead from the game, but one could presume so. Speaking briefly on the casting of Fassbender is Ubisoft Motion Pictures CEO Jean-Julien Baronnet, via Coming Soon:

“Michael Fassbender was our first choice. Michael (Fassbender) is an extremely smart, talented, versatile and committed actor.” 

For me, even though the game is a lot of fun, I’d rather just watch the brilliant story play out, which is why a movie is such a great idea. Historical fiction is fairly popular right now, and even though The Da Vinci Code, National Treasure and films of that ilk are gaining years in age, all it would take is something like Assassin’s Creedto blow up and get everybody excited about how awesome history is again. I can’t wait to see this thing, and I should really get around to finishing the last 2 games in the series, before 3 comes out, and so should you!

MOVIES

Grizzly Review: Prometheus (Spoiler Free)

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Prometheus is a good Sci-Fi film with great acting and an interesting plot, but sadly it wasn’t a great Sci-Fi film and definitely wasn’t this generations Alien. But I would love to see a sequel which could easily fix the problems I found with this film. The best advice I can give to anyone going to see this film would be not to have your expectations to the level that the hype has put it.

Ridley Scott, director of Alien and Blade Runner, returns to the genre he helped define. With Prometheus, he creates a ground-breaking mythology, in which a team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a thrilling journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.

To start off let’s talk about the acting. The acting was very professional and you could feel the emotion but the main flaw I found with the characters and the film in general were that you couldn’t connect with the people. The main character Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) was the exception to this with a realistic but strong character who survives at all costs (credit goes to her with a great performance). Sadly the characters you start to like get very little screen time and the one’s you don’t really care about (Charlie) get time that was more boring than interesting. Then there’s my main fault with this film. The crew don’t really mix very well and you get the feeling their all in their own little worlds, rather than experiencing something as a group. So in that respect it loses some of its authenticity.

Think I have moaned enough about the characters for now, so let’s talk about something more fun like the visuals. The special effects, physical props and visual landscape shots where both excellent viewing and brilliantly immersive to the universe that Ridley Scott’s created. There’s nothing quite like being four rows from the screen of an IMAX 3D showing of Prometheus and I would definitely recommend that experience. At one point the spaceship felt like it was landing two feet from your seat which was a little shocking because I have never sat that close at an IMAX. The best thing I felt about this films look was the way that the ships interiors and the alien building where all real and built in the Pinewood Studios which gave everything a realistic touch which helps to bring you closer to believing you’re in that world.

The plot is very much its own. If nothing else this film is not like any other and for that Ridley Scott has made a great addition to his Sci-Fi resume. My favorite scene without giving anything away would be the end scene of the film and if you have seen alien you will know why, but the other would probably be anything involving the Android David (Michael Fassbender) because he was such a great character and played brilliantly by Michael Fassbender who was being great as always. So if there is a sequel which after watching the film I would be expecting one, then I hope that they keep David but give him more face time and a better physical presence.

Finally I would like to address the question of whether Prometheus is a prequel to the Alien film. In my opinion it certainly was a prequel and the film does nothing but leave clues to the original films plot and origins. The end gives you the strongest connection to the original; they couldn’t have made that last scene more revealing to the alien origins if you saw the crew of the Nostromo land at the end. Simply put though this film needed to be more like alien and have a more structured and sensible plot that wouldn’t confuse viewers, I did feel that the film alienated (pure coincidence I used that word) people who wouldn’t get some of the more subtle and complicated plot strands. So go watch it because the film is a great viewing pleasure and will keep you thinking for a long time after about what happened.

grizzly rating 4.5

Movie News & Opinions

‘X-Men: First Class’ Sequel Release Date Announced

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Last years X-Men: First Class was a welcome entry into the X-Men film franchise, and of course, it’s going to get a sequel. Thankfully, the team behind the original, including Michael Fassbender, who played the brilliant Magneto, Jennifer Lawrence of newly found ‘Hunger Games’ fame, and Director Matthew Vaughn, who was also responsible for the kick ass, Kick-Ass, are all returning, given time for their respective schedules, to film the sequel in time for July 2014 release. James McAvoy is also confirmed as returning as Professor X, although there is no information at this time if he will be going bald. Details about the film itself are scarce, as it doesn’t even have a title yet, but it will focus on Magneto falling further down the spiral into super-villainry.  All in all it’s still pretty early, and news about casting, new roles, further plot details and such are in the air, as it’ll likely be a year before any substantial updates are available.

What did the five fingers say to the face?

I especially look forward to the film, as First Class was the only film in the entire X-Men franchise that, in my opinion, carried any depth or genuine meaning with it, along with exciting, fun to watch action scenes that carried weight and gravitas behind them. The first two tried unsuccessfully to blend heady, talk heavy scenes into the film, but failed when it came to any kind of exhilarating fighting or action, and left us with a main character death in the second, that lacked emotional resonance, and ultimately ended up going nowhere interesting in the incredibly mediocre (but entertaining in a oh-man-this-is-bad way) third film. First Class finally showcased realistic uses of powers by characters who were refreshingly happy and willing to use them, because having powers would be amazing, and seeing characters unburdened by any sort of broody melodramatic guilt over the “responsibility” of their powers, was a breath of fresh air to see, especially in a genre where so many superheroes’ are so torn about having frickin’ SUPER POWERS.

So it goes without saying I’ll be looking forward to seeing some new X-Men action come July 18, 2014, because watching someone using mind powers gleefully is probably the best wish-fulfillment there is.