Volume 40:
Emmerich v. Fuqua
White House Down
Dir: Roland Emmerich – Planned release
date: June 28
Due to my recent
semi-break from updating this site regularly, I never got a real chance to
review Olympus Has Fallen, in which
Gerard Butler was able to save the President from a group of North Korean
terrorists who overtook the White House. (Oops. Uh, spoiler alert?) That film
was directed by Training Day’s
Antoine Fuqua, and it was terrible. On top of that, it was dumb. Like, really
dumb. This June, blockbuster auteur Roland Emmerich looks to one-up Mr. Fuqua
with White House Down, in which a
different dude goes all John McClane on whoever decides to overtake the White
House this time. It also seems as if the rest of Washington, D.C. takes a
beating as well. This film seems to have a bit more, uh, prestige (?) behind
it, and thanks to Olympus being so
terrible it really has nowhere to go but up. This trailer does a perfectly fine
job of selling White House Down, and
I’m glad to see it doesn’t reveal so much, but I hope the final product isn’t
as humorless as this preview makes it seem. (That was also one of the biggest
problems with Olympus.) I don’t
anticipate that will be the case, as even the worst Emmerich joints typically
don’t take themselves too seriously, but putting a guy like Channing Tatum in a
truly seriously role would be a profound miscalculation. As the last year or so
has shown, he’s much better when he’s able to mess around a bit.
Only God Forgives (Red band)
Dir: Nicolas Winding Refn – Planned
release date: TBD
Nicolas Winding
Refn has decided to follow up his critical hit Drive with, well, a film that looks like it could be really similar
to Drive. Though honestly, even if
this was just a sequel to Drive it
would look like the coolest thing on Earth. Actually, I kind of like the idea
of a series of films where The Driver goes from location to location
terrorizing bad guys with his special brand of Winding Refn-y violence. (Get
ready for my screenplay The Driver Goes
to Disney World!) Still, Only God
Forgives looks like it will do just fine, what with Gosling dragging people
down hallways by their mouths and challenging a sword-loving Thai mobster to a
fight. Or something. All I know is that based
on this poster things may get hairy for Gosling by film’s end. I would
expect nothing less. I also know there will be much slow-motion brutality, and
critics will love it a whole heck of a lot more than audiences.
This is the End (Red band, quite profane)
Dir: Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen –
Planned release date: June 12
Comedies like This is the End are a tricky
proposition. Clearly just about everyone involved in it is a hilarious person,
which helps when the movie looks like it relies quite a bit on how great it is
when the actors play off each other. However, there is another movie that came
out not too long ago that seemed to be the result of a bunch of dudes hanging
out: Your Highness. That movie stunk
mostly because of how hilarious everyone involved seemed to think they
were. As a result, I’ve grown increasingly wary of the “watch us hang out!”
comedy, and this would clearly seem to be a culprit. And yet, the insanity of
this trailer was definitely able to win me over. I probably could do without
some of the more special effects-heavy stuff—throwing money at movies like this
is rarely a great idea—but I could probably watch this cast argue about who
eats a Milky Way for hours and hours. There’s still the potential for disaster
here, but this preview shows a lot of potential that I wasn’t sure was there
beforehand.
Grown Ups 2
Dir: Dennis Dugan – Planned release date:
July 12
Yup, Happy
Madison is up to its old tricks again. Adam Sandler has chosen a nice place to
take a vacation, he ordered his minions to give him a script that could pay for
the vacation, and off he and his buddies went to make Grown Ups 2. Only now Rob Schneider isn’t here because he and
Sandler had a falling out and he isn’t allowed at the lunch table anymore. Still,
it must be nice to be in a position where you can just say “have my character
be married to Salma Hayek” and then it becomes true. I mean, she’s not going to
say no, because money. I mean, if I were offered a Happy Madison check I would
happily act in a bed next to Adam Sandler as a CGI deer urinates on his face.
Pride is important and all, but people got to eat. As far as plot is concerned,
it seems Grown Ups 2 will involve
some great rivalry between our group of middle-aged protagonists and the local
frat boys. One of them is Taylor Lautner, and Shaquille O’Neal also shows up as
himself in a police officer’s uniform. No word yet on whether or not Sandler
was able to squeeze Dan Patrick in here somewhere. Stay tuned.
Kick-Ass 2 (Red band)
Dir: Jeff Wadlow – Planned release date:
August 16
I have seen this
trailer twice in theaters with other people, and both times when Jim Carrey’s
name came up at the end the audience just about screamed in terror and delight.
That’s the highest compliment I could possibly give about what Carrey seems to
be doing here, and it has the potential to be the role that brings him right back
to the forefront of peoples’ minds. The rest of the movie I’m not exactly
pumped about—the first Kick-Ass was
perfectly fine, but nothing to call home about—but I think it has the potential
to build on the original’s promise in some interesting ways. Really, most of
that will probably involve Carrey, but I’m willing to see what the rest of the
film has to offer. Director Jeff Wadlow doesn’t have the deepest resume, but
considering the original’s subpar box office performance I doubt they would
have went ahead with this if the didn’t believe in the material. Perhaps I’m
being optimistic, but I think there’s a nice place for a film like Kick-Ass in the middle of this insane
superhero movie boom. Everything else is all CGI, big budgets and Hollywood
polish. There’s something refreshing about “superheroes” dispatching of bad guys
the old-fashioned way: traumatic blows to the head.
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