Even more new Star Trek pics...

The hype is growing for JJ Abram's 2009 Star Trek movie and the slow trickle of images released over the last few weeks has been wetting the appetite of many a Trekkie/ Trekker. The first image below is probably the most important, it's the new Enterprise ship design, and although it's not in keeping with the original series/ movies designs it still does look very good.

If you visit the official movie site www.startrekmovie.com in roughly 5 days and 15 minutes from when this post was added you'll be able to watch the NEW HD trailer for the movie as well as find some high quality pictures and wallpaper downloads.

It's the old NCC-1701 herself, The Enterprise.

Zachary Quinto as Spock.

Chris Pine as James Tiberius Kirk.

John Cho as Sulu

Eric Bana as Romulan villain Nero

Karl Urban and Chris Pine as McCoy and Kirk

Beyonce Knowles wants to play Wonder Woman...

According to the LA Times' Hero Complex Beyonce Knowles wants to be the first woman in line to play Wonder Woman in the live action movie.

“I want to do a superhero movie and what would be better than Wonder Woman? It would be great. And it would be a very bold choice. A black Wonder Woman would be a powerful thing. It’s time for that, right?”

The singer-turned-actress has reportedly met with DC and Warner Bros. reps to “express her interest in a major role in one of the many comic-book adaptations now in the pipeline,” but the long-gestating Wonder Woman project would be her first choice - especially after seeing Lynda Carter’s original costume at the Costume Institute’s “Superhero” show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

“I would definitely have to keep it right for that costume. The way that Lynda Carter wore it, she was sooo fine. She was amazing. I saw her costume at the Met. Her waist was unbelievable. It was pretty crazy, actually, her proportions. But I love Wonder Woman and it’d be a dream come true to be that character. It sure would be handy to have that lasso. To make everybody tell the truth? I need that. It would come in very handy.”

I don't see anything wrong with Beyonce Knowles being black and playing a character that has always been white, they did it with the Kingpin in Daredevil and most recently with Nick Fury in Iron Man, but she would definitely not be on my list of "good" actresses to properly convey the Amazonian Princess on the silver screen. I'm still waiting for Jessica Biel to change her mind. She has the body, the sexiness and a kickass presence (Blade Trinity anyone?) to nail the role.

Read the full Beyonce interview/ story here:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/11/beyonc-wants-to.html

Princess Diana as she should look; Hardass!

Please Jessica, come back!!!

Mal won't be happy!

While peruising the movie sites tonight I've come across something only a fan would notice.

Why oh why is Elias Koteas (playing the Lieutenant in Rachel Samuels' new movie DARK STREETS) holding Mal Reynolds' custom made sidearm from Firefly/ Serenity? It may be pedantic to point out this little fact but I actually feel a little miffed that their prop dept couldn't make their own unique pistol, they just went ahead and stole one from one of my favourite programmes/ movies. I own a licenced replica from Quantum Mechanix and I was happy with the fact that this pistol is only from that franchise... Goits.

OK I'm stepping off my soapbox now.

Click for a closer look.

New "The Spirit" Wallpapers

Just for you fans out there that are actually looking forward to this movie (I've lost all interest for some reason) here are two new wallpapers featuring Samuel L Jackson as The Octopus and Gabriel Macht as The Spirit himself. I wish I could be more excited about this but the more I see the more negative I become. I hope it proves me wrong, but I'm not holding my breath.

Transporter 3 - New Pics & Trailer

As I've said before I'm a big fan of both Jason Statham and his previous 2 action packed Transporter movies. Statham's character "Frank Martin" is a likable one and the fighting sequences are some of the best transferred to film (mostly due to Statham's incredible skill and style). Olivier Megaton directs this time round and although I've not heard of any of the French movies he's made in the past this 3rd edition looks set to follow the thrills and spills of the last two. I can't wait for this film, roll on Dec 5th! (Nov 26th for the US)

Movie synopsis:

Frank Martin has been pressured into transporting Valentina, the kidnapped daughter of Leonid Vasilev, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency for the Ukraine, from Marseilles through Stuttgart and Budapest until he ends up in Odessa on the Black Sea. Along the way, with the help of Inspector Tarconi, Frank has to contend with the people who strong armed him to take the job, agents sent by Vasilev to intercept him, and the general non-cooperation of his passenger. Despite Valentina's cynical disposition and his resistance to get involved, Frank and Valentina fall for each other, while escaping from one life-threatening situation after another.

Below are some recent movie images that have hit the web and the latest trailer which is awesome to say the least.

Jason Statham as Frank Martin in double 'ard bastard mode!

François Berléand makes a welcome return as the likable Inspector Tarconi.

Facing off against Johnson (Robert Knepper).

Frank falling for the wrong girl once again. This time it's Valentina (Natalya Rudakova).

Poster advertisement.


And the latest trailer:

New trailer for Disney Pixar's "UP".

Being the huge fan of Pixar films that I am I'm always excited to see a new one on the horizon, regardless of what the story is about, and although UP seems to be completely different to every other film before it, it still has the air of charm and quality that Pixar always delivers.

Brief synopsis

In this "coming of old age" story, a seventy-something hero, alongside his clueless wilderness ranger sidekick who accidentally gets brought along for the ride, travels the globe on his multi-balloon powered floating house, fighting beasts and villains, and eating dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon.

Below is the new trailer:

Megan Fox is not going to be Wonder Woman...

Some people might have recently come across a website (www.wonder-who.com) while looking for some information on the new Wonder Woman movie (now residing in development Hell for the foreseeable future). The image above was slowly revealed day by day to reveal Megan Fox as the actress playing the role, but according to movie website JoBlo a contact/ rep for Warner Bros said “the site and it’s contents are ‘complete BS’.” No mincing words there then...

The poster is pretty well photo-shopped and you can clearly see why some people would have taken this site as official while getting highly excited that "sexy, popular girl of the moment" Miss Fox would be donning the skimpy red, blue and gold outfit. However it's now a debunked rumour and hopefully WB will find someone who fits the roll a lot better when the time comes (taller, bigger built and older in my opinion) who can fulfill the role of Princess Diana and give us the proper WW movie we've been waiting for for decades!

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li

14 years on from the first Street Fighter live action movie and news is upon us that Feb 2009 is the date that sees the new SF movie: "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li" coming to a cinema near you.

Focusing on the origin story of the gaming world's iconic Chinese Goddess Miss.Li, the movie will NOT have SF main characters Ryu and Ken in it but will include M.Bison, Vega and Balrog and will tell the story of Chun Li's search for justice.

Chun Li and Kristin Kruek

Kristin looking a little worse for wear in a rare snapshot from the new movie.

Kristin Kreuk, better known to fans as Lana Lang from Smallville, will be playing the main role and her supporting cast is filled with familiar faces (one of which is Robin Shou who starred as Liu Kang in the Mortal Kombat movies). I've never been a huge fan of Kristin's (I found Lana in Smallville to be highly annoying) but she seems to fit this role well (apart from her not being Chinese obviously!).

Robin Shou as Gen, Chun Li's mentor.


Little information has been released about the film and only a handful of actual photos have leaked (all included in this post) but the film seems to have some good mojo going for it at the moment and as the director is playing it serious for this movie (no dodgy costumes or unrealistic special SF moves) it could well be a hit. I doubt the film will actually be released in Feb as stated online but it's one film I am intrigued to see.

Shou and Kruek on set.

Moon Bloodgood as Detective Maya Sunee, a new addition to the SF universe.

Michael Clarke Duncan as Balrog. Boxing gloves replaced with guns!

A promo poster for the movie from comingsoon.net, as of yet unseen in public.


The cast announced thus far (click for a bigger image).

Dragonball The Movie

Having never watched a single episode of Dragonball when it was on TV all those years ago I can't say that I'm that interested in this live action movie version. I'm posting it up hoping that a DB fan might come on here having not heard of the new movie (however unlikely that is) and go "Wow!". With me the reaction is more like "Oh God this looks bloody awful"...

My colleague at work seems to be a DB nut and could probably explain every little detail about the entire DB universe so I know he's been looking forward to this since its inception and he's the real reason I've even posted it here in the first place. Danny boy, this is for you.

I've been informed that there are some major problems with the images and trailer such as Piccolo looking more like a Joss Whedon Vampire or the Picard Clone from Star Trek Nemesis than the green antennae-headed alien and other characters looking completely different to their cartoon counterparts (like Master Roshi for example). I won't be going to see this in the cinema but it'll be a DVD rental for sure, just to see what it's like.

This is a supposed image of Goku in his Monster/ Oozaru form. Again the web is buzzing with people dissing the fact that if this is indeed real and the final version for the film, it detracts heavily from the original giant ape/ werewolf form from the cartoons (below).

Oozaru as fans know him.

Piccolo, or not Piccolo... that is the question.

Piccolo as fans know him.

I hope you DB fans get something out of this movie, although at this point I wouldn't get your hopes up...

Johnny Five is alive! And so are many others...

Johnny Five will be updated for his remake movie. Don't kill my loving memories of the original film Hollywood!

It would seem that movie companies are having a hard time thinking up new ideas recently. Not only do we have comic books and video games being transferred to the silver screen in their dozens and sequel after sequel of films like Saw and Bond being churned out on an almost yearly basis but now it seems painfully clear that remakes are now increasing exponentially. Remakes are nothing new, we've had some movies made up to 3 or 4 times over and some are better than the original material and some aren't. There have been remakes such as King Kong, Poseidon, Psycho, Assault on Precinct 12, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Pink Panther, The Italian Job etc etc to name but a few.

You would have probably heard by now that new films such as Friday the 13th and The Day the Earth stood still are to be released soon, but the news is just full of numerous other remakes being on the cards in the next few years. In San Diego I saw an advertisement for the Robocop remake for example which I feel is wrong. Trying to remake a film like Robo (seeing as the original is so spot on and Paul Verhoven had such a specific way of directing) makes me worry that Hollywood can't translate these movies into our time and get away with it.

Below is a list of remakes on the cards to either get excited about or dread. You'll have to make your own decision and wait to see if they actually get made.

Although it's not a remake I have to say I'm also highly excited to see the A-team being made into a movie soon too!

The Shadow (I actually liked the Adam Baldwin original, so sue me)
Battle Royale
The Last Starfighter (woo hoo!)
The Evil Dead (Really? Noooo)
Knight Rider (Remake of the original movie, not the series)
Conan The Barbarian (Very cool!)
Logan’s Run
Death Wish
Fahrenheit 451
Friday The 13th (Leave it alone!)
Last House On The Left
Hellraiser
Tron (Actually "Tron 2.0" so hopefully a sequel, looking forward to this one)
Clash of the Titans (loved the original)
Akira (live action, can it translate over?)
The Birds
A Nightmare On Elm Street (Oh for God's sake!)
Westworld (Good potential)
The Warriors
Piranha
Escape From New York (Please God make this good!)
Porkys
Short Circuit (I'm 8 years old all over again!)
Straw Dogs
1984
Red Sonja (I hate Rose McGowan, bring back Bridgette!)
The Dirty Dozen
Footloose
Dune (Loved the original, but will they get rid of the confusion?)
The Thing (classic film with great potential)
Near Dark
The Swarm
Fame
The Witches (Loved the original)

The Last Starfighter. One of my favourite movies as a kid.

Gears of War 2 - Mini Review

WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS

So, after what seemed like a lifetime of waiting Gears of War 2 finally arrived on my doorstep on Thursday (gotta love Play.com for delivering a day early every time!). I didn't actually get to play it until Friday night when my mate came over to play the co-op campaign mode but I wouldn't have had it any other way, Gears is one of those games that works great when in co-op. I've now completed the game, finishing the later levels in single player, and completed the whole thing in roughly 8-9 hours of game play.

I was a huge fan of the first installment and completed the original campaign in one sitting, albeit one hell of a sitting as anyone who played the first game can attest to. Gears, like Halo, is a continuing franchise that people want to see more of. The characters are engaging (John Di Maggio's "Marcus Fenix" voice over in particular is great, the man who plays Bender in Futurama does it again!), the levels are beautiful and well planned and some missions just completely blow you away (I loved the Lord of the Rings-like Brumak riding level near the end of the new game, I wish levels like that were longer!). Gears of War 2 really does have some inspiring levels coupled with the new "upped ante" storyline that was engrossing and in some places hilarious (Cole shouting to the Hive Queen over the Hive speaker system) and highly emotional (Dom finding his wife Maria). Sometimes you want to skip cut scenes to get back to the action but I've found that recent games (GTA 4, Saints Row 2 and Gears) simply don't fit into that category which is an great accomplishment for the game creators.

This games does feel much longer than the first and the scale of some levels seem to be double the previous outing with enhanced graphics and more fluid game play. Weapons are more enjoyable and more accurate to use, blowing the heads off your enemies is joyful and the "crapping yourself when a Reaver sets down in front of you when you're all out of ammo" moments make for adrenaline fuelled fun.

This game is a must-have for any shoot-em-up gamer and although it's replayabilty isn't up there with the likes of sandbox games like Saints Row 2 and it's not a a lot different from Gears 1 it's still always gonna be worth the purchase.

Setting the standard
8.5/10

Quantum of Solace - Mini Review

WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS

Last night I finally got to see the new Bond movie "Quantum of Solace". After hearing a whole plethora of varying reviews from TV, radio and UK newspapers, some saying it was rubbish and some saying it was awesome, I was intent on giving it the benefit of doubt and decided to sit back and enjoy it.


The only problem is that I didn't enjoy it, not as much as I should have at least... Being the huge Bond fanatic that I am I was sure I was going to love this film as much as Casino Royale (which ends up being the far superior Daniel Craig outing) but it just didn't hit the spot, both as a Bond film, and an enjoyable, exciting, action movie. It's clear for any movie aficionado (and anyone who knows anything about Quantum's filming) that the Bourne Identity stunt co-ordinator was brought on board for this movie. The fight sequences are almost identical to the Bourne trilogy and some stunt sequences such as the opening car chase and the motorbike stunt again had that Bourne signature to them in the way they were set up and filmed. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but the whole film was so close up and erratic in how many camera angles per minute it used it gave you a headache to try and keep focused and see what was going on.

Bond looking a bit worse for wear

Characters like Gemma Arterton's MI6 agent "Fields" (first name "Strawberry" if you didn't know), Giancarlo Giannini's "Renee Mathis" and Jeffrey Wright's "Felix Lighter" (both latter actors reprising their Casino Royale roles) seemed to be thrown in to the film for no good reason, maybe just to keep some continuity between Casino and Quantum, but they just didn't seem to belong and had no major impact on the story, they could have just been left out and it wouldn't have harmed the film. Poor old Gemma was highly underused, being introduced to the audience dressed in a hat can only be described as a "flasher coat" and boots that made me think she was about to whip'em off at any second just for the sake of her being another dumb notch on Bond's bed post (reminding me of Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman for some reason) and in reality she seems to have only been included as cannon fodder for the "how many girls die after meeting Bond" list which is part of the film's side story. I almost cringed at the scene where Bond is drinking his first signature drink, the Dry Martini, as the barman describes exactly how one is made while Bond finishes his eighth glass... It was a poor addition to the movie to add something like that in in my opinion.

Craig and Arterton doing the suave thing

Daniel Craig and Judie Dench put in fine performances as always and they had no faults at all and Mathieu Amalric (main villain Dominic Greene) was OK but I feel new girl Olga Kurylenko was maybe a poor choice for "Camille". There was little wrong with her performance that I can put my finger on but again she didn't seem to bring anything interesting to the role, nor may I say did she register on any Bond Girl hotty level for me. There's word that she'll return in Bond 23... I hope she doesn't. Maybe that's a little harsh but hey I was sat there waiting to see a great movie and I just kept sitting there until the credits rolled still waiting... It was a "meh, I'm looking forward to getting home now" reaction while leaving the cinema and that's always a disappointment. A case of the trailer was better than the actual film maybe?

Olga Kurylenko as Camille

It's very obvious that the studio and it's producers are wanting to make the new Bond movies into a continuing story where one films leads straight into the next (running away from the old Bond film blue print where each one was utterly separated from one another and a previous film was never mentioned) but what they seem to be doing in the process is losing the essence of what the classic Bond's had. Yes Daniel Craig's 007 is a far more realistic MI6 agent, he gets hurt, both physically and emotionally, he makes mistakes, his humour is dry and suits him, he's visceral in his actions etc, and we love that kind of direction change with a lot of movies from the last few years, but if this is the way Bond is heading I'm a little worried.

All in all it's not a terrible film that you shouldn't go and see, it's really not. BUT, and it's a big but, it's definitely of a lower grade that I hope the next movie recovers from. I'm sure this'll make a packet at the box office regardless and in reality everyone who's anyone goes to watch a new Bond movie when it gets released so there's a whole lotta life in the old dog yet.

Bond is back, but not at his best.
5/10

Monsters vs Aliens official trailer

I'd blogged before about the new Dreamworks animation movie Monsters vs Aliens and had a bad quality bootleg trailer up. Now the proper trailer is online and you can get a better picture of how cool this movie will be. I can't wait for this, it's exactly my kind of film and I can see my kids loving it too.

Wonder Kim?

I only know Kim Kardashian for her less than shining reputation based on some famous video indiscretions rather than for what else she's actually famous for in the US right now, but these pictures of her attending a Halloween party dressed like Wonder Woman caught my attention the other day. There are a lot of women in this world who dress as comic superhero's or sci-fi hotties and look terrible doing it (sorry but it's the truth), and then there are the few that can actually pull it off. I think Kim is the latter and pulls of the Amazon Princess look quite well with her tall stature and fulsome body filling out the gold, red and blue.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans new trailer

Underworld and it's sequel Evolution were two of my favourite movies. Ever since I was a kid I was into Vampires and Werewolves and when these two films came out I loved them. They were slick, action packed and had Kate Beckinsale in skin-tight latex and for me they were even more enjoyable than the Matrix movies (which is saying something for me as I love them too).

When I heard there was a third film being made I was really excited... until I heard it was a prequel and there would be no Kate Beckinsale in skin-tight latex. Instead we get the story that traces the origins of the centuries-old blood feud between the aristocratic vampires known as Death Dealers and their onetime slaves, the Lycans. In the Dark Ages, a young Lycan named Lucian (Micheal Sheen) emerges as a powerful leader who rallies the werewolves to rise up against Viktor (Bill Nighy), the cruel vampire king who has enslaved them. Lucian is joined by his secret lover Sonja (Rhona Mitra) in his battle against the Death Dealer army and his struggle for Lycan freedom.

Don't get me wrong, I think keeping Bill Nighy and Micheal Sheen in their original roles is great for the film and ex Lara Croft Model Rhona Mitra is a gorgeous, skin-tight latex wearing, armour plated, replacement for Kate Beckinsale, but I just don't get the same, good vibe from this trailer that I did with the previous two films. It could be a great addition to the franchise, or it could be a crap heap like Ms Mitra's last movie Doomsday. We'll have to wait and see.

Rhona Mitra as Sonja

Here's the trailer:

New Dollhouse Trailer

Having been plagued by the Joss Whedon curse of a pilot re-shoot, episode re-writes and Fox throwing a paddy when Joss doesn't agree with them, it was becoming increasingly unlikely that we'd ever see Dollhouse emerge into an actual series. Let's hope we do as Joss deserves another good, long running series like Buffy and not another season one cancellation like Firefly! Plus it's always good to see Eliza Dushku on our screens, I was pretty miffed when Tru Calling got cancelled as I'd really started to enjoy it!

Synopsis

In Dollhouse, Dushku plays a young woman named Echo, a member of a group of people known as "Actives" or "Dolls." The Dolls have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new persona's, including memory, muscle memory, skills, and language, for different assignments. They're then hired out for particular jobs, crimes, fantasies, and occasional good deeds. On missions, Actives are monitored internally (and remotely) by Handlers. In between tasks, they are mind-wiped into a child-like state and live in a futuristic dormitory/laboratory, a hidden facility nicknamed "The Dollhouse". The story follows Echo, who begins, in her mind-wiped state, to become self-aware.

Here's the newest trailer: