Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Assorted Movie News

First up is the long anticipated Indiana Jones 4; no word on a plot line but progress is being made. Rumours have suggested Atlantis, but personally I can't see it, it's a bit too far out for Indy- could be that it's set in the fifties with the Communist Chinese replacing the Nazis as bad guys. No one knows for sure though, it's all just conjecture right now. Constant rewrites are bad news though- could it be that they can't find a story for Jones? I find that hard to believe given the amount of Indy books that have been written- take the plot from one of them. The other bad news is the suggestion of a younger sidekick- I don't want to see an Indiana Jones movie where the young gun gets to do the exciting stuff, I want to see Indy do it. If Harrison Ford's getting on too much for big stunts, CGI his face onto his stunt double (like they did with Christopher Lee in AOTC). Hell, give him a .45 and have the action scenes as a series of shoot-outs.

Next up is, Aliens vs Predator 2. The first film was pretty disappointing. Fans already had their story- the predators seed a remote planet with alien eggs, the aliens coming from big buffalo-type creatures. The script of this Dark Horse comic is available to read here. Better than the movie that was made. First off, the first two films tell us that the predators love the heat and only come to Earth on the hottest of summers- so AVP has them in the Antarctic. Huh? I also didn't like the whole set up- a subterranean pyramid in the Antarctic that can move and shift around like a big puzzle box? This movie did no justice to either franchise. Let's hope the sequel has an entirely original cast and a new setting- perhaps a remote outpost where the predators can seed herd animals with alien eggs?

I haven't seen xXx 2 yet, and I'm not sure if I will. The first film was okay- I enjoyed it more when I watched it for a second time on DVD recently. Yeah, it's a "hip" (I use the term loosely) James Bond and it took perhaps a little too much from that franchise (their own "Q" and gadget car) but it was fun enough. Vin Diesel was pretty good- no Riddick for sure, but not bad. I'm not exactly over the moon with the idea of Ice Cube as xXx- wasn't that Diesel's tattoo and not the codename for a super-spy anyway?- but the producers seem to be toying with the idea of a female xXx for the next film. That might be okay- at the end of the day it's another big budget action movie with a spy theme so why not? Just so long as we don't have to waste the first twenty minutes or more of each film with an origin story- if they can build that into the opening scene and titles I'm all for a rotating-door xXx series. Besides that the James Bond films could really do with some competition to perk them up a bit.

The Mummy 3- if director Sommers can not do another Van Helsing (what were they thinking? Did anyone get sacked for that travesty?) then I'm all on for this. The Mummy movies are dumb, big fun. 1 and 2 are equally enjoyable fare and a third- if it's up to the same standard- is more than welcome. Maybe it could be switched from a big action number to a creepy horror film, the sort of thing Peter Cushing would have appeared in. That would be nice but I don't think Sommers can do subtle or creepy- big, brash, and flash seems to be his forte.

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