The Screengrab : dark knight

Screengrab Review: "Terminator Salvation"

Nick Schager — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Terminator Salvation goes Dark Knight-gloomy to reignite James Cameron’s technophobic sci-fi series, jumping forward to post-Judgment Day 2018 to pick up with rebel “prophet” John Conner (Christian Bale) and the human resistance as they wage war against malevolent sentient Skynet and its army of killer robots. The world is now ash-gray and reverberates with cacophonous explosions and squealing metal, a grim, gritty Road Warrior desert dystopia populated only by Terminators and vagabond humans who huddle around barrel fires listening to the radio broadcasts of Connor, a humorless hero embodied by Bale with such monotonous intensity that one fears the greatest threat to his well-being is a self-produced aneurism. Bale’s vehemence suitably meshes with the apocalyptic landscape in which director McG has situated him. Yet working from a script by John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris that places a far greater premium on land, sea and air skirmishes than on meaningful drama, the actor proves no more compelling than the machines against which his protagonist struggles. If only this were a 2001-style commentary on mankind’s devolution. Terminator Salvation, alas, strives for bleak gravity with misguided fervor, dispatching the very traces of warm, generous humanity that, in Cameron’s first two chapters, served as counterbalancing reminders of the necessity for staving off forthcoming mecha-Armageddon.

Given the dreariness of his tale's military resistance, however, McG makes the exact opposite case, positing a human race barely worth saving. At odds with his resistance leadership – namely Michael Ironside, here drained of nails-tough charisma – Conner is determined to use a special transmission signal to shut down Skynet’s HQ, as well as find Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), the teenager who will someday travel back in time to impregnate his mother and become his father. Conner ceases to exist if Reese dies, a scenario familiar to anyone with passing knowledge of the series. And here, it’s frequently intercut with the saga of Marcus Wright (bland battering ram Sam Worthington), whom we first see on death row in 2003 donating his organs to Helena Bonham Carter’s bald, dying Cyberdyne scientist, and later find emerging from the 2018 primordial muck reborn as…what? One guess is all it takes to deduce the surprise lying in wait. The predictability of this revelation, though, isn’t the bummer it might have been thanks to the more pressing disinterest elicited by the overall story, which is comprised of underlined-meaningful dialogue (“Everybody deserves a second chance”), peripheral hotties with beautiful hair (Moon Bloodgood as the badass female, a preggers Bryce Dallas Howard as the maternal one), and action that’s orchestrated with harsh vigor but – one thrilling semi-truck chase notwithstanding – only mild imagination.

McG nods to his predecessors in ways both strained (managing to shoehorn in, with some difficulty, “I’ll be back”) and amusing (a snippet from Guns N’ Roses’ “You Could Be Mine”), but even less than Jonathan Mostow’s Terminator 3, his franchise entry barely bothers adding something new to the mix, adhering to a strict run-and-gun template at the expense of innovation. That might be pardonable if the film proffered even an ounce of humor, which has always been a secondary but vital series component, whether it was Edward Furlong ordering Ahnold’s emotionless surrogate father figure not to kill in T2, or Kristanna Loken’s red-leather-dominatrix get-up in T3. Terminator Salvation, however, mistakes soberness for seriousness, its gloomy character drama coming off as merely action-figure poses, and its deafening combat, drained of any larger narrative import, registering mainly as impressive CG demo reel material. Where feeling is needed, McG offers only cold steel, such that when Wright finally rebels against his makers with a corny bit of slow-motion window-breaking, and Schwarzenegger shortly thereafter makes a cameo – via face-grafting computer-generated trickery – the sought-after emotional payoff never materializes. In its place, there’s only crashing, crushing indifference.

Morning Deal Report: Green Lantern Powers Up

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Casino Royale director Martin Campbell is in negotiations to helm a live-action version of the DC comics staple Green Lantern for Warner Bros. The power ring-wearing superhero is now “at the top of DC properties being set for movie treatment by WB,” Variety reports. “While the studio is hoping director Chris Nolan will follow its 2008 smash The Dark Knight with another Batfilm, DC projects such as Superman and Justice League were expected to happen quickly, but have stalled.” Aquaman – dissed again.

While we’re talking superhero movies, it looks like Ben Stiller and Tina Fey have joined Robert Downey, Jr. for another one – and it’s not Iron Man 2. The trio is “in negotiations to lead the voice cast for DreamWorks Animation's superhero lark Master Mind…The satiric film, with a screenplay by Alan J. Schoolcraft and Brent Simons, concerns a brilliant superhero villain who loses his life's purpose when he accidentally kills his good-guy nemesis,” per The Hollywood Reporter.

While Ridley Scott is allegedly interested in bring Monopoly to the screen, another board game has beat the venerable classic to the punch. Yes, it’s everyone’s very first board game, Candy Land. Etan Cohen (Tropic Thunder) will write the script and Kevin Lima (Enchanted) will direct. I’m still holding out for Scorsese's Don’t Spill the Beans: The Movie.

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One Billion Bats

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:15:00 GMT

In the Los Angeles Times' Hero Complex blog, Geoff Boucher has a lengthy conversation with Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan, whose superhero epic is teetering on the verge of making a billion dollars. Considering that's just U.S. and foreign box office, and doesn't even take into account merchandising and the vast sums it's going to rake in once it comes to home video, that's the kind of cash that even Bruce Wayne would greet with a low whistle. Nolan, though, if he isn't exactly taking the news in stride, at least isn't letting it go to his head: "I can't get my arms around it, to be frank. It's mystifying. It's terrific, but at the same time, it's a little abstract, the numbers are so big...there's something liberating in knowing that my next film, whatever it is, isn't going to make as much money. I don't have to try for years."

Wait a minute..."whatever it is"? Surely it's going to be a third Batman movie. Surely Nolan isn't going to walk away from a franchise that netted widespread critical acclaim and a ten-figure box office return, right? The man himself is cagey on the subject, saying that if there's a compelling enough story to tell, he'll be on board, but noting that no such story has yet revealed itself, and asking the very sensible question: "How many good third movies in a franchise can people name?"

The rest of the interview (part two is here) is equally engaging, featuring Nolan's thoughts on the character of Batman, the loss of Heath Ledger and what it means to the franchise, the widely-argued politics of The Dark Knight, and his favorite scene in the movie. He never gets around to answering whether or not he'll helm the next installment, but our money is on yes. A billion dollars can buy you a lot of story.

Why So Serious?: The Dark Knight in the Political World

Dark Knight: The All-Talking-Head Edition

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:45:00 GMT

It seems strange to be talking already about the contents of a Dark Knight DVD already. After all, the movie is still playing in theaters all over the place -- in fact, it's still in the middle of a real barn-burner of a theatrical run, with each week proving that a Spandex-clad Christian Bale still has some legs under him. By the time the last theater in America yanks the latest installment of Christopher Nolan's Batman series in favor of Election Movie or whatever other Jason Friedberg/Aaron Seltzer abomination comes down the pike, it may be the most profitable movie in the history of the world. Still, today's media cycle is shorter than Billy Barty, and it can't be denied that some people were already demanding a Dark Knight DVD release on their way out of the theater after having seen it for the first time.

That's why we're grateful to insider site Blu-Ray.com (via a Spanish DVD fansite, so please do consider the source before writing us angry letters) for some advance info about what we're going to get when we finally plunk down our $30 for the deluxe DVD release of Dark Knight. Neat stuff: it'll be a double disc, with director's commentary, making-of featurettes, production stills, trailers, viral marketing content, gadget stuff, and all the rest. Multiple audio formats will be available, and there'll be plenty of origin-of-a-scene stuff and special effects spotlights for the geek contingent. Especially fun: the release will include six different clips from fictional Gotham City news shows and media broadcasts, treating the events of the film as if they were real stories; this could be setting audiences up for the next movie in the series -- tentatively titled, simply, Gotham -- in which it's rumored we'll see all the action from a citizen's-eye view.

Less neat, though, is the promise that the second disc will contain talking-head featurettes entitled "Batman Unmasked: The Psychology of the Dark Knight" and "The World of Batman Seen Through Real Life Psychotherapy". Speaking as someone who has spent entirely too much time thinking about the psychology of Bruce Wayne, take it from me that nothing kills the magic of Batman more than hearing some heartless schmoe talk about how, in real life, he'd be considered a violent psychopath who should probably do a couple of decades punching wax dummies in an asylum. Better still, these features are inexplicably in HD, allowing audiences to see every wrinkle and/or pimple on whatever community college psych teacher they rope in to do the project.

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Why So Serious? The Dark Knight in the Political World

Video of the Day: The New Batman Movie?

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:30:00 GMT

Admittedly, it ain't Christopher Nolan. But in a cleverly conceived -- and surprisingly watchable -- example of what YouTube is capable of delivering, filmmaker Andre Perkowski brings us Silent Shadow of the Bat-Man, a detourned collage film made up up of found footage and scenes snipped from some of the same old silent movies that influenced Batman's creators, Bill Finger and Bob Kane, in designing the character, including The Bat, The Man Who Laughs and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

A happy-go-lucky approach to copyright issues ensures you won't be seeing this in the theaters anytime soon, but in addtion to writing original music for the Silent Shadow of the Bat-Man experiment, Perkowski has already shot three more chapters of a projected six-piece series, all made with the same detourning approach and all available on YouTube.

Morgan Freeman: There But For the Grace of the Batmobile Go We

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:45:00 GMT

As our own Scott Von Doviak tipped you yesterday, beloved character actor, Oscar winner, and voice of God Morgan Freeman was involved in a somewhat serious car accident on Monday, having flipped his car while driving down a rural road in Mississippi. After reports that the 71-year-old actor fell asleep at the wheel and had to be removed from the car via the jaws of life (and subsequent, albeit incorrect, information that he was in critical condition), there was much trepidation in film blogger circles that we'd be having to write his obituary today. Happily, the Seasame Street vet/Metatron proved more resilient than we thought; he's reported today to be in good spirits, joking with doctors and reporters, with not much more than a broken arm and elbow and hopes to get released from the hospital within a few days. So relax, office wags -- your "Driving Miss Daisy" jokes will now seem merely lame and not completely tasteless.

The prognosis good news for fans of the man currently cleaning up as Lucious Fox in Dark Knight. Freeman has a well-earned reputation as one of Hollywood's genuine good guys -- a friendly, decent, charitable, and honest man. (Hell, he wasn't even drunk or stoned when he flipped his car, and how rare is that in today's Hollywood?) Everyone who's worked with him has only positive things to say about him, and the worst criticism leveled at him as an actor is that he has a strong prediliction towards playing "Magical Negro" roles, which is really more Hollywood's fault than his own. (It also ignores the fact that his c.v. is crammed with more interesting, if less seen, roles, such as his turn as a noble, if obsessive hitman in the underrated Neal LaBute comedy Nurse Betty.) Here's wishing a speedy recovery and hopes that he's in good condition to see the world premiere of The Human Factor, in which he appears as Nelson Mandela -- very likely the role he was born to play.

How about you, Screengrabbers? What's your favorite non-Sesame Street Morgan Freeman role?

Ten Movies for a Snow Day

"Watchmen": More Than Just Buying Dave Gibbons a New Boat

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:15:00 GMT

Now that Dark Knight is finally going to be opening nationwide, we can finally return to the natural occupation of the comic book fan: deranged obsession over Zack Snyder's upcoming movie adaptation of Watchmen.

As we've discussed before, one of the problems with the recent wave of successful motion picture adaptations of comic book properties is that while they've made tons of money for the producers of the movies, it hasn't worked the other way around. Comic book companies have slavered to get their properties on screen in recent years, in the hopes that audiences turned on by the big-screen adventures of Batman or the X-Men will follow those characters into their local comic book shop. This is especially important in these days of direct sales, when comic book sales are at a historical low, and people speak in non-hysterical terms about the demise of the industry. So it's worth noting that the millions in profit made my comic book movies hasn't generally been matched by a notable increase in comic book sales, one comic is bucking that trend: Watchmen.

One of the earliest comic book mini-series to take advantage of the 'graphic novel collection' format in the 1980s, Watchmen was already one of the most successful titles in DC's history, despite its indie sensibilities, adult storytelling, and complex, morally difficult story. But with the movie adaptation getting ever closer, its sales have shot way up -- and DC plans to capitalize on the interest in spades. They'll be promoting an aggressive three-pronged marketing attack to ensure that anyone sucked in by the movie to the degree that they absolutely must have the comic will be able to get one with not trouble. The triple attack includes a retailer discount for any shops that wish to carry the original softcover graphic novel; a new hardbound edition for collectors; and a deluxe edition featuring making-of material, rare artwork, and other bonus materials, the comic book equivalent of a fancy Criterion Collection disc.

Of course, to a hardcore Watchmen fan, this marketing push has an added benefit: unlike the film, with which he has disassociated himself, leaving all the profits to go to artist Dave Gibbons, writer Alan Moore still gets a share of the money from sales of the comic. So when the movie is released, those of you who still have a raggedy old copy of the softback might want to consider purchasing a movie tie-in edition...

More Goddamn Watchmen

Trailer Review: Bangkok Dangerous

John Constantine — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:59:00 GMT

First of all, Bangkok Dangerous is a hilarious name. The sixth grader who lives in my brain starts giggling every single time I look at it. It sounds like a caveman warning you to be cautious while traveling. Second of all, am I insane or is Nic Cage starting to look like the Crypt Keeper wearing a Gene Simmons wig? Casting directors, I am telling you, the man is aging. Stop trying to make him look like he’s 30. He isn’t.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the trailer. Looks like Bangkok’s dangerous! There are assassins and slave trading and coups and gangsters and all kinds of stuff. At first, this comes off as being in the same tonal vein as the underrated Lord of War, a serious look into the life of a hired killer giving Mr. Cage ample opportunity to look sad. It shifts gears after the first minute into a big popcorn flick. While watching, I started to question whether or not Cage is a draw for this sort of thing. After all, The Rock came out twelve freaking years ago. Then I remembered that the National Treasure movies made twelve mumbillion dollars. On the whole Bangkok Dangerous looks like it might be alright. If you’ve got one a gift certificate lying around come summer, and you’ve already seen Indiana Jones, Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Speed Racer, The Hulk, and every other flighty action movie in theaters, this might be a good choice.

Trailer Roundup End of Year Special- Coolest Trailer, 2007

Paul Clark — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 20:00:00 GMT

From now through the end of the week, I'll be posting some of the most memorable trailers from 2007.

Iron Man

2008 looks to be a banner year for movies geared toward fans of fantasy and comic books. But while I'm excited for movies like Hellboy 2 and The Dark Knight, no trailer of 2007 had me geeking out more than the spot for next summer's Iron Man. A lot of it has to do with Robert Downey Jr.'s presence in the lead role. It pleases me to no end that he's finally cleaned up his image in Hollywood's eyes, to the point where he can headline a summer blockbuster. But if the trailer is any indication, he's still Downey through and through, which if anything is even more exciting. So yeah, this trailer won me over even before he donned the iron suit. Everything after this was a pure geek delight, with the trailer blaring Black Sabbath right on time to accompany Iron Man doing what he does best. It takes a very special- and very cool- trailer to get me as pumped to see a big-budget action movie as I used to get when I was a kid, but the Iron Man trailer does just that.

Dark Knight News

Peter Smith — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 19:00:00 GMT

In a desperate attempt to write about a comic book adaptation other than Watchmen, we’ve been combing the web for news about Dark Knight (which, despite the title, is merely the next Batman sequel and not an filmed version of the legendary Frank Miller mini-series). Luckily, the geeks of the nation have not let us down. The Library Journal reports that Vermont senator Patrick Leahy, a lifelong Batman fan who has a cameo in the film, will be donating all his earnings to the Montpelier public library. (Leahy is a Democrat. We’re just sayin'.) Variety reports on a new Hollywood trend to source visual effects to a handful of maverick French design companies, who are valued for their blend of technology and aesthetics; one of the companies profiled is Buf, which did the VFX for Spider-Man 3 and will also be handling Dark Knight. And Empire magazine interviews Michael Caine, who praises Heath Ledger’s Joker as "stunning" and says he's the only actor who could follow Jack Nicholson into anything but a nightclub. — Leonard Pierce