Posts Tagged ‘aliens’

Short Take: See things blow up a la ‘Transformers’, and Liam Neeson get a paycheck

Director: Peter Berg

Screenwriters: Erich and Jon Hoeber

Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Liam Neeson, Brooklyn Decker, Rihanna, Alexander Skarsgård

Length: 2h 11m

Synopsis: Alex Hopper (Kitsch) is a thick-headed, stubborn, undisciplined underachiever. Natural, then, that his brother Stone (Skarsgård) forces him to enlist in the U.S. Navy with him. While procured Alex has fallen for and wooed a fetching blonde named Samantha (Decker), who just happens to be the daughter of his superior, Admiral Shane (Neeson). Meanwhile, the U.S. government has secretly sent a signal to a distant planet that closely resembles our own. Only shortly after being sent its receivers send their own signal back in the form of spacecrafts which land in the waters near Hawaii during a Naval training exercise that the Hopper brothers are part of. Alarm spreads. The aliens close off the immediate area near Hawaii with a dome forcefield, and the battle begins. The aliens on the outside of this area try to usurp the same equipment used to reach them in order to contact home, which cannot be allowed to happen for fear of calling on more aliens. Will our heroes save the day and defeat the cosmic invaders?

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Short Take: Arguably what "Salt" or "Columbiana" should have been

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Screenwriter: Lem Dobbs

Cast: Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Michael Angarano, Bill Paxton

Length: 1h 33m

Synopsis: In a world where you live only for as long as you can defend yourself against stiff physical assaults and the occasional poor judgment of character, there exists Mallory (Carano). A freelancing black ops agent of sorts, her dedication, awareness, savvy, and tenacity have made her one of the most sought after of her kind. After a rescue mission that didn’t go as smoothly as it should have, she begins to suspect that one of her more frequent employers, known only as Kenneth (McGregor), has been planning to set her up for failure. As a test, Mallory takes up his newest assignment where she’ll be working with another agent named Paul (Fassbender), who it turns out is in fact part of a double-cross. Surviving the betrayal placed a giant target on her back, and now she’s on the run looking to clear her name and get revenge on those responsible.

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Short Take: An all around solid effort on a cool premise, but couldn't reach the point of excellence it was trying to

Director: Gonzalo López-Gallego

Screenwriter: Brian Miller

Cast: Warren Christie, Ryan Robbins, Lloyd Owen

Length: 1h 17m

Synopsis: In 1973 astronauts Ben Anderson (Christie), John Grey (Robbins), and Nathan Walker (Owen) are asked to lead the originally canceled Apollo 18 lunar expedition in order to place missile-detecting equipment on the moon in defense against the Soviet Union. Unlike the other Apollo missions, however, this one is Top Secret. Not even the astronauts’ families know where they’re going, but what’s worse is that they never return. Fast-forward to present day: 84 hours of video footage which captured what went on during the mission somehow made its way onto the internet, and the film we see is a spliced together version of it all. The fate of the astronauts, we find, was a horrifying one. Aside from finding themselves stranded, they faced creatures that give new meaning to the word “extraterrestrial.” For those wondering why we haven’t been back to the moon, Apollo 18 provides the answer.

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It sounds crazy, but the remedy for a so-so prequel just might in fact be a sequel

Dear Universal Pictures,

Just an idea, but maybe you should dare to follow your prequel of The Thing with a sequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing, and make it a follow-up reminiscent of James Cameron’s Aliens.

In my review of Heijningen Jr.’s recently released prequel I note how transparent it is that what he really made was actually more of a remake. And although there is still a rather large cultural resistance to horror remakes (I’m going by fan forums here, not box office numbers), such a fact should not really be held against Heijningen Jr. himself. More appropriately, any hostility towards this truth should be directed at you because it was you who insisted on making a “prequel” that in this particular case couldn’t have been anything else but a remake. One way you could redeem yourself of this misguided decision, though, is by seriously entertaining the above suggestion.

It sounds almost paradoxical for me to suggest that the way to make up for a poorly conceived remake is to base another related story on a film that so many – including myself – consider a classic of such status that to even joke about “tampering” with it might be tantamount to heresy, but hear me out.

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Short Take: Decent fun, but only mildly engaging and not altogether memorable

Director: Jon Favreau

Screenwriters: Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Steve Oedekerk; Scott Mitchell Rosenberg (comic)

Cast: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Paul Dano

Length: 1h 58m

Synopsis: One day in 1873 outlaw Jake Lonergan (Craig) finds himself awaking in a desert, unaware of who he is or where he has just been. A strange device is strapped to his wrist that he can’t remove, but it would seem that it isn’t there to harm him. Stumbling into a nearby town he gets recognized and thrown in jail, sentenced to wait until local boss Dolarhyde (Ford) returns and decides what to do with him. When Dolarhyde does return he is followed shortly by strange UFOs that proceed to abduct and terrorize the townspeople. The next day Jake, Dolarhyde, and a few other survivors form a search party to find the abducted, with Jake leading the way because the device on his wrist turned out to be the only viable weapon against the inscrutable invaders. A woman named Ella (Wilde) tags along to impart knowledge about the aliens, as she has personally dealt with them before. In a toilsome search the group must find and free their lost loved ones, armed only with six-shooters and iron wills. Yippy ki yay.

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Short Take: Decidedly loyal, but not afraid to break new ground

Director: Nimr0d Antal (debut)

Screenwriters: Alex Litvak, Michael Finch

Cast: Adrien Brody (Splice), Alice Braga (Repo Men), Topher Grace (Spider-Man 3), Lawrence Fishburne (TV’s C.S.I.), Danny Trejo (Grindhouse), Walton Goggins (TV’s Justified)

Length: 1h 46m

Synopsis: After mysteriously arriving on an alien planet that resembles the jungles of our own, 8 random people find themselves confused and paranoid, reluctant to trust one another but determined to find answers. Before long they realize that their purpose on this strange world is to be prey to an advanced alien species that finds the idea of hunting synonymous with sport. Not coincidentally, all 8 members of the abducted group are killers themselves in one way or another (mercenary, Spetsnaz, serial killer, R.U.F., etc.), and so they must rely on their predatory instincts to survive. The only question is, which predators will come out on top?

Warning: This review contains information that some might consider spoiling Read the rest of this entry »

IGN.com visited the set of Predators, the Robert Rodriguez produced remake of 1987′s Predator, and got the chance to interview various persons tied to the project, from director Nimrod Antal to Gregory Nicotero of the KNB EFX Group who are responsible for bringing the classic and new Predator aliens to life.

Most of this Part 1 of the set visit talks about the aliens themselves and how they’re being realized on screen. The different kinds of Predator aliens are each given their own unique names, with the original being dubbed “classic” and a newer one, for example, being named Super Predator.

Nicotero had this to say about the new Super Predator:

“They are a lot taller and, as you can see, a lot leaner. Robert Rodriguez and Nimrod, when we first started the project, they used a really great analogy. [They] said the Classic Predator is a cassette tape and the new Predators are the iPod version. So that kind of triggered a lot of visual things in my head, in terms of making them taller, making them sleek and keeping the armor really close to the body so that they are not bulky, because we wanted to get the idea that they are fast and that they’re elegant and that they are efficient. Even in terms of the dreadlocks and stuff … [we wanted] that kind of Rasta look, but we swept all the dreadlocks back. We made the face a lot longer. We just wanted everything about them to look more elegant, like a black widow. We wanted it to just be really deadly looking.” – IGN

Here's a glimpse of the new Predator

Elaborating further, Nicotero explains how very on board he was with director Nimrod’s vision for the film – specifically regarding the special effects. Aside from when the aliens are camouflaged with an invisibility cloak, all of the Predators are realized using practical effects and not CGI. There are however Predator dogs that, with the way they were designed, had to be done using computer animation.

Read the full article to discover even more interesting details about the upcoming Predators, and keep an eye out for Part 2 of the set visit.

Short Take: Fun, but ultimately superficial

Director: Sylvain White (Stomp the Yard)

Screenwriters: Peter Berg (Very Bad Things), James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, Basic)

Cast: Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Taking Woodstock, Watchmen), Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek), Chris Evans (Sunshine), Jason Patric (Narc)

Length: 1h 38m

Synopsis: A smoking aces U.S. special ops team gets double-crossed during a routine mission in Bolivia, and as a result they get the blame for the deaths of over two dozen innocent children. After faking their deaths to escape the CIA they work towards finding a way to get back to the states, but money is tight and options are limited. Opportunity finally knocks in the form of a mysterious woman with wealth, connections, and a serious attitude. Once back in America the group makes it a point to hunt down the person(s) responsible for framing them. Read the rest of this entry »

Cowboys and Aliens

Director John Favreau and Oscar-nominated actor Robert Downey Jr., whom are the propulsion behind the enormously popular Iron Man franchise, have just announced their involvement with the film adaptation of the graphic novel “Cowboys and Aliens,” written by Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley. Favreau will complete his current project, Iron Man 2 due out next summer, and make Cowboys his next directorial outing.

The screenplay is being written by writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Star Trek (2009), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen).

Reportedly, Dreamworks studio is behind the project and is expecting its success to help validate the company’s new independence.

Cowboys and Aliens is currently penciled in to release during the summer of 2011.

Source: Hollywood Reporter