Laying down the Law (Dredd Review)

It is what it is. That's a good opener right? But that's basically what my review of Dredd is. I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.

I've discussed this before; that a movie can only be judged on its own terms. (See what I did there?) If a movie is trying to be high art and shake the very foundation of a genre than it must be evaluated with that in mind. Dredd is not trying to do that. Dredd is straight up and embraces its own carnage and brutality. 

Set in a dystopian  future where most of the world is a radioactive wasteland; Dredd takes place in the urban hellhole Mega City One. The city's name is apt, it stretches from Boston to Washington D.C. The justice system is quick and ruthless. The heavily armored Judges act as judge, jury, and executioner. Often within three seconds. A judge sees you kill a person? No evidence, no arrests, they kill them right where you stand. They find evidence of a crime you've committed? Stealing? Vagrancy? Vandalism? You get incarcerated for however long the Judge sees fit. The movie follows Judge Dredd, the big dog on the block and Judge Anderson, the rookie on her first day. They get stuck in a mega apartment building/slum controlled by drug lord Ma-Ma.

It's a straightforward premise and sticks to it. It doesn't aim to deconstruct the ethics of what the Judges do, (although there are a couple moments where it touches on that,) it's focused on the practicality of the situation Dredd and Anderson are in. They are locked in, now let's watch them get out.

It's not cheesy like it's 90's predecessor. Karl Urban plays Dredd without an ounce of humor or remorse and it works. He doesn't spout off catch-phrases or one liners. He rolls up and kills the bad guys with extreme prejudice. The acting is fine to very good, the gun play is magnificent, the gore is nasty and detailed, and the film has some fantastic visuals when certain characters are high on "slo-mo." If you are at all interested in action movies or extremely violent shoot'em ups you should go see this. It delivers what it sets out to deliver.

Over on filmdrunk.com they have an ultimatum to people who expect some lofty philosophizing about how Dredd fails to be more than the sum of it's parts, "If you're a film critic and you analyze this movie as anything more than a comic book about an apocalyptic cop who shoots first and asks questions later, then I hope your nuts get stapled to a seesaw."

It's a bit... harsh. But I agree with the sentiment.

Now let's compare that to this piece of crap.

To quote Judge Dredd after he threw someone out a window to their death, "...Yeah."

Marvel After Avengers

Avengers has changed everything. It's a definitive point where now there are two kinds of superhero movies. Before-Avengers and After-Avengers. It's what Marvel called the end of "Phase One." So what's "Phase Two?"

At Comic-Con over the past weekend Marvel spelled it out their plans for the future clearly and showed off some goodies. At this point I would like to brag (shamelessly), I definitely called some of this.

First off are the titles for the sequels to Thor and Captain America. Thor: The Dark World will be directed by Alan Taylor ("Game of Thrones.") Little is know about the plot but it will likely involve one of the other nine realms. Possibly Svartalfheim, which is where the Dark Elves are. I don't believe its coincidence that it's the next Marvel film. I think it will also deal with the fallout of Avengers, with Loki imprisoned and what happens to the tesseract.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier from the directing duo Russo brothers is up next. This is the one I called since the first film. The story is from the mid-2000's. It fits perfectly because it's about Cap facing down his former partner Bucky who was recovered by the Russians after his fall and turned into a brainwashed assassin. (He is still around in modern times because the Russians kept him on ice and only let him up and around during missions.) It's worth noting that this storyline featured Sharon Carter, Peggy Carter's great niece as Cap's love interest. I thought that the sequel would go this route because it allows Sebastian Stan (Bucky) to return. Doing this ties the film closer to the first film. It'll help the transition between 1940's Cap and 2010's Cap. Also worth noting, rumor has it Anthony Mackie is in final negotiations to play Captain America's crime fighting partner and fellow Avenger Falcon. This pleases me quite a bit as Mackie is a fine actor and it gets another Avenger on the screen without giving him his own movie.


Speaking of other Avengers: Ant-Man is coming by director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead.) It's been long-rumored but now it's official. Its plot will revolve around the second Ant-Man, Scott Lang, a burglar with a sick daughter who steals the Ant-Man tech from Hank Pym (the first Ant-Man.) This is a very good move. The simple reason is the Hank Pym character can't carry his own movie, but Scott Lang and the former Ant-Man probably can. It's also got the classic redemption tale going for it.

Next is the big one: Guardians of the Galaxy. "Who?" you may be thinking. I'll be honest, I'm aware of their existence but never read any of their books. Think Avengers in Space. The highest profile among the team is Rocket Raccoon, who is exactly what it sounds like. He was a playable character in Marvel vs Capcom 3. The full line up is Drax, Groot, Starlord, Rocket Raccoon, and Gamora. Since they are the space fairing Avengers (basically, they aren't officially associated with each other) I expect Thanos to show up. Thanos was the purple guy at the end of Avengers. Basically Thanos is on of the biggest bads, if not the biggest bad of Marvel. Where most villains threaten Earth, Thanos is the UNIVERSE-conquering type. I think the Guardians will run across Thanos before everything comes together in Avengers 2 in 2015. Guardians of the Galaxy will come out in August 2014.

Some Iron Man 3 footage was shown off featuring Ben Kingsly in full Mandarin garb. They've been setting up Mandarin since Iron Man (the terrorists that caught Stark were with the Ten Rings.) There will be a few other villains in the film such as Firepower and Coldblood, another "Iron Man" and cyborg respectively. The rest of the cast is expected to return.

So that's it for the Avengers movieverse. How's everyone else doing?

Well plans are in development for further Spider-Man sequels to The Amazing Spider-Man. Expect at least a trilogy. The Sinister Six might show up in later films (basically all of Spidey's villains team-up at once to attack him.) There is a Venom movie in the works that will take place in the same universe and will tie into the main series at some point. As for me, I didn't go see the new Spidey flick because I have the first one on DVD and The Amazing Spider-Man is a remake. There's a difference between reboots and remakes. They just swapped different characters into the same roles. They stuck in Gwen for MJ and Lizard for Green Goblin. Meh. My impressions of the it and from what I heard they made a product rather than a movie. And the whole "Peter Parker's mysterious parents" plot won't be resolved until the third one. Sony confirmed that. Meh, I'm fine with just having Raimi's trilogy.

The next X-Men film will follow X-Men: First Class and starts filming next winter. A little birdy possibly leaked the title of the next film "Days of Future Past." Fox reportedly reserved that as a title for a movie with the MPAA. If this is true then I will be very pleased. Think the X-Men crossed with the Terminator movies. A politician is killed and as a result the giant mutant hunting robot sentinels start rounding up mutants into camps. Eventually they take over the planet completely leaving a few old resistance fighters and X-Men to fight them. The future X-Men send back Kitty Pryde (played by Ellen Page in X-Men: The Last Stand) to the past to prevent it from happening. As a movie it would have to be tweaked with the "First Class" line-up and 1960's time period but it could be great. The movie would be split between the 1960's X-Men with the future X-Men. It would be a way to get Hugh Jackman into the new franchise without him actually appearing with the early X-Men. Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellen could come back too as they would be older anyway. It also rips open crossover possibilities. Fox also has the rights to Fantastic Four and "Days of Future Past" features Franklin Richards (son of Reed and Sue) as a member of the future X-Men. The climax of the future X-Men's story actually happens in the Baxter Building. But all of this is pure conjecture and based solely on a possible rumor Fox reserved a movie title.

Jessica Biel has been cast as Viper in The Wolverine. Hugh Jackman will return and this film will ignore X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It'll be an adaption of Wolverine's first solo story which was set in Japan. Silver Samurai is set as the villain.

On the Fantastic Four side of things, Josh Trank, director of the solid film Chronicle has been given the reins of the upcoming reboot. David Slade, the director of the upcoming Daredevil reboot on the other hand has dropped out. These movies (much like X-Men: First Class and The Amazing Spider-Man) exist and were made for the sole purposes for their respective movie studios to hold onto the rights to the franchises. If they aren't used in so many years they revert back to Marvel (who could use them in Avengers but I digress.) So production needs to start on them soon. I believe Daredevil has to start shooting next month, which will be hard without a director. I'm crossing my fingers Fox loses the rights to him.

Whoo. That was a long post about superhero movies wasn't it? But I forgot something... I know there was something else I wanted to pass along... oh yeah.

This.

Space Junk (Prometheus Review)

If I had to review Prometheus in one word I could do it with a simple grown or an old fashioned Charlie Brown "UGH!" So I think you know the severity of the situation. It took me a while, because I was in denial, but Prometheus is not a good movie.

It's frustrating. This is a movie that has a lot of hype behind it. This guy directed Blade Runner. He directed Alien. They are both classics of the genre. He was coming back to science fiction films. Prometheus was supposed to be Scott's triumphant return to the genre (and Alien) to deliver an instant classic that twenty years from now could be put in the same league as 2001: A Space Odyssey or Star Wars. But we didn't get that. Let's break it down. Beware spoilers.

Let's start with the good. There is plenty to like about the film. The future technology, the universe, the actors are all marvelous. It's a real slick looking world that has the look of a classic. Michael Fassbender steals the show as android David. He's the best part of the film hands down. Think Data from "Star Trek" but without the moral subroutines. Charlize Theron, Vickers, is once again playing a villain. Or should I say, gray character? She brings as much enthusiasm to this role as last week's Snow White but it's much more controlled fury than screaming as much as humanly possible while chewing the scenery. Her character is often the voice of intelligence and reason. Idris Elba plays Captain Janek and brings the A-game that made "Luther" and Heimdall (from Thor) iconic characters. Noomi Rapace as Shaw fits her part like a glove.

The special effects are great. Fans have been waiting since 1979 to find out the truth about the "Space Jockeys" that unleashed the Alien on Sigourney Weaver. They certainly look impressive and they are very mysterious and threatening. The new alien monsters are all terrifying and the set design is inhumanly spooky.

There's also a stand-out (and graphic) scene where Noomi Rapace has to perform an emergency abortion on herself to get an alien organism out of her. It's intense to say the least. Prometheus will be remembered for this alone.

Now the bad. None of it gels. All of these great ingredients were mixed together in a bowl and what came out was disappointing.The story is mediocre and filled with enough plot holes that the more you think about it the more you realize the planet they're on must be made of Swiss cheese. To name a few examples: They are in an alien environment where they've found unknown biological material and corpses of space giants. Naturally they take their helmets off. Two characters get lost in the alien structure and are forced to spend the night. That in itself is fine, but one of the lost characters has drones that have mapped out the place. How did he get lost when he basically has Google maps on his wrist? To top it off one of them sees a hissing alien snake-thingy and his first impression is to talk to it like a cat and try to pet it. Someone page Darwin please.

There's a briefing scene where our leads dump the plot to the rest of the cast after they've arrived on the planet. The journey took two years and will take another two to get back. In that time they were all in stasis. So these people volunteered four years of their lives to a corporation without knowing a damn thing as to why. Then there's the little "twist" that makes no logical sense. It's a twist for the sake of having one. I'm not even finished with all the plot holes either, these are just the ones I wanted to share. There are too many times characters do things that serve no purpose other than to move the plot along.

But most damning of all is the sloppy writing. Characters behave like idiots so acts of violence can happen. We aren't talking teenagers in the woods, we're talking professional scientists and astronauts. Most are given one character trait to define them. Some don't get any, they are merely ciphers in space suits. There is an attempt to do something interesting with Shaw that fails. She is a religious person but is out in space trying to prove the ancient astronaut theory. That contradiction has lots of story potential but it's thrown at the wall in the hopes it will stick. It doesn't.

Then there's the ending. Good lord the ending. There wasn't one. Prometheus basically ended with a title card that said, "Come back for Prometheus II if that ever gets made." The entire film is pure set up for the sequel. It's like if Star Wars had ended when Luke Skywalker and company left Tantooine. I shouldn't be surprised by this. Damon Lindelof, co-creator of "Lost" co-wrote the script. If there's one thing he's good at, it's not giving answers to raised questions. That's not real mystery. That's not real suspense. It's throwing your hands up and going, "Eh. Close enough."

What I wanted, what I think we all wanted and what Ridley Scott wanted to make Prometheus was an instant film classic. Ultimately all it is is the start of a new franchise to make more money. It's obvious my feelings for this film; but it has its redemptive qualities. Namely the alien monsters looked cool, Michael Fassbender as David and the abortion scene. You'll have to decide for yourself whether its worth seeing.

Just in case I've persuaded you to not go see it here's a 3:16 trailer that pretty much sums up the movie.