The best and worst of Comic-Con 2008.

3 comments

July 28, 4:25 PM

by Jason Roestel, Movie Examiner

 

 

 This ain't your father's Teen Wolf. Del Toro's Wolf Man.

The Good- Of course Zack Snyder's Watchmen should be on everyone's "I can't freaking wait for that movie to come out" list. If you saw The Dark Knight last week, then you saw the drop-dead gorgeous trailer for this new film. I'm sure most of you who haven't read Alan Moore's amazing 12-part comic-book series might have been scratching your heads as your eyes were fed huge doses of eye-candy. Don't worry though, there's a reason why Watchmen has been heralded since it's debut in 1986. This is the best story ever written about costumed heroes. (Well, it's just shy of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns in my humble opinion.) It isn't just the "look" of this new film that has me thinking this could very well be the BEST comic-book movie ever, just check out this cast: Carla Gugino as Sally Jupiter. Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian. Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan. Patrick Wilson as the Night Owl. (I'm becoming a huge Pat Wilson fan.) Mathew Goode as Ozymandias. And best of all, Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. Movies don't get cast much more perfect than this one. I'm left wondering how Snyder's going to fit every ounce of this epic story into one movie. 

I like what I'm seeing with Universal's re-adaptation of The Wolf Man. Not only does the cast look right for this, (Benicio Del Toro, Sir Anthony Hopkins, and Agent Smith himself Hugo Weaving) but I'm really digging the 1800's setting. All I want from this movie is a good, solid, werewolf movie. We haven't seen one of those since American Werewolf in London. That's been 27 years people. They've managed to make hundreds of werewolf movies in that time, not any of them on the level of that mythical John Landis movie. Plus I think this monster, (Pictured above.) looks exactly right. More Lon Chaney Jr. than Joe Dante. Please don't let this be like Universal's kick-start of The Mummy franchise.... Please don't let this be like Universal's kick-start of The Mummy franchise..... (A mantra of hope.)

People are still wondering if Pixar's officially lost their brilliant minds with next year's animated Up. So it's about an old guy who escapes his retirement community by tying hundreds of helium-filled balloons to his house, so he can fly to South America. Will it be commercially viable for children? Nope. But will it be interesting? Sure it will. It's Pixar guys, even their bad material is better than 99% of anything crawling into theater chains these days.

Call me sentimental even as I completely wipe Swept Away and Revolver from my memory. But I really, really want Guy Ritchie's new London gangster flick RockNRolla to be the true spiritual successor to Lock Stock and Snatch. Just the fact that he got both Tom Wilkinson (Batman Begins, In The Bedroom, Michael Clayton.) and Gerard Butler (Screaming through his titanic teeth in last year's 300) in the same film has me interested in a Guy Ritchie movie again.

Lastly on the television front, I am very, very interested in J.J. Abrams new series Fringe. What X-Files/Lost fan wouldn't be?

The Bad- Did anyone who survived 70's television even want a Land of the Lost film? Do we need a new CG Sleestak wheezing his way onto our King-sized Burger King soda cups next Summer? I think not. I'm a huge, huge fan of everything Robert E. Howard, but I don't want his legacy in the hands of Robert Rodriguez. I like Rob's movies, but I don't think the guy's track record proves he's capable of producing new Red Sonja and Conan films. I hope I'm wrong about these new projects, but like Luke Skywalker says "I've got a bad feeling about this..."  Max Payne? Ummm don't video-game-to-movie adaptations ALWAYS suck? And let Sam Raimi's (Spiderman franchise.) Drag Me To Hell review headlines write themselves.

The Ugly- Stephen Sommers. GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra. Didn't this sort of thing used to be called "Straight to home video"? And what's the deal with Paramount throwing out the Star Trek 11 Comic-con snub? Pimp this movie guys, pimp it hard and constantly. This is your audience speaking.   

   Subscribe   Feed

Include other special offers from Examiner.com
Terms of Use