On Thursday night, I finally got to see G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra! I have been wanting to see it but something always came up. The movie is based on the popular kids toys from Hasbro. As a kid, I did not have the toys, but I was a fan of the cartoon from the 80's. And this movie is very much in the same vein as Transformers 1 & 2. A big cheesy summer blockbuster film. Don't think war movie, think X-Men. While not all the characters are there, most of them are. And most of them have a neat back story to boot!
The basic plot (in a nutshell) is Cobra wants to do nasty things to the world and G.I. Joe team has to stop them. And both sides have all the latest and greatest toys at their disposal. The film looks great. You know you are watching a big cheesy blockbuster, but it's OK. You can sit back and watch the eye-candy wash over you. While there is violence, it's mild with little blood and gore, etc. You can bring the kids who might not get the details of the plot, but will enjoy explosion after explosion! :)
I saw this trailer when I went to see District 9. This movie looks crazy!
Here is the plot from Wikipedia:
After God loses faith in humanity, the archangel Michael (Paul Bettany) is the only one standing between mankind and the apocalypse. This time using angels as the act of Biblical judgment, God's wrath descends on Earth to exterminate the world's population. In a desperate, last-chance gambit, Michael leads a group of strangers to a small, New Mexico diner to protect a young waitress who may be pregnant with Christ in his second coming.
We also got our first look at the new Wolfman movie!! When I first heard about it, I was not too sure about remaking a classic. But after seeing the trailer, I am very excited to see the film! The remake stars Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins. The plot follows the original, with a few changes.
We got our first look at James Cameron's new film: AVATAR! He has been working on this movie for a long time, 15 years! His last success was Titanic. The trailer has opened to mixed reviews. Can Cameron find success again? A select few got to see 15 minutes of this new film in IMAX 3D. We will have to wait until December to find out.
Here is the Premise from Wikipedia:
The story’s protagonist, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), is a former Marine who was wounded and paralyzed from the waist down in combat on Earth. Jake is selected to participate in the Avatar program, which will enable him to walk. Jake travels to Pandora, a lush jungle-covered extraterrestrial moon filled with incredible life forms, some beautiful, many terrifying. Pandora is also home to the Na’vi, a sentient humanoid race that humans consider primitive, yet are more physically capable than humans. Standing three meters tall, with tails and sparkling blue skin, the Na’vi live in harmony with their unspoiled world. As humans encroach deeper into Pandora's forests in search of valuable minerals, the Na’vi unleash their formidable warrior abilities to defend their threatened existence.
Jake has unwittingly been recruited to become part of this encroachment. Since humans are unable to breathe the air on Pandora, they have created genetically-bred human-Na’vi hybrids known as Avatars. The Avatars are living, breathing bodies that are controlled by a human "driver" through a technology that links the driver's mind to their Avatar body. On Pandora, through his Avatar body, Jake can be whole once again. Sent deep into Pandora's jungles as a scout for the soldiers that will follow, Jake encounters many of Pandora's beauties and dangers. There he meets a young Na’vi female, Neytiri, whose beauty is only matched by her ferocity in battle.
Over time, Jake integrates himself into Neytiri's clan, and begins to fall in love with her. As a result, Jake finds himself caught between the military-industrial forces of Earth, and the Na’vi, forcing him to choose sides in an epic battle that will decide the fate of an entire world.
It sounds interesting. Not sure if it will be the epic blockbuster that it wants to be. We will see.
Last night, my good friend Tom and I went to the movies to see G.I. Joe. But we had just missed the last show by 10 minutes. However, we were just in time to see District 9, which we also wanted to see. So we decided on the sci fi movie. Calling this movie a science fiction only scratches the surface of this very complex movie.
The movie starts out as a documentary, very similar to Cloverfield. We learn that in this world an alien space ship appeared out of the sky 20 years ago! It was a large ship that just hovered over the city. Almost like the miniseriesV or the movie Independence Day. But the aliens inside were not here to conquer us. The ship was filled with workers with no leaders. They were stranded here. Even more bizarre was the fact that the ship didn't land over Washington D.C. or London, but Johannesburg South Africa!
The "workers" were taken to "District 9" a refugee camp for the aliens. (Which are 6 to 7 foot tall insect like creatures.) This area quickly turned into a slum. After 2 decades of crime and trouble the local humans have had enough. The decision is made to have them moved to a new "camp". But before that the aliens must be served with eviction notices. That is where the story really starts. We follow one of these bureaucrats as he tries to serve the aliens with these notices. After getting sprayed with alien rocket fuel, he becomes very sick and strange things start to happen to him. He starts turning into an alien! He is quickly taken away by the government agency that oversee alien affairs. They don't want to help him, they want to harvest his body's secrets. Because the aliens weapons will not work for humans. Only for aliens. But because of his unique accident, he is the only human that can use all of the alien technology.
That's a lot to get your head wrapped around. This is a strange movie for sure. And it's set in a part of the world that we really don't get to see on film too much. It looks great and the special effects are very good. They don't overpower any seen, they make this "documentary" almost look real.
The reason I say that it's hard to leave District 9, is because this is a movie that will leave you deep in thought. At least I was after. When you see the harsh treatment of the aliens by the humans and how their 'inalienable' rights (pun intended) are taken away for their "own good", it's almost hard to watch. You almost want to say, is this a sci fi or a war crimes movie? If the aliens were taken out and replaced with any other human culture, the movie would be a hard hitting drama that shows a people's hard struggle.
The movie is very good and it's a must see. Be warned, it's rated R for language and violence. Leave the kids at home. But go see it. A great movie that will make you think. :)
Today we had an atom bomb drop in the geek world!! We found out that there could be movies made from Stephen King's The Dark Tower! And they could be made by J.J. Abrams!!!
I cannot stress how great this is! These series of books are my all time favorites!! It took Stephen King over 20 years to write these books. It follows the adventures of Roland the Last Gunslinger of a world that has moved on. Think a "fantasy western". But this western is not for kids. It is a very gritty and bloody tale that is full of magic and doors to wonderful and not so wonderful lands.
This is the Plot summary from Wikipedia:
In the story, Roland is the last living member of a knightly order known as gunslingers and the last of the line of "Arthur Eld," his world's analogue of King Arthur. The world he lives in is quite different from our own, yet it bears striking similarities to it. Politically organized along the lines of a feudal society, it shares technological and social characteristics with the American Old West but is also magical. While the magical aspects are largely gone from Mid-World, some vestiges of them remain, along with the relics of a highly advanced, but long vanished, society. Roland's quest is to find the Dark Tower, a fabled building said to be the nexus of all universes. Roland's world is said to have "moved on", and indeed it appears to be coming apart at the seams — mighty nations have been torn apart by war, entire cities and regions vanish without a trace and time does not flow in an orderly fashion. Even the Sun sometimes rises in the north and sets in the east. As the series opens, Roland's motives, goals and age are unclear, though later installments shed light on these mysteries.
Here is a YouTube Video that shows many images from and inspired from the books!
If JJ can work his magic like he did with the Star Trek movie, we are in for a hell of a ride. Think Lord of the Rings, but over twice as long!!!!!!
In case you haven't seen, it's Shark Week on the Discovery Channel! We just started watching today, and it is really good!!! If you're not watching, you should!!
