The Boys Are Back!

Now, if only we had a time machine...







Let's get one thing straight. You don't go into a movie like The Expendables without knowing what you are getting yourself into. If you've seen the first film and enjoyed its larger-than-life salute to big 80's action stars then you know exactly what you should expect from the sequel. It's more of the same formula: Big on star power machismo, ammunition, and one-liners and simple on plot, exposition and intelligence. The bottom line is; you don't watch The Expendables expecting any Academy Award winning performances. If this doesn't sound like kind of movie that you would normally enjoy watching then you came to the wrong party.

The Boys are back: Sylvester Stallone as Barney Ross, Jason Statham as Lee Christmas, Dolph Lundgren as Gunner Jensen, Terry Crews as Hale Caesar, Randy Couture as Toll Road and Jet Li as Yin Yang while Mickey Rourke is out as Tool but the testosterone meter is still off the charts. Liam Hemsworth joins the team as the youngest "expendable" Bill the Kidd. The Expendables have been recruited by Church to stop weapons-grade plutonium hidden in a Albanian mine during the Cold War from falling into the wrong hands and it's time to bring in the Dirtier Dozen.

The muscle and star power are man-uped the second time around. There's much more Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis this time who only appeared in smaller cameo roles as Trench and Church in the first film and there's more iconic 80's action stars that the fans have been begging to see like Chuck Norris as Booker a.k.a. the "Lone Wolf" and Jean Claude Van Damme as Vilain, and what an apropos "villain" he makes. It seems Steven Seagal is still the odd man out due to a publicized disagreement with the producer Avi Lerner, although when asked if he would be in Expendables 3 his response was "We'll see." Rumor has it that Clint Eastwood and Harrison Ford have already been approached for the third one as well with plans to acquire Nicholas Cage and Wesley Snipes to the Expendables 3 dossier.

Expendables 2 is a blast if you can appreciate it for what it is; it's the guiltiest kind of guilty pleasure and it makes no apologies for being what it is. The first one feels almost like a dress rehearsal but the sequel is bigger and a lot more fun. There are hilarious one-liners and bad puns aplenty and the chemistry between these legendary screen icons takes badassery to a whole new cinematic level. The epic showdown between "The Italian Stallion" Stallone and the "Muscles From Brussels" Van Damme makes it worth the price of admission alone.

Bring on Expendables 3! Yippi ki yay!

Why Do We Fall?

Hello Mr. Wayne...







[As always, spoilers apply.]


After the success of The Dark Knight, it was evident that Christopher Nolan was faced with the impossible challenge of concluding his epic Batman trilogy without its most memorable villain, the Joker. Respectfully and wisely he chose not to recast the role and decided to make no mention at all of the Joker in the follow-up However there were still lingering questions that bothered me about the ending of The Dark Knight and the Joker's mysterious absence in Rises becomes prominent during the major events that occur throughout and simply go unacknowledged. Heath Ledger's absence in the film is indeed felt as is also the absence of Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent/Two Face whose questionable death at the end of The Dark Knight made Batman a pariah who has disappeared from Gotham for almost a decade.


The Dark Knight Rises is a disappointment for Batman fans, but most audiences who are not stepped deep in the lore of the comic book mythology or character will still probably enjoy the film as mindless summer blockbuster escapism. Never mind that the film is riddled with more plot holes than a block of moldy Swiss cheese that would make even The Riddler green with envy. For example, if Batman has retired, why then did he even bother rebuilding the Batcave when Wayne Manor was restored after its destruction in Begins? How is it that Batman is able to survive having his back broken by Bane and is able to not only heal himself without the use of the Lazarus Pit from the comics but also climb out of a virtually inescapable prison pit somewhere in India to return to physically confront his nemesis is a time frame that defies any logical sense? And how is it that Bane can travel half way around the world to dispose of Batman and return to Gotham all the while in the midst of executing his uninterrupted and strategically coordinated terrorist attacks on the city? Why does Alfred abandon Bruce Wayne after repeatedly assuring him he would never leave his side in the other films? Why does Bruce fall in love with Miranda Tate after being so distraught over Rachel's death that he hangs up Batman's cowl? These and many other lapses of plot logic largely go unaddressed throughout the film leaving the viewer to either scratch their heads in bewilderment or simply accept them with naive suspension of disbelief.


Admittedly Christopher Nolan was not that familiar with the comic book mythology of Batman, instead turning to screenwriter David S. Goyer for story and character ideas to help him bring a decidedly reality-based Batman to the screen. As a result, there are not that many Batman villains from the infamous "Rogues Gallery" who could have convincingly translated well into the "Nolanverse" on the big screen. Certainly the Penguin could have worked in a very crime boss way taking over for Carmine Falcone in Batman Begins, but the inevitable inclusion of Catwoman as alluded to in The Dark Knight would have made The Dark Knight Rises feel more like a redux of Tim Burton's Batman Returns. The Riddler could have potentially worked if he had been realized as a sort of Zodiac killer but ultimately the Riddler would have felt like The Joker-lite.


Enter Bane who represents a significant chapter of Batman's comic book mythology in that he is the villain responsible for breaking, both literally and symbolically, Batman's back and putting him out of commission while Jean Paul Valley a.k.a. Azrael takes up Batman's mantle during the "Knightquest" storyline from which Goyer and Nolan have "lifted" many of their key plot points for Rises from and also from the "No Man's Land" epic storyline in which Gotham City suffers from a catastrophic earthquake which isolates it from the mainland while the inmates of Arkham have taken over the city ala: Escape From New York. The result is a visually stunning epic film that ultimately makes very little sense plot-wise.


Tom Hardy's portrayal of Bane is unique and vastly different from the steroid induced hulking Bane wearing a Mexican wrestler looking mask from the comic books. Hardy is one of the most interesting and versatile method actors to watch onscreen. His performance in Bronson was extraordinary and his physical presence onscreen as Bane is chillingly brutal even when limited by emoting from behind a synthesized face mask that at times makes his dialogue somewhat distorted and unintelligible and come off sounding like Darth Bane. The character's origins have been altered significantly from the comics. Instead of a South American inmate that had been physically transformed by an experimental super-soldier serum Venom, Bane origins initiate from somewhere in the Middle East where he was disfigured in a prison in which he is coincidentally, for the sake of the plot, the protector of Ra's Al Ghul's daughter Talia who has returned to Gotham under the name of Miranda Tate and her reveal as Talia who has returned to avenge her father's death and fulfill the destiny of the League of Shadows to destroy Gotham feels like a forced plot contrivance tacked on at the end of the film.


Perhaps the biggest offense though in TDKR is the fact that Nolan has repeatedly gone on record stating that Robin would never make an appearance in his Batman films but then decides to shoehorn him into the ending of the film in such a way that is not only a slap in the face to Batman fans everywhere but does so in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with the character of Dick Grayson's Robin, or even his protege Jason Todd or even his successor, Tim Drake. Joseph Gordon Levitt's John Drake/Robin has more akin to Terry McGinnis from Batman Beyond, Bruce Wayne's future successor to Batman's mantle from the cartoon and it's literally a "cop out" if you'll pardon the pun. John Drake is an orphaned street cop who just walks up and knocks on the door of Wayne Manor and announces that he knows Batman's secret identity is Bruce Wayne and we are supposed to buy that Bruce then endows Batman's entire legacy and mantle to him, without any of the martial arts training he acquired under the tutelage of Ra's Al Ghul or the League of Shadows, and will allegedly continue on as Gotham's new Batman?


Christopher Nolan is, though, to be commended for bringing a gritty realism back to Batman and keeping the franchise alive after Joel Shumacher's campy farcical films nearly destroyed the franchise completely. However, a director of Nolan's acclaim and talent should be ashamed for the lackadaisical directorial effort demonstrated in TDKR. In short, it feels like Nolan phones it in on this one. Like Indiana Jones, Batman has Nuked the Fridge. Perhaps it was the overwhelming success of The Dark Knight, the daunting task of continuing in the wake of the death of Heath Ledger, and or physical and mental exhaustion of contractually delivering a third installment to the studio that makes TDKR feel so substantially "off" from the pitch-perfect feel of The Dark Knight, a superior film by comparison which felt as though all of the narrative pieces fit together seamlessly along with the strong performances by Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart.


TDKR is the Return of the Jedi of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. It is a very flawed, tired, but guiltily entertaining film to watch. It will be interesting to see where the Batman franchise goes from here. Will it continue with Joseph Gordon Levitt wearing the cowl or will a new director recast and reboot from scratch and completely disregard the alternate reality continuity of the Nolanverse? Batman is a mythology that has been continuously retold in all media from different interpretations of the character. If The Man Of Steel is successful I can already see Warner Bros handing Zack Snyder the keys to the franchise, turning his vision of a reboot into a hyper-reality, CGI exaggerated 300 meets Watchmen style of Batman. Personally, I would much prefer a big screen adaptation of Arkham City. Probably the best interpretation of Batman I've experienced in any media.


The Dark Knight Lives.

Brave Answers...

What's up, Red...










The Lamp's first princess film is out tomorrow and the reviews are starting to pour in...

What say our favorite film critics about Pixar's latest effort, and will its thirteenth film be a lucky or unlucky number?

If you have kids, you’ll want to take them to Brave, and they’ll almost certainly have a good time. If you’re an animation buff, you may have quibbles with the film, which looks great but isn’t up to Pixar’s high standards in terms of story. That’s the problem with creating so many innovative and memorable movies: when you do something that’s “merely” pretty good, it feels like a letdown. - Leonard Maltin

If the Walt Disney Studios logo were the only one on "Brave," this film's impeccable visuals and valiant heroine would be enough to call it a success. But "Brave" is also a Pixar Animation Studios film, and that means it has to answer to a higher standard. - Los Angeles Times

For all its pictorial and vocal beauty, the film's emotional line and dramatic contrivances are both more familiar and less inventive than what's usually delivered by the studio. Younger kids won't mind, but many viewers accustomed to relying upon Pixar for something special will feel a sense of letdown due to the lack of adventurousness. - Hollywood Reporter

Walt Disney began his feature career with a princess story. Now Pixar gives princesses a go after making a dozen other toons, and though the studio brings its usual level of perfectionism and heart to the assignment, "Brave" seems a wee bit conventional by comparison with, say, how radically "The Incredibles" reinvented the superhero genre -- not that Pixar's eager international following will object.
- Variety

The film's greatest strength comes from being emotionally direct and not layering on any post-modern spin. This is not a film like "Shrek" that spend its whole running time winking at the fairy tale form. Instead, it plays everything straight, and in today's media landscape, that feels almost groundbreaking. - Motion Captured

"Brave" is the latest animated film from Pixar, and therefore becomes the film the parents of the world will be dragged to by their kids. The good news is that the kids will probably love it, and the bad news is that parents will be disappointed if they're hoping for another Pixar groundbreaker. - Roger Ebert

No one seems to review a Pixar film without comparing it to other Pixar films. OK, Brave isn't The Incredibles or Toy Story. So? It's still a rousing, gorgeously animated good time. - Rolling Stone

Gorgeous visuals, terrific message, but a decidedly second-tier plot and not a single unforgettable character. - Richard Roeper

This is less a film in the lustrous Pixar tradition than a Disney fairy tale told with Pixar's virtuosity. As such, it's enjoyable, consistently beautiful, fairly conventional, occasionally surprising and ultimately disappointing. - Wall Street Journal

And now, we go back to school next year...

Blue Sky Disney Review: Prometheus...

This one is not a bughunt...









"If a watch implies a Watchmaker, then who made the Watchmaker?"




These are the kinds of theological questions director Ridley Scott asks with his quasi-prequel-to-Alien-but-really-kinda-isn't-but-kinda-sorta-thinks-it-is blockbuster. Prometheus is a film that suffers from an acute identity crisis. It can't decide if it wants to be a serious thought provoking science fiction film ala Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey or just another suspenseful Alien film in its pretentious struggle to attain both.

Ridley uses the Alien universe he created as the framework to ask such intriguing paradoxical questions about where humanity came from and our evolution, but the questions themselves are a conundrum that go absolutely nowhere and only serve as ambiguous McGuffins to the narrative plot. Ultimately they are of no importance and abandoned as the film then desperately tries to make some kind of vague narrative and suspenseful connection to the original Alien franchise which is precisely its very undoing.

Prometheus would have been better served as a stand-alone science fiction film that made no references at all to the Alien franchise. Everything feels forced and contrived as Ridley attempts to provide some narrative linkage while simultaneously trying to do something completely new and different but he's really just treading on old ground. We've seen it all before only he did it immensely better the first time around.

A word of caution: You will never be able to watch the original 1979 classic Alien the same way again after watching Prometheus. All of the mystery and suspense about the Space Jockey, who and what it was, where it came from and why it was carrying a creepy derelict spaceship full of deadly Alien eggs, is irreverently answered much like Lucas and the Star Wars Prequels. Ridley fills in the back story while abandoning any of the brilliant and poignant ideas he postulates in a desperate attempt to make some subtle (and not-so-subtle) connection to Alien and ultimately suffers from the same case of Prequelitus. It's not exactly like we hadn't already filled in the blanks ourselves and deduced what it was with our imagination while watching the original Alien, yet Ridley has had the ideas gestating inside him for years and feels compelled to show us more than we either wanted or needed to see in a way like Spielberg revealing the inside of the mother ship in Close Encounters to satisfy the studio's demand but unlike Spielberg it would seem that Fox lured Ridley back to help them "resurrect" their historically successful Alien franchise without any creative restraint.

The production design and special effects for the most part are incredible, but it is all too clean, sophisticated and high tech compared to Alien's dark, grungy, and worn universe. Prometheus lacks the suspenseful atmosphere Ridley meticulously constructed in the first film and relies more on action and visuals than spine-tingling mood and ambiance. It was the combination of carefully executed pacing, editing and lighting combined with Jerry Goldsmith's eerily suspenseful score that created the texture and atmosphere in Alien that is sorely lacking in the visually excessive Prometheus.

The characters feel under-developed. Charlize Theron plays the stereotypical cold corporate bitch for the infamous Weyland corporation, a name that is synonymous to the Alien franchise and its conspiratorial connection to those films. The only character that is really interesting to watch is Michael Fassbender's android David who is so unemotional and inhuman with his intentions that it is quite sinister and unsettling and his performance is absolutely fascinating to watch as he attempts to emulate human emotions and mannerisms by mimicking the performances of actor Peter O'Toole. Noomi Rapace's Shaw just isn't quite up to par as the strong female protagonist of Sigourney Weaver's Ripley. She's Ripley-lite. A woman who holds onto her faith in God and her beliefs about our evolutionary existence even when they seem to conflict. She's driven blindly by her faith but ultimately it makes no difference what she believes nor does it really matter who lives or dies. The characters just aren't as compelling as the Nostromo's rag-tag band of weathered Space Truckers which I credit mostly to the strong performances of Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm, and Veronica Cartwright in the original 1979 Alien.

The final shot of the film is divisive but I won't spoil it. When the film ended after seeing the 12:01 Imax screening, there was no applause, not enthusiastic excitement and chatter, just confused looks as everyone looked around to gauge others perplexed reactions. I simply found it to be somewhat of an insult to the original film. I'm sure Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger would still like to know where his royalty check from Twentieth Century Fox is with interest fully due and payable.

If there is one truism about an Alien film, or proto-Alien film as it may be in this case, it's that Darwinism is in full effect. It's survival of the fittest and the most perfectly evolved or engineered organism will prevail. Humanity is a genetically engineered experiment that failed and so are the crew of the Prometheus. It's a wonder that we ever survived at all.

I hear Sir Ridley is is already prepping a sequel of sorts to his 1982 cult-classic Blade Runner. God save the Queen and us all. He should just leave it alone. Like Lucas and Spielberg, it's time for Sir Ridley to retire gracefully and leave their original masterpieces untarnished. There comes a point when we should just take away the brushes from Da Vinci's palette and say, "It's finished."

The Avengers Disassembled...

Avenging...





Assemble beoches...

(WARNING: SPOILERS!)

Let's face it, until very recently, Marvel's track record of comic book movies hasn't exactly been super. After the success of DC's Batman back in the 90's, Marvel tried in vain to take their comic book franchises to the big screen but the results were both disastrous and low budget and they either went direct to home video i.e. Captain America with Matt Salinger and The Punisher with Dolph Lundgren, or never saw the light of day and were hastily buried and forgotten, i.e. the 1994 Fantastic Four whose feature film debut was, believe it or not, far worse than the two ridiculous films FOX bequeathed upon us just a few years ago.

I must admit I was not initially excited about the prospects of The Avengers movie because it had the potential for another such disaster. Fortunately that proves not to be the case with Joss Whedon's Avengers which is surprisingly the perfect big budget summer blockbuster that entertains and satisfies on so many key levels, yet, is still problematic and disappointing on several others. It's not the perfect superhero movie that many comic book nerds might be quick to proclaim it to be but it is still a damn fun comic book fantasy film and pure escapist fun.

The chemistry between Earth's mightiest heroes is handled competently and exceptionally well. Each of the four main Avengers (i.e. The REAL Fantastic Four) work well as an ensemble after appearing in their respective solo adventures. The Avengers is the real Clash of the Titans between the biggest superheroes of the Marvel universe. This is the lalapalooza of comic book movies and does what The Expendables did to the action film genre by reinvigorating it with a bravado and intensity that raises the bar for audience appetites and expectations.

Robert Downey Jr. is in particularly top form here as Tony Stark bringing his personalized comedic wit, humor and charm to the party. Downey delivers an even better performance in the Avengers than he did in the disappointing Iron Man 2. There's more for him to work with and also against as he plays off the other team members without overtaking or upstaging their performances and stealing the spotlight. You could easily say that he is the glue that holds both the team and the film together by his performance alone. The improvisational dialogue as well as the script is intelligent and snappy and Downey is the real star of the show with reserved modesty. Robert Downey Jr. IS Iron Man.

Chris Evans is the proverbial fish-out-of-water as Captain America who struggles to adjust to modern civilization after awakening from his icy stasis for 70 years. He's wound just a little too tight and takes his job as captain of the team a little too seriously and doesn't like it when the others like Tony Stark, for example, aren't taking their jobs as seriously as him. He's the perfect counterbalance to Tony Stark's irresponsible playboy recklessness and the reality check for the other members of the team.

To me Chris Hemsworth just works better here as the Mighty Thor than he did in his campy solo outing. By contrast his "adopted" brother Loki however comes off an even weaker adversary for the Avengers. He's the trickster who pulls the strings and manipulates the Avengers to turn against each other while he casually sits back and watches the mayhem with gleeful delight like the stereotypical token villain that he is. He's a god whose only agenda is to rule the Earth by way of an alien invasion from the Chitauri who are about the most generically unmemorable alien nemesis I've seen put on film in recent years. There's a moment when Thor is pleading with his brother Loki to come back and just for a moment you think that there is the possibility of his redemption to join forces and help them fight against the invasion he unleashed and it's perhaps the best moment between Thor and Loki in either film. Not once though do I feel that there is any real imminent danger or threat presented against Earth's mightiest heroes when the indestructable Hulk can simply throw a so-called deity like Loki around like a rag doll and walk away growling "Puny god" surrendering with the line "I'd like to have that drink now." Really? A god conceding defeat to the Hulk? It may gets some appreciable laughs from the crowd but the notion of it all is completely ludicrous.

Mark Ruffalo takes over the role of Bruce Banner/The Hulk from Ed Norton. Apparently Norton did not want to participate because he felt there wasn't much material for him to work with in the ensemble script and for the most part he's absolutely right. While I won't outright dismiss Ruffalo who does his best to sufficiently handle the material he has been given, I do not feel like he fits the role of Bruce Banner as well as Norton did. He feels like a mild-mannered everyman delivering his lines with an unenthusiastic boredom and I never feel that he is truly holding himself back and containing the permeating rage and anger inside of him. He seems completely subdued and unconflicted as Banner. The Hulk, on the other hand, is handled exceptionally well. Ironically as the Hulk, he nearly steals the show in some very exciting and comedic sequences that are entirely computer animated.

And then we have the two throwaway Avengers, Hawkeye and Black Widow. While Scarlett Johannson's character is utilized much more effectively with a bigger role than she had in Iron Man 2, I never really feel like she measures up to the big boys as an Avenger and neither does Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye who is compromised early on by Loki and his trust as a member of the team I feel is never fully redeemed. Aside from being a master archer with a bow that would make both Legolas and Katniss proud, he brings nothing useful to the party as a mere mortal whose job as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. is to supposedly keep the other team members in line when neither he nor Black Widow seem to possess superpowers of any kind other than their technical expertise with weapons and martial arts which begs the question; just what exactly is the criteria to become an Avenger?

Tony Stark has superhuman abilities only when he wears the invincible Iron Man armor, Captain America is a genetically engineered supersoldier with a shield made of the strongest alloy on Earth that is so indestructible that it can apparently withstand an impact from the Thor's hammer Mjolnir. That being the case it completely defeats the point of Thor's hammer in a paper-wraps-stone kind of way. Thor, like his brother and adversary Loki is a deity invincible to all mortals. How then do you kill a god? The Hulk seems every bit as indestructible as they are as he can apparently withstand a barrage of artillery, can leap tall buildings in a single bound, and smash even the gods themselves with his bare hands without destroying them. What are his limitations? In the Marvel universe logic and science apparently have no applications or limitations. In other words, try not to think about such things and just go with it (wink-nod).

Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury as commander and chief is also pretty unspectacular. Aside from trying to take out a jet with a rocket launcher, Fury's role is pretty much relegated behind the scenes from aboard S.H.I.E.L.D.'s mammoth heli-carrier giving orders and answering to the big military general types in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D. operations. I'd really like to have seen Fury given a more active role on the front lines. His assistant Cobie Smulders is also a pretty worthless and disposable character. She's the first person I'd kill off followed by Hawkeye and Black Widow when the need for collateral damage cannon fodder is necessitated.

Clark Gregg returns as Agent Phil Coulson. He has made an appearance in almost every Marvel film leading up to the Avengers and is given a deservedly expanded part in the Avengers. He is the perfect agent for S.H.I.E.L.D and is far more likable a character who is essential to both the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D than Cobie Smulders or Hawkeye or even Black Widow. Coulson rocks.

In spite of the nitpicks and nuances, The Avengers still delivers on all essential levels. Joss Whedon has accomplished an insurmountable feat by juggling the complexities of several unique characters and handling them in very humanly relatable situations. The plot is superfluous to the superhuman performances and abilities of the ensemble cast members. You don't watch professional wrestling because it's real. All that really matters is that this is a team that kicks butt and takes no prisoners. They are indeed Earth's mightiest heroes.

Who cares if the Dark Knight Rises. Avengers Assemble!

Get Carter...

Get Marketing...



Along time ago in a galaxy not so far away...

Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a great sci-fi adventure story called A Princess of Mars that would become one of the most influential science fiction fantasy stories of the 20th century inspiring George Lucas to make the epic Star Wars franchise nearly 60 years after it. It has taken a full century for Burroughs' imaginative epic fantasy to come to life on the big screen but John Carter has arrived in theaters DOA thanks to a series of costly marketing blunders by Disney of equally epic proportions.

Despite its numerous failures to attract an audience, director Andrew Stanton has delivered a first class epic fantasy film that brings the pages of Burroughs' highly imaginative world of Barsoom to life in living, breathing color with vibrant special effects and computer animation that could easily have become the Mouse's Star Wars franchise with the proper marketing muscle behind it. Unfortunately we will probably never see the further adventures of John Carter in The Gods of Mars or Warlords of Mars or any of the other chronicles in Burroughs' classic pulp series because the audience for whom the film was targeted has no idea just who John Carter is and is far more excited to see this summer's Hunger Games, also based on a popular series of teenage literary novels, than a hundred year-old character from a book they've never even heard of.

Perhaps the biggest tragedy is the over-simplified title changed by Stanton himself. Who is John Carter? Why should anyone care about him?

Well, he's Taylor Kitsch who played Gambit from X-Men Origins: Wolverine and his co-star Lynn Collins from the same film is ideally cast as the beautiful Princess Dejah Thoris of Helium. John Carter is a confederate captain from Virginia who travels to Arizona to find gold, only to find himself astrally transported to Mars after being fatally shot by Apache Indians. There are plenty of metaphors here between the natives of both worlds that evoke Dances With Wolves and Avatar as John Carter becomes the propheseid hero and savior of Barsoom which the native Tharks call their red planet. With an inspired cast of supporting actors with Willem Dafoe as the voice of Tars Tarkas, a nine foot tall, four armed green Martian, Dafoe sounds exactly as I would have always imagined the voice of Tars Tarkas to sound like and brings the character to life with his impassioned performance. Other inspired casting choices include terrific supporting performances by Ciaran Hinds and James Purefoy who are reunited again from working together in HBO's excellent series Rome and Tardos Mors and Kantos Kan respectively. Dominic West from HBO's The Wire also rounds out the inspired casting as the villanous Sab Than seeking the hand of the Princess of Helium to unite a planetary civil war and become its ruler.

John Carter is filled with action, adventure, special effects, animation, heroes, villains, monsters and a princess, it has all the fundamental ingredients of a classic Disney film and is a faithful adaptation of Burroughs' novel, and Disney and Stanton have delivered a spectacular film that has fallen flat on its face as a $250 million box office disaster that is being critically compared to 1995's sci-fi flop Waterworld. It must make over $400 million just to break even, another unrealistic expectation reminiscent of 2010's Tron Legacy by the foolish suits at Disney who clearly have no clue how to run the studio nor do they know anything about what they have on their hands or how to mass market their product and for that heads should roll and Disney's marketing department all deserve the grim fate that awaits them.

As for the fate of John Carter, who knows, but all indications so far seem to imply that we may never return to the red planet on the big screen again. Fortunately the written pages of Burroughs will last forever for those of us that still remember them...

Long live John Carter of Mars!

Longing For A Legacy...

You're messing with my zen, man...


by TRON UNIT

28 years, 161 days later, Tron's legacy lives on. Joe Kosinski's understated long-awaited sequel to Steven Lisberger's game changing electronic mythos is a visual triumph, a world unlike anything we've ever seen before, transforming the iconography of its predecessor into an awesome 3D spectacle, but it is an imperfect world, its breathtaking three dimensions propped upon the two dimensional pillars of its problematic plot and one that would be looked upon with the consternations of its biggest adversary who, ironically, is the one who nearly completely undermines and very nearly derezzes it… Clu.

The film's biggest special effect is also its biggest failure. The technology that I had hoped would be the promise of taking Tron once again to a new revolutionary cinematic level and breaking new technical ground in much the same way as the original film had ushered in a new era at the dawn of the digital film making frontier cannot raise the bar set by its own ambition and demonstrates that we still have quite a ways to go before digital actors can convincingly look indistinguishable from real human performers. The CGI animation used to make Jeff Bridges look 20 years younger metaphorically resemble the poor prosthetic makeup of a cheap rubber mask and rendered like cut-scenes from its video game counterpart Tron: Evolution. Having watched numerous films starring Bridges throughout his career I can tell you that he did not look at all like his poorly rendered doppelganger at that age. The eyes, the brows, the cheekbones, and the mouth have an unconvincing artificiality about them that betrays the illusion and takes us out of this fantastic visual world and Bridges raspy aged voice also betrays the effect. In a creepy sort of way it almost works for the character within the context of the story because he is supposed to be an artificial construct and we can almost buy that he doesn't look quite like a real human being, but during the film's opening scenes when we see Bridges in flashback playing younger Kevin Flynn telling bedtime stories to his son, Sam, it robs the moment between a father and his son of its already forced sincerity and dehumanizes it in a cold and unsettling way.

The plot is almost video-game like in its objective as the competing faction of Clu's militaristic forces must obtain elder Flynn's identity disc which is a master key to unlock the door to our world so that he and his army can take it over. It is never explained how exactly virtual programs existing in the digital world can somehow manifest themselves into tangible living matter in our physical world just as it does not attempt to explain why a User like Sam can bleed in its digital realm other than the fact he is simply a User and "he's different," nor does it attempt to explain how Kevin Flynn has aged 20 years trapped in his digital confinement when theoretically he shouldn't have physically aged at all as a digital avatar of himself. Narratively it misses the opportunity to explore such philosophical questions and complex idioms of science fiction as it so masterfully eluded to in the film's promising test trailer shown at Comic Con and either completely ignores or avoids those questions it raises and is the other major disappointment of the film. The original Tron explored such intriguing philosophical ideas around the religious beliefs of its programs and their creators but Tron Legacy's most astonishing revelation delivered by Alan when he tells Sam that his father was about to change science, medicine and religion in such a profound way is simply thrown away in a single line of expository dialogue. We never learn the real reason why Flynn created this world in the first place other than the fact that it was far out biodigital jazz, man.

Once again Jeff Bridges is the cement that holds the foundations of the Troniverse together solely with his strength and conviction of his performance as zen guru cyber-Jesus Flynn to his Judas megalomaniacal alter-ego Clu in some sort of virtual yin and yang. Garret Hedlund is surprisingly likeable as his son, Sam. Thankfully, he's no wooden Hayden Christiansen (although he would have made a much better Anakin Skywalker) and plays the cliched angst-ridden rebellious youth with convincingly noble admiration. Reciprocally, Olivia Wilde plays the character of Quorra with a truthful childlike innocence and wonder that demonstrates she has more to offer as an actress than just luscious fanboy eyecandy. Michael Sheen livens the film with his jestly rendition of David Bowie circa glam rock era Ziggy Stardust. And once again Bruce Boxleitner returns as Alan Bradley aka Tron… sort of. After all it's called TRON Legacy, right? Though, like the first film, the story is centered around Flynn's character and his legacy of which Tron is merely incidental to. The enigmatic character of Rinzler is Clu's badass henchman, one part Darth Maul wielding two discs, and one part Boba Fett as a mysterious tracker whose helmeted identity is concealed and it doesn't take half a nerd to figure out who he is.

As a 3D film Tron Legacy works perfectly in most part because its illuminated electronic visuals naturally lends itself to creating brightly rendered 3D images which has been the downfall of all other 3D films. Tron Legacy is by far the real Avatar. It makes the world of Pandora look like a cartoon by comparison. It's a place I would want to visit again because it is unlike anything seen in our world or any other. The brilliantly 3D rendered Disney logo showcasing the Magic Kingdom "Tronified" is appropriately memorable for setting the tone of the film which is then 2D until Sam is transported into Tron's colorful three dimensional illuminated world like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. As a first-time director Joe Kosinski proves that he has the technical prowess to design a fully immersive world much like Ridley Scott did with Alien and Blade Runner but his weakness is marshaling a cohesive script equally as interesting to support it, but then again the original Tron, to be fair, didn't have a strong script to support it either so in that sense they are both equal in that they are both great visual spectacles but lack any real cohesive structure and substance. The numerous homages to the original film are carefully and cleverly handled, however the cascade of homages to other sci-fi films like 2001, Blade Runner and Star Wars seem almost out of place in Tron's world. I could have done without the banal Lucasian dialogue of the Light Jet sequence with lines like "Here they come" and "I got him!" without expecting the next line to deliver a "Great kid! Don't get cocky!"

As a fan of the original Tron I am torn. Part of me is protective of its mythos and at the same time heartbroken that what was once a unique, groundbreaking film has now been rendered obsolete by its own sequel that has taken the technology and improved upon it in nearly every visual way. The Lighcycle and Disc Wars sequences, for example, are spectacularly exhilarating and render the graphics in the original film relics of the Atari age by comparison and why Disney has wisely kept the original film hidden away in its vaults and not releasing it on Blu-Ray yet. Fortunately as a sequel it delivers without the bitter disappointment of something like Star Wars or Indiana Jones. It's no Phantom Menace or Crystal Skull, thank God, but it's not the potentially epic masterpiece it could have been either but rather just another tent-pole blockbuster special effects film. If it performs well there will no doubt be more Tron films that confident Disney has stated they already have in development along with an animated TV show but as a film Tron Legacy can stand on its own without them but should there be would require the participation of Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner to make them work if they have any chance at all of succeeding. Without them, it wouldn't be a Tron film at all. Tron lives. He fights for the Users.

END OF LINE

Tangled Reviews...

Let down your box office...



The 50th animated feature from Walt Disney Pictures is out today...

And so are the reviews. And they're mostly, extremely good. First off, I don't really do reviews anymore, but I did see "Tangled" last night. I can tell you that everything I found distasteful about the ads, and everything I've heard about the film are exactly as I expected. I loved it. In fact, it's the best thing that Walt Disney Animation Studios has done since Lasseter became its head.

While I enjoyed "Bolt" and "The Princess and the Frog" was a beautiful,but uneven showcase of hand-drawn film making, my favorite thing from the Hat Building has been "Prep & Landing." Having seen the latest film, that has now changed. Tangled is far closer to the glory of the Second Golden Age than what TP&TF attempted to reach, despite its aspirations. The tone and style of the film is far more like the classic films we've come to love than the DreamWorks influenced commercials would lead you to believe. While I wouldn't rate it as good as "Beauty and the Beast" it comes close to the other films of 90's. Don't believe me? Check out what others are say...



"The delightfully witty Tangled is the first animated cartoon released by Walt Disney Pictures that can stand alongside Pixar toons without apology."

- Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald

"While it may lack some of the emotional depth of what remains Disney's finest modern animated feature, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, the studios 50th film, TANGLED, is as good as or better than works like THE LITTLE MERMAID and ALADDIN"

- Capone, Ain't It Cool News

"The film manages to earn a real emotional payoff by the time it ends, and I was surprised by how well the film wraps things up. "Tangled" may not be the new best Disney film, but it is a reminder of just how good the company can be when they bring everything together, and I suspect it's going to be a monster holiday hit for families."

- Drew McWeeny, Motion Captured

"'Tangled" is the best animated film from Disney in the past 15 years."

- Tom Long, Detroit News

"With the caveat that I really dug Tangled, I'm not sure it should have succeeded as well as it does"

- Rob Vaux ,Mania.com

"Tangled could have been a disaster. Directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard really pushed for something different by attempting to modernize a classic tale for contemporary audiences while combining the classic storylines and imagery of Disney’s illustrious past. All of that experimentation can unbalance a film by leaning too heavily on one side or the other, but Tangled does a remarkable job at harmonizing the past and present."

- Bill Graham, Collider

"For "Tangled," the studio's 50th feature-length cartoon, the team at Disney has taken a deep breath and tried to be all things to all animation- loving people. There are some hiccups along the way, but by the end there is success."

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

"The best non-Pixar Disney movie since 1994’s The Lion King, Tangled is an effortlessly captivating and frequently breathtaking throwback to the studio’s fairy-tale-inspired films of yesteryear."

- David Nusair, About.com

"Bright and engaging, and blessed with two superb non-verbal non-human sidekicks, "Tangled" certainly is more like it.

For much of the last decade the Disney corporation has struggled to regain its animation mojo, while one-time rival and current business partner Pixar — and, at its more sporadic best, DreamWorks — dominated the market. While no masterwork, "Tangled" reworks the Brothers Grimm tale of Rapunzel clearly and well. It's rollicking without being pushy. After the narrative chaos of last year's "The Princess and the Frog," it's a gratifying improvement."

- Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune


And over at Rotten Tomatoes it currently has a 89% fresh rating with about 70+ reviews in. Not bad, but don't judge it by what these critics or I said.

See it for yourself and come up with your own opinion...

You're Not Expendable, Rambo...

When I was a kid, heroes were larger than life. They still are today only with just one exception albeit a pretty significant one… in those days, Men were Men. They weren't pretty but they exuded their God-given male born testosterone with every ounce of testicular sweat dripping on celluloid. For a boy growing up in the 80's they were the male role-models and father figures that inspired impressionable pre-adolescent boys into shaping their adult manhoods. Those were the days of yore.

The Expendables isn't a great film by any stretch of the imagination but it knows exactly what it is trying to be and doesn't pull any punches. It tries to be the Magnificent Seven of the modern action movie but doesn't quite hit its mark. It's more like the Magnificent Four and a Half (Stallone, Statham, Lundgren, Austin, and Li). The rest of the ensemble more or less being, ahem… expendable. My friend and I once had a similar idea for a movie that would pit all of our favorite 80's action stars into one no-holds-barred-royal-rumble-

of-epic-manliness which we appropriately called "Cajones" but that was back in the mid-90's when there was still a chance to see most of these larger-than-life-nut-swingers together onscreen in their prime. The fact that Stallone, now 64, can prove that he still has what it takes and show the younger generations how to make an action movie proper after two successful comebacks with his acclaimed Rocky Balboa and Rambo is a testament that there is still not only a demand but a primal need for REAL movie star icons like Stallone that are legends who defy their generation and age.

There is only one thing you need to know about the paint-by-numbers plot and that is this: These titans of manliness have all come here to chew bubble-gum and kick ass, and there is a whole lotta bubble gum to go around. When the blood and guts start flying it makes Peckinpah look like Walt Disney. If that is the kind of movie you are expecting to see you won't be disappointed. Perhaps the biggest fault with The Expendables is that it never quite lives up to itself. Arnold Schwarzenegger's cameo feels like it was thrown in just for the sake of having the three biggest 80's action icons together at last onscreen for a Hard Rock Cafe Kodak moment. It just feels like 'The Guvinator' shows up to give his quick endorsement before going back to the office. Fortunately Sly has much better things to do these days than bankrupting the state of Culifornia. I was never particularly a fan of so-called "professional" wrestling for all of its phoniness so guys like Stone Cold Steve Austin never really appealed to me but I'll take him and UFC's Randy Couture any day over any so-called leading male action star in Hollywood today just on sheer testosterone levels alone. At least Mickey Rourke showed that not all of professional wrestling is fake with "The Wrestler" but "Iron Man 2" hardly qualifies him as a bona fide action-star, more like Harley Davidson without the Marlboro Man. One look at his fugly face and you can see that his days of "9 1/2 Weeks" with the ladies are long over. Jason Statham is apparently the most masculine male action star Hollywood currently has to offer up and that's not saying too much with a resume consisting of "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels," "Crank" and "The Transporter" series but I guess baldness apparently qualifies him in the testosterone brigade along with Bruce Willis whose days of headlining as an action star were washed up with the last "Die Hard." The truly expendable were those 80's action icons who didn't quite make the cut like Chuck Norris who for whatever reason was unable to attend Sly's little shindig. As a kid I probably watched every action film that Chuck starred in like "The Octagon," " Good guys Wear Black," "Lone Wolf McQuade" and "A Force of One." You can't think of the 80's without bringing up Chuck Norris, or the poseurs like Jean-Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal, all of whom are conspicuously MIA. Apparently Van Dammage was offered a part but he thought the script should have catered to his ego as well as a bigger paycheck so Sly made his part Expendable.

The Expendables is a fun salute to the 80's and a throwback to the days when action films weren't trying to be politically correct and were all about blowing shit up, flexing their muscles, delivering the one-liners, kicking ass and looking cool. To that end, The Expendables is a blast, but not a slam dunk. It's worth a matinee out of pure sake of nostalgia or a rental. If The Expendables accomplishes one thing other than winning the weekend box-office it should be this: To send a message to the studios that there is a hunger for masculine male action icons who are on the endangered species list and to ensure their survival in the 21st century which has been corrupted by forgettable momma's boys and blood sucking vampires of the Twilight generation.

Living The Dream...

Bring On the Bat...




Every generation has at least one great visionary director whose creative genius transcends their visual craft in a way that defies the conventional norm and is revered by critics and audiences for their originality and brilliance. Christopher Nolan is, without doubt, this generation's Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, or Orson Welles and will long be remembered among that pantheon as one of the greatest film directors of all time.

Inception is the movie that The Matrix wanted to be but wasn't and only dreams that it could have been while it was more preoccupied making itself look cool with science fiction technology and special effects, it merely stood at the precipice of the elaborate canvas of storytelling genius that Nolan presents us here with Inception's intricately complex and labyrinthian narrative as he so masterfully demonstrated in Memento (2000) that relies upon virtually no science fiction technology at all, simply the dreams and imagination of its narrative construct. There is never a dull moment as the viewer's mind is forced to keep up with the expository action racing along like a proverbial freight train. The special effects are relatively seamless and exist only to support the rich, complicated framework of its story rather than distract from it with gratuitous explosions and an overindulgence of CGI that dominate the morose offerings of modern summer movie blockbusters. Nolan's visual scope and canvas are vast and epic but grounded in a believable and conventional reality, an illusion every bit as effective as the slight-of-hand deception of The Prestige that will leave the viewer questioning what reality really is and which level of reality they are watching long after the film has ended.

There are plenty of nods and send-ups to Nolan's favorite films and their influences are evident throughout, the most obvious of which being Blade Runner which Nolan is quoted as his biggest inspiration and also On Her Majesty's Secret Service which he cited as his favorite James Bond film. For my money, they should just hand the keys to the Bond franchise over to Nolan right now and let him re-invigorate it with the same sophistication and panache that he brought to the Batman franchise with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Tom Hardy already proved his theatrical range as a serious performer with his breakout performance as Bronson (2009) and delivers an exceptional supporting performance as Eames mixing sly wit with a focused intensity that would be perfect to see him bringing to the role of future James Bond.

Although I've never really cared much for Leonardo DiCaprio as a leading actor and have always regarded him as that "kid" from Titanic but I was completely taken by his emotionally intense performance as Cobb. Nolan has a knack for casting only the best actors of the highest caliber for his roles and here Leo proves that he is more than a capable leading actor of his generation. Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe, and Michael Caine once again bring an heir of class and benediction to their supporting roles as they had done previously in Batman Begins.

Hanz Zimmer's intense score for Inception is extraordinary delivering a lucid electronic ambiance that is both as ethereal as it is urgent, even darker and more melancholy than his score for The Dark Knight. Zimmer composes an auditory dreamscape that compliments the visual experience of the film by implanting its haunting melody in your mind and staying with you long after you've left the theater.

Summer 2010 was looking pretty bleak until Nolan came along and rescued it much like he did in 2008 with The Dark Knight. All my fears and doubts about how he was going to top that with the third Batman film have easily been subdued. I have no doubt in my mind that he will deliver a spectacular finale to his chorus of Batman films with the same sophistication as he has demonstrated in Inception. The Dark Knight is in good hands. Now, just let him have the keys to the Astin Martin and let him write his own ticket. Nolan is the real architect of our dreams.

Persian Reviews...

Well, the reviews for Walt Disney Pictures' "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" are starting to come out...

"As of this writing, no one has actually made a great video game movie. But now someone has at least made a good one.

It is good old fashioned Jerry Bruckheimer cotton candy entertainment; sure it’s tasty, but it evaporates on your tongue the moment you touch it." - Massawyrm, Ain't It Cool News

"Why is it that at the end of the film, I walked away feeling like I just saw a big trailer with no movie attached?

"Prince Of Persia" works as mindless, forgettable, sit-in-the-air-conditioning entertainment, but it's not built to last, and it offers nothing lasting to an audience." - Drew McWeeny, Motion Captured

"Prince of Persia is a rip-roaring great time at the movies, a summertime treat that "reverses time" to when flicks were just plain fun. Mixing old-fashioned content and state of the art effects, this Jerry Bruckheimer production trades ‘pirates' for ‘princes' to revive the swashbuckling, sword fighting spirit of the sort Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn specialized." - Pete Hammond, Box Office Magazine

"To the credit of director Mike Newell (drawing on his Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire wrangling skills), a conclave of screenwriters who keep the dialogue on the sharp side, and the life's-a-game instincts of producer Jerry Bruckheimer, all that Arabian Nights-like stuff unfolds at a brisk, well-paced clip." - Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

"Its restraint might put off thrill-seekers, but if you can endure the wooden dialogue and sloppy exposition, it musters the entertainment quotient of a middle-order Harry Potter." - Ian Nathan, Empire Online

"With apologies to Ben Franklin, the only things certain in life are death, taxes and that a Jerry Bruckheimer film will do its bombastic best to pummel, pound and, now, parkour you into submission. "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" is all that — deaths by the thousands and the sort of spectacular spectacle possible with a rumored budget of $150 million and change.

But it should be more." - Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times

"Aimed squarely at youngsters and families, "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time," which had its world premiere in London on Sunday, is a handsome, fast-paced and innocuous adventure that's easy to take but lacks epic scale." - Ray Bennett, The Hollywood Reporter

"For twenty years, audiences have been noticing the similarity between big action and fantasy movies and video games, but “Prince of Persia” goes beyond similarity; it actually feels like a video game." - David Denby, The New Yorker

"Another video game to movie disaster? Doubtful. Bruckheimer knows what the audience is looking for and Prince of Persia, if it makes tons of dough, is going to be the eventual replacement for the Pirates franchise.

Prince of Persia is a lighthearted but troubled movie. Troubled in that the plot makes no damn sense and the movie is too long." - George 'El Guapo' Roush

"Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, is still no more or less than an all-out Jerry Bruckheimer adventure. His fondness for regular beats of action, idiosyncratic comic relief and a love-hate relationship between the lead couple are all present and accounted for, and at times you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd wandered into Pirates 4.

And that's no bad thing, because what Bruckheimer does best is deliver entertaining summer adventure for the multiplex masses, even if it does follow a tried and true formula. If it ain't broke, as they say, don't fix it" - Joe Utichi, Cinematical

Bit of a mixed bag, with some dealing light praise while others damning it with faint criticism.

Well see after Sunday if the Mouse has a successor to Pirates franchise...

Tron 2 De-Rezzed...

Well last night what arrived on my doorstop would surprise some of you...

Actually, this time it didn't arrive in a nonedescript manila envelope like other secret packages most of the time here at Blue Sky Headquarters. Instead it came as a digital document. Appropriate for a copy of the "Tron Legacy" script, yes?

That's right, the Tron sequel script. Actually, I think it's an early draft of it, as there is only one writer listed on it, Richard Jefferies. Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis' fingerprints are nowhere to be found on this draft. I was thinking of reading it, but I decided I wanted to go into the film fresh with no preconceived notions of what I was going to be seeing. I asked a friend that is a huge Tron-Geek if he'd like to review the script for me. Nada. It appears that he doesn't want to know too much before the actual film comes out in December... I don't blame him. So then I turned to another friend whom I'll call "Tron Unit" to review it. Thankfully, he said yes. He finished it very quickly and then asked if I still wanted his opinions because he could tell that this was an earlier version of the script and not the final one. Yes, I said. I thought that it would give fans the ability to see where they were going in the earlier draft of the script. The differences can be pointed out after you leave the theater this holiday. And with that, here is his review of the Jefferies draft of "Tron Legacy" for your digestion:

I will preface by saying that the following review is from what appears to be an early draft written by Richard Jefferies so I've no idea how much of his material will find its way into the finished film and therefore may contain spoilers so read at your own risk.

Imagine my surprise when I received an electronic document from Honor Hunter containing a script entitled "TRON 2.0 (aka TR2N)" with the condition that I write a review for Bluesky Disney. How could I refuse? To be honest, I had my reservations. I love the original Tron and having read the script to Star Wars: Episode I months before it was released and having 16 years of anticipation unexpectedly "derezzed" by the time I had reached page 11, I was convinced that the person who gave me the script had punked me with a fake script. Alas, it was the genuine article and all my hopes were crushed in one swift stroke. So I carefully pondered whether or not to potentially spoil any expectations I have prior to Tron Legacy's December 17 release. I was so impressed by the teaser trailer which poised some very interesting ideas and questions and I was blown away by the visual effects and the artistic design that has appropriately evolved to bring Tron into the 21st century. Needless to say I was more than a little curious to find out why Flynn appears in the trailer to simultaneously co-exist between the electronic and the real world.

Richard Jefferies' script begins with an intruder attempting to break into Encom's hacker-proof security firewall called X-Net. We discover that the program that has hacked it is Tron who has successfully eluded detection because his programming is so low-res and obsolete that the system doesn't see him to pose any real threat. Tron disrupts the system by causing an overload and is detected by X-Net who responds with intrusional counter-measures known as X-Takks. Tron successfully eludes them and crashes the system but meanwhile, back in the real world, Rush Nortebi, the security system's programmer for Encom is frantic that his perfect security system has been compromised.

Encom's CEO Gordon Sinclair has been preparing the media for the corporate launch of Encom's X-Net which guarantee's 100% security protection for any system. When news of the security breach reaches him he tells Rush and his team to find the intruder before product launch or it will turn into a public relations disaster for the company. So Rush along with an advanced projects expert named Megan Randall access the lab of Kevin Flynn who was presumed killed in a laboratory accident some years before. Meg back-engineered Flynn's Quantum Digitizer that breaks down physical matter and digitizes them into binary bits of data. Rumor has it that Flynn survived and was sucked into the computer during the accident. Sinclair and Meg decide to use the Quantum Digitizer to send Rush into the system to find the intruder. As they prepare to send him in, there is another system's breach and the machine loses stability and overloads just as Rush is digitized.

Inside the system Rush is mistaken as the intruder by X-Net intelligence program Mega, the counterpart of real-world Megan who detains him and takes Rush to the Central Control Server to be questioned by Plexor, X-Net's CPU and dopplegangert of real-world Sinclair. Rush tells Plexor that he has identified the intruder as Tron and tries to convince him and Mega that he is a User which they dismiss but believe he can help them locate and destroy Tron. To help them they are joined by another program named Krod, another called I-Beem and a gargantuan King Kong-like formatting program called D-Rezz who hurls a massive Romball that smashes data and derezzes it. They go to the ancient Game Grid sector where they intend to lay a trap for Tron who just can't resist a good grudge match.

Krod pulls out a light wand and rezzes up his light cycle. Rush dose the same and Mega climbs on. They head for the Game Grid. I-Beem and D-Rezz overlook the horizon of the grid along the rocky boundary as they prepare to lay an ambush for Tron. It isn't long before Tron is racing towards them across the grid on an intercept vector. They rally as Rush and Krod try to lure Tron into the awaiting ambush but Mega unexpectedly grabs the handlebars and veers off course. They jump from the bike before it smashes into the walls. Tron suspects something is wrong and sees D-Rezz hurtling his Romball that clips the the rear wheel of Tron's light cycle and it derezzes. Tron escapes into a tunnel and they pursue him into a maze of exposed memory leaks that derez anything that touches them. Tron hurls over the memory leaks and gains ground to throw his disc at D-Rezz but it is ineffective against the colossal program. D-Rezz hurls his Romball but is knocked away by Tron's disc and it falls into a memory leak and derezzes. Tron moves in for the killshot but Rush blocks him. Tron has no data of this program. He jumps up to a higher level and the others climb up after him but D-Rezz falls into a memory leak and lives up to his name. Rush squares off with Tron and demands that he identity his User. He sends a surging wave of energy zapping through Tron's nanocircuits triggered by entering all nine digits of his encryption code. Tron shuts down and falls into a memory leak and is derezzed. Rush picks up Tron's code disc. Mega is worried.

They are quickly surrounded by Finity Fighters and a dark limping figure appears who is revealed to be Flynn whose leg was badly damaged in the lab accident and barely escaped by activating the Quantum Digitizer. Flynn reveals that Mega has been working for him and he tells them that they have been playing for the wrong team and that Plexor's X-Net has taken control of the free system and that back in the real world Sinclair plans to hijack and control every computer system worldwide with his X-Net security software.

Meanwhile, in the real world, ATM's, traffic lights, and cell phones simultaneously go berserk causing widespread panic and chaos. Televisions all run the same add for X-Net's security software solution. Soon Encom is flooded with calls from all the major banks, airlines and governments from all nations demanding X-Net's security protection. Sinclair and his executives are pleased.

On the other side of the screen, I-Beem has returned to X-Net's central server and is revealed to be a spy for Plexor who tells him their location and that they are being helped by Flynn. He assembles his X-Net cruisers and X-Takk squads to find them. X-Net quickly crashes their hideout. Mega is captured. Plexor reprograms her. Rush is concerned that Mega is under Plexor's control but Flynn assures him that he gave Mega free-will to make her own choices. Flynn's Code Monkey's (no seriously) manage to hack a copy of the Hologon master encryption key to shut down X-Net. Rush is the only one who can power up Tron's code disc and becomes… wait for it… "Tronified."

They head for X-Net's power supply. I-Beem rejoins them and switches sides by shaking off his programming. They are confronted by X-Takks and bestial Cybavors. Flynn confronts Plexor. Rush manages to insert the Hologon into X-Net's control cell shutting it and Plexor down for good. The programs are liberated and free once again.

Back in the real world, Sinclair is giving his presentation for X-Net when it crashes. Rush re-materializes back in the lab. He is reunited with Megan and… Flynn whose leg has miraculously healed. Sinclair enters the lab furious that X-Net has crashed but when he see's Flynn he knows that his plan has been exposed. Flynn fires Sinclair and orders security to detain him so he can be questioned for charges from the SEC and the Justice Department and rewards the "heroes" by promoting them to executives in charge of the company. Rush kisses Meg.

END OF LINE.

I have to say that I felt Jefferies' script to be a big disappointment but knowing that this is not the final story as it will appear in the finished film does at least give me some hope and I remain cautiously optimistic that Joseph Kosinski will deliver a finished film that will be deserving of the legacy of Tron. The problem with this script is that it takes the original film's framework and reworks it for the internet generation. It's essentially Tron meets Hackers. Plexor is basically Sark. Encom has been transformed from a worldwide corporation with major military and defense contracts into a diabolical internet software company like Norton Anti-virus. The plot is predictable and cliched. That's not to say that the plot of the original film was much better because I will be the first to admit that it wasn't. Tron creator Steven Lisberger was heavily criticized for having a weak script that hampered Tron's critical reception when it was released but what sets the original film apart was that it was developing an entirely new mythology that had yet to be defined and was nearly a decade ahead of its time. Tron came out in 1982, the same year that cyberpunk author William Gibson released "Neuromancer" and coined the term "cyberspace" for the as-yet-to-be-defined electronic frontier. Tron was attempting to take these abstract ideas and concepts and work them into quasii-religious themes in an allegorical landscape while simultaneously pioneering a revolutionary kind of computer generated visual effects that not only gave the film a distinguished look and feel unlike anything that had ever come before it, but one that would remain solely unique in cinematic history. The techniques employed to create the world of Tron are in and of themselves obsolete and it would be impossible today to replicate the same aesthetic look, feel and nuances that gave Tron its defining characteristics. For example, the random "glitches" that occur throughout the original film were actually a happy accident caused by a problem with printing frames of exposed Kodaliths on film. Those techniques to process the film's visual effects are no longer used in the digital filmaking world. Certainly the technology has changed and advanced to the point where it would be relatively easy for the filmmakers to recreate the exact same environments and design of the original film digitally but have taken it to the next level by upgrading it to meet current 21st century visual standards. By that token, Tron Legacy will attempt to break new visual ground just as similarly as its predecessor did with a technically sub-standard script. I can only hope that Joseph Kosinski was aware of the shortcomings with Jefferies' script and that additional contributions made by writers Adam Horowitz, Edward Kitsis, Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal have reworked it into something much more sophisticated and philosophically intriguing. The trailer brilliantly hinted that Flynn was somehow able to mentally project himself within the electronic world as his younger-looking program Clu and that the electronic world can somehow interact simultaneously with the physical real world as if it is virtually juxtaposed three-dimensionally over our own. The Jefferies' script makes no allusions to this. My questions raised by the trailer are still unanswered. I can only hope that all will be revealed come December. Hopefully I'm not setting my expectations too high.

END OF LINE.

Well, I guess he didn't like it. That's fine, as this project has gone through several revisions and writers. The fact that the latest drafts were handled by people that have written "Lost" is reassuring. I've talked to a couple Bothans that say the final script and film itself are significantly different that this version.

And that trailer coming out soon has been described as very impressive...

La Grenouille Critiques: Partie Deux...

When you wish upon a frog...



And the roll call for a new dawn in Disney Animation continues...

The Mouse's latest film has gotten mostly high marks since it's release last week. A week from Friday everyone else gets to make their own minds. Until then, here's a few thoughts from some critics' minds.

"Disney Animation is back doing what it does best -- musical romantic adventure with magic -- after 10 years of unfortunate forays into barnyard humor and science fiction (see the same directors’ Treasure Planet or, better yet, don’t.)"

- Lou Lumenick, New York Post

"Visually lush, the film strikes me as the most American of the Disney Princess movies, using uniquely American iconography to paint the fairy tale.

I don't think this is the best of the Disney films, or that it's the best of what Disney is capable of, but I do think it's a movie that treats its target audience with uncommon respect. One might argue that the hand of John Lasseter, the film's executive producer, can be felt in the way the film treats its audience. After all, Pixar's built the brand out of treating the audience well. But to the credit of Lasseter and the Disney animators, this doesn't feel like the film has been "Pixar"ed. It's still recognizably a Walt Disney animated film, and the mere fact that this film drops so recognizably into the archetypes is comforting, an itch scratched, a momentary detour corrected now."

- Drew McWeeny, Hitflix/Motion Captured

"In a culture where advertising hype is more ubiquitous—seemingly more "real"—than the movies themselves, The Princess and the Frog’s feels like the ultimate betrayal: It’s classic Bait-and-Switch. Hyped as offering the Walt Disney corporation’s first African-American animated heroine, The Princess and the Frog actually refrains from expanding our social imagination. Based on the venerable The Frog Prince, it uses that fairy tale’s moral about seeking inner value and personal worth to exploit "post-racial" complaisance."

- Armond White, New York Press

"The animation style of The Princess and the Frog is perhaps the best Disney has produced for a traditionally animated film in years. This may not be 3D, but the film's vibrant look feels like much more than two dimensions with incredible character designs and an elaborate recreation of the architecture of the French Quarter from the Roaring Twenties. As an African-American and a Hispanic, I didn't find the character designs and portrayals to be stereotypical or racially offensive."

- Ron Henriques, Latino Review

"This is the first Disney animated film about an African-American princess, and this delightful fairy tale couldn't come at a better time, what with the two little African-American princesses who live in the White House."

- Allison Samuels, Newsweek

And the beat goes on...

And the beat goes on...

La Grenouille Critiques...

The reviews for Disney's return to hand-drawn animation are starting to roll in...

I can't wait to see this film. I've heard about it for almost three years and have wanted to see the Mouse return to an art form that it set the standard for. I've had several friends and colleagues see it; almost all have loved it. Unfortunately I'll be out of town during the exclusive showing on the Burbank Lot and will have to wait and see it on opening night when it goes wide. I'll be there with soda and popcorn in hand. But the reviews are starting to come out and overall it's getting good marks with the exception of Variety.

Take a look for yourself...

"This is the best Disney animated film in years. Audiences -- who don't care whether it's cel animation, CGI, stop motion, claymation or motion capture as long as it's a good story -- will respond in large numbers. A joyous holiday season is about to begin for Disney."

- Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter

"Conspicuously outfitted with an African-American heroine and a vibrant 1920s New Orleans setting, this cheeky update of a classic fairy tale boasts almost as many talking points as merchandising opportunities, and should enjoy jazzy holiday biz starting with its Thanksgiving weekend bicoastal engagement and extending well past its Dec. 11 wide release. But whatever it accomplishes for Disney's reputation or bottom line, this long-anticipated throwback to a venerable house style never comes within kissing distance of the studio's former glory."

- Justin Chang, Variety

"Princess and the Frog" isn't the second coming of "Beauty and the Beast" or "The Lion King." It's just plain pleasant, an old-fashioned little charmer that's not straining to be the next glib animated compendium of pop-culture flotsam."

- David Germain, AP for SF Gate

"This A-level, G-rated entertainment is a fresh twist on the classic fairy tale about a handsome prince temporarily out of commission due to a malicious magic spell, a royal catch requiring the smooch of the right kindhearted, risk-taking heroine to restore him to his waiting throne."

- Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

"Go ahead and pucker up. Because long before "The Princess and the Frog" is over you'll want to smooch the charming couple, air kiss a romantic firefly and hug a voodoo queen in this foot-stomping, smile-inducing, heart-warming animated twist on the old Brothers Grimm frog-prince fairy tale."

- Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times

"In an era dominated by CGI, Disney makes a bold return to 2-D animation. The medium may be old-fashioned, but the story is thoroughly, refreshingly modern. Funny, inspiring and gorgeously rendered, The Princess and the Frog is an instant classic."

- Dezhda Gaubert, E! Online

Not a bad start out of the gate, but most everyone will have to wait a couple weeks to see it for themselves...