It seemed like such a good idea: Will Smith plays a wino Superman. The Fresh Prince of Bel Air playing a wino Superman in a big summer blockbuster sounded like as much fun as opening up a big box and finding that it's full of fluffy puppies. The actual result? Like opening up that big box and finding out that all those fluffy puppies are dead.
We begin with a scene of children trying to wake Hancock (Smith) who's passed out on a bus bench. Trouble! Some Asian gangbangers are shooting an Uzi out the window of their SUV while driving real fast on the freeway. Hancock wakes up and seems to fly to the scene of the crime via special effects that look 15 years out of date. He stops the car full of Asians, but causes lots of property damage in the process. Everyone in this movie hates Hancock because he's a bum and not very good at being a superhero. Then he meets Ray (Jason Bateman), a PR guy who's not very good at being a PR guy. Ray decides to become Hancock's publicist and his wife, Mary (Charlize Theron), gives Smith strange looks.
Hancock cleans up his act, becomes a true superhero and then -- wait a minute. We're only halfway through the movie? Is this it? No... Without giving too much away, there's a twist, and then some Anne Rice stuff about immortals, and gods and goth romance. But it all ends with Hancock painting a giant heart on the side of the moon.
Continue reading "Hancock Review - Not the Hobo Superman We Wanted" »
• Keanu Reeves' environmental update of Day The Earth Stood Still looks terrible. Who's surprised?
• A surprisingly illuminating post from a biogeek on the evolutionary challenges of silicon-based life.
• Maybe I spoke too soon: Rose McGowan's Barbarella still on?
• Meanwile, Jessica Alba is rumored to replace McGowan as Barbarella. Graeme McMillan at io9 is outraged, citing that Alba "can't act." And Jane Fonda could? Don't bother answering: The proper response is no.
• Joseph Loeb defends a Batman Begins Robin.
• Wow. David Fincher's next project will apparently be a CGI version of Dark Horse classic series The Goon.
Continue reading "Daily Scan: 07.04.08- Barbarella Still On; David Fincher Takes on The Goon" »
I took my daughter to go see Wall-E last weekend, and as just about every critic in the world has noted, it's an absolutely delightful film. There's apparently already a whisper campaign to get it nominated for Best Picture, which if it were to succeed, would make Wall-E both one of the very few animated films and one of the very few science fiction films to get such a nod. Which would make it a pretty rare film, indeed.
But in one sense it's already a very rare film: It's one of the few science fiction films that is primarily a comedy. Furthermore, it's one of the few science fiction films that's primarily a comedy that is actually funny. Science fiction, taken as a whole, is not a notably funny film genre (at least, not intentionally). I've spent a little bit of time trying to figure out why.
Now before anyone starts listing them off in the comments, yes, there are some funny science fiction films, and here are some of them: Back to the Future, Men in Black, Spaceballs, Sleeper, Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, Galaxy Quest. What do these films have in common? First, they break into two wide and overlapping categories: Time travel (Back to the Future, Sleeper) and farce (Spaceballs, Hitchhikers' Guide).
Continue reading "John Scalzi - Science Fiction Is Easy, Comedy Is Hard" »
• It turns out that everyone in the DC Universe eventually goes to the small Kansas town of Smallville.
• The BBC goes ahead with a Hitchhiker's Guide prequel.
• Rose McGowan and Robert Rodriguez break up. Where does this leave Barbarella? Hopefully without Rose.
• Some great old Indian comics from the 1970s.
• The awesomest Predator action figure ever.
• Comics scribe Mark Millar claims Superman will be reinvented by Hollywood. Again.
• Rough cut buzz of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek Xi is pretty good... albeit, from the usual Ain't It Cool mouthbreathers.
• Star Wars characters in plastic teddy bear form.
• io9 posts about lying, deceitful mentors and imaginary intelligence organizations.
• It looks like we might get a BSG movie as early as fall... possibly a Cylon backstory set on New Caprica!
The world of science fiction underwent a profound change in 1984, the year William Gibson's Neuromancer was released. It's staggering to ponder just how many movies, novels, and comic books, scifi or otherwise, bear the distinctly cyber-dystopian mark of Gibson's seminal work. While, yes, a bevy of cyberpunk novels preceded Neuromancer -- many influential in their own right -- not one of them approaches the novel's inspirational order of magnitude.
Chief among Neuromancer's credits is its popularization of the term cyberspace. Think about that for a second. How many times have you heard the word cyberspace? At this point in our Web-soaked history, it's almost too ridiculous to ask. And while our strangely tech-centric society isn't quite the grim vision Gibson had in mind -- Neuromancer's drug-addled console-cowboy protagonist, Case, has been supplanted by disaffected teenagers punching out messages on palm sized machines that would've made 1980s cyberpunk authors salivate buckets -- the spirit remains, as do the goggles, affected angst and black leather.
Kevin Maher explains why this fourth movie in the Planet of the Apes franchise shocked, surprised, and pleased its ape-loving fans.
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Movies mentioned in this video include:
• Conquest of the Planet of the Apes
• Escape From the Planet of the Apes
• Planet of the Apes
There's been a lot of talk about the science in The Happening. (Popular Mechanics called it junk. Our reviewer called it boring.) The idea that plants have the cognitive ability to blame humans for pollution is a bit of a stretch. Then there's the notion of plants talking to each other and taking us out using airborne toxins: If plants were that ambitious, there would be more "accidents" during Harvest. But M. Night Shyamalan was right about one thing -- plants are adapting to the effects of global warming. Only they're not attacking. They're leaving.
A new study shows that plants in France are heading north to stay cool as temperatures rise. To gauge the effect of climate change on ordinary plant life, researchers measured the best growing conditions on the mountains for species of trees, grasses, herbs, ferns and mosses. "Among 171 species, most are shifting upwards to recover temperature conditions that are optimum," says ecologist and lead study author Jonathan Lenoir. "Climate change has already imposed a significant effect in a wide range of plant species not restricted to sensitive ecosystems." Previous research showed that plants at the highest elevations on mountains have been shifting to adjust to global warming, but this new study shows that entire ecosystems in lower, more temperate regions are moving as well.
Continue reading "Plants in The Happening Waged War; Real Ones Run for the Hills" »
• Seth Rogen in The Green Hornet will play an incompetent superhero whose sidekick is more loved than he is. Uh... okay. Yeesh.
• The Dark Knight gets pizza boxes.
• Toys based on the new Star Wars: Clone Wars series will be hitting shelves at the end of the month.
• JoBlo wonders if Robin should show up in future Batman novies. They say he has no place. I like Robin, but I tend to agree... he's never been handled well.
• Who should play del Toro's Frankenstein? David Boreanaz! Ted Danson!
A film version of The Hobbit is coming to a theater near you... although probably not until 2011. But those who can't stand the three-year wait can take some comfort in TheOneRing.net, which is working hard to keep fans abreast of the movie's progress. The goal of the site, founded in 1999, is to "provide an outlet for all Tolkien fans to express their enthusiasm for the world of J.R.R. Tolkien, from hardcore book fans to people who only enjoy Orlando Bloom's portrayal of Legolas," says Chris Pirrotta, one of the site's founders and the creative director.
If Hancock does succeed, it'll join a select few who have managed to nail a notoriously difficult genre. Here are a handful of films that cracked the superhero comedy code.
AMC announced today that acclaimed film actors Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ, The Thin Red Line) and Ian McKellen (Lord of the Rings, The Da Vinci Code) have signed on for the network's reinterpretation of the highly influential 1960s cult classic, The Prisoner.
So summer is upon us and blockbuster season is well and truly here. Wanted has proven to have the goods though it's not really SciFi enough to include here, Wall-E has finally arrived, and all signs are that Hancock will be the summer's first outright flop - a big budget spectacle that absolutely nobody is talking about, opening to mediocre reviews against two vastly superior films. Sorry, Will, you've got another Wild Wild West on your hands. If Hancock ends up bleeding cash will studio suits re-think director Peter Berg's big budget adaptation of Dune? Time will tell ...
