With great reluctance, I offered to review The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior. A direct-to-DVD release, the action-thriller had very little going for it, but considering the fact that it’s “from the producers of The Mummy” and stars UFC champion Randy Couture, it had to be great, right? Wrong.
The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior is your pretty typical direct-to-DVD movie, which means it’s pretty damn bad. While the production values are decent enough for a film like this, you can tell from minute one that this movie was made simply to coincide with the theatrical release of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, though why it isn’t being released until August 19th is beyond me. Cash was in the mind of Universal Studios - not quality - and it shows throughout the film.
The movie features a young Mathayus (Michael Copon), the character who will grow up to be the Scorpion King as portrayed by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in The Mummy Returns and The Scorpion King. Long after his father is murdered by a ruthless king (Couture) who has magical powers, Mathayus grows up to be a great warrior and vows vengeance - though killing the king is going to be harder than first thought.
The acting is the first thing that clues you into the fact that you’re watching a cheap production. Copon is pretty bad, and Couture is especially painful to watch. Combined with the clunky screenplay, the actors are barely able to pull off a line without sounding like they’re reading from a teleprompter. Worse still is that the characters - especially Layla, played by the beautiful Karen David - spit out lines that sound like they were written for an MTV reality show; rather modern-sounding jokes and interchange really kill the mood, if there ever was one to begin with.
The action isn’t anything to scream about, and that’s assuming you have the patience to make it to the action. At an hour and 49 minutes, The Scorpion King 2 feels overly long, and while there are plenty of action sequences, they are all relatively small and unimpressive. I could only watch 20 minutes at a time before turning it off to shift my attention to something much more interesting, like preliminary trials in the Olympics.
Basically, there’s no love to be had for The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior. Despite the fact that it’s directed by the guy who did Highlander, the movie lacks action, excitement and, more importantly, quality.
I love Donnie Darko. The movie, directed by Richard Kelly and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, was an amazing piece of work in every way. I do not love news that Donnie Darko 2 is in the works, however.
There are some movies that are great on their own, that are so good that any other related film will pale in comparison, that wrap things up in just the right way that it isn’t necessary to continue the story. Such was the case with Donnie Darko.
Unfortunately, according to Screen Daily News, production for Donnie Darko 2, officially titled S. Darko, begins on May 18, 2008. Kelly and the Gyllenhaals (Maggie was in the first movie, too) are not involved, but thankfully Chris Fisher, acclaimed director of such films as Rampage: The Hillside Strangler Murders and Nightstalker, is taking the reigns.
Fisher said, “I am a great admirer of Richard Kelly’s film and hope to create a similar world of blurred fantasy and reality.” Simon Crowe, of Velvet Octopus, one of the companies producing the film, added, “I think there is a new generation of cinema-goers who will be very excited to see this film. Donnie’s not in it but there are meteorites and rabbits.”
As for the plot and cast, Daviegh Chase, who played Donnie’s younger sister, is set to return and will follow her and a friend as they travel to Los Angeles. There, they experience visions and other weird things. Ed Westwick, Briana Evigan and Justin Chatwin are also cast members.
What are they thinking? How can this happen? What a horrible, horrible, horrible idea!
OK, so in the American version of The Descent, Sarah, the lead character, scrambles up a bone-filled hill, crawls through a hole and escapes the cave where the monsters who killed all her friends dwell. She runs through the forest like a crazy woman, gets in her car and drives away. Once she is far enough away, she pulls over to the side of the road to catch her breath, sees her friend as a “ghost”, and then realizes it is just a hallucination. Ultimately, she survives. End of story.
However, in the original British version, that is not the end of the story. She does not escape the cave. Her escape, her frantic jeep drive and her stopping on the side of the road to catch her breath is just a figment of her imagination. Ultimately, she is still in the cave - miles underground - and the Crawlers are closing in. End of story. Presumably she doesn’t survive.
Now comes the interesting development of the week: The Descent 2 is coming to theaters at some point, presumably in 2009. Don’t get me wrong - I’m looking forward to this. The Descent is one of the best monster movies I’ve seen in a long time and features some of the coolest, scariest creatures ever, perhaps since Alien. When I first saw this movie (the American version) in theaters, I was huddled up against my friend half the movie - and I don’t scare easily.
Still, how will The Descent 2 work? American audiences who have only seen the theatrical version will be able to shrug it off, but everyone else will be left scratching their heads when Sarah returns. And, according to the synopsis on Comingsoon.net, Sarah does return:
Picking up from where the last movie left off, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) escapes the cave and seeks refuge at a local gas station, where she collapses and is rushed to a local hospital. Not being able to speak because of the horrific events that have mentally scarred her, a search and rescue team take Sarah back to where the horrible events happened to find any possible answers and survivors. However, whilst down in the cave…things don’t go to plan as the group fight for their lives against the crawlers and find an unexpected survivor from the last film.
Now, I have to presume that most American audiences have seen the British version by now, since most people only saw the movie on DVD. If you haven’t, you should! But regardless, isn’t it a bit weird to have a sequel begin with a main character who was killed in the first one?
And this, folks, is why you don’t change endings for different audiences.
One of my favorite action franchises - the Jason Bourne series - is returning for yet another installment, and the key players, director Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon, are returning. Without them, I would be much more hesitant, but now the film is all but guaranteed to be good.
Following Doug Liman’s The Bourne Identity, which was very good but not great, Greengrass took over and absolutely blew me away with The Bourne Supremacy. Most people liked The Bourne Ultimatum even more, but I slightly favor Supremacy for its more complex plot.
All that I ask, Mr. Greengrass and Mr. Damon, is that you write a plot involving Carlos the Jackal. He was the main villain in the books, and the whole reason for Jason Bourne’s existence. Sure, the movies have veered so far away from the original plot of the books (read The Bourne Supremacy book and tell me it’s not one of the coolest books ever written - even though it’s nothing like the movie) that some elements will be lost (the movies have killed off two of the three main characters from the books), but Ultimatum really set the stage for something about Carlos the Jackal. Sure, Ultimatum tried to explain David Webb’s transformation into Jason Bourne, but it never touched upon why the program was created in the first place. Why? To take down Carlos the Jackal!
The one thing the Bourne movies have lacked is a truly evil villain, and it’s about time Jason Bourne met his match. The Bourne Identity 4, or whatever it’s going to be called, better star Carlos the Jackal, or else I’ll… hmmm. Well, just put the dude in there. What about Javier Bardem as the bad guy? Benicio Del Toro? Paulie Shore?
Remember that horror movie survey we ran way back in October? Here’s some of the results:
A survey conducted by Bellevue, Wash.-based movie website Movie-Source.com found that among seven recent and upcoming horror movies to be released in the fall or winter of 2007, Aliens vs. Predator Requiem, a sequel to the 2004 box office hit Alien vs. Predator, did not rank highly among must-see horror films.
The survey, conducted in October 2007 and based on 1,543 responses, compared Aliens vs. Predator Requiem to anticipated films such as 30 Days of Night, Saw IV and Stephen King’s The Mist, as well as Rogue and The Signal, two films that were later pushed back to 2008. The Mist received a whopping 37% of first picks when asked which horror movie respondents would like to see most, and 30 Days of Night followed up with 27%. Saw IV was third with 20%.
Of the top movies selected, only Saw IV was a box office success; both 30 Days of Night and The Mist failed to meet expectations. Saw is already a proven franchise, yet one that has fans sharply divided, which would account for less people voting for it but more going to see it.
So what does this all mean for Aliens vs. Predator Requiem? With only 8% of people anticipating this film most and some of the more highly anticipated horror movies failing to deliver in box office revenues, it will most likely operate like Saw IV on a lesser degree. The Alien and Predator franchises have built-in audiences that will go see the movie no matter what, and, like the Saw franchise, fans are bitterly divided. Of those surveyed, 47% consider the original Alien vs. Predator either a “Spectacular piece of filmmaking” or “a fun ride”, while 53% consider the movie “not so good” or worse.
Rambo, starring Sylvestor Stallone, hits theaters January 25, 2008, and Lionsgate has just made the new outdoor movie poster available. It’s not nearly as cool as the regular poster, but certainly still has an appeal for it. I can’t believe I’m saying this about a Stallone movie, but I’m really looking forward to this bloodbath…
Here’s the new National Treasure: Book of Secrets movie trailer, starring Nicolas Cage. I really didn’t like the first movie (I found it long, boring and tedious), and this one looks just so ridiculous I doubt I will enjoy it. Still, this new movie trailer is a vast improvement over the original preview, which was full of camp and stupidity. The marketing department still reveals way too many of the twists (I would be much more intrigued to see the movie if they didn’t reveal that Cage plans to kidnap the President of the United States, which right there takes the film far off the believability scale), but until they hire me…
With great reluctance, I offered to review The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior. A direct-to-DVD release, the action-thriller had very little going for it, but considering the fact that it’s “from the producers of The Mummy” and stars UFC champion Randy Couture, it had to be great, right? Wrong.
