Box office roundup

[Samwise]

I just got back from the Hulk.  I liked it quite a bit.  The CGI was so-so, but if that bothers you just squint and you won't be able to tell the difference.

[Velorath]

Death Race remake trailer.

God-awful looking Punisher: War Zone trailer.

[Brogarn]

I hadn't heard this one.

It makes me angry.

You're not alone with that feeling. Marvel is about to fuck up yet again it appears.

[Viin]

Death Race remake trailer

Is he in every driving movie these days or what?

[schild]

I love DR. I did not expect it to get remade. Weird.

[HaemishM]

Death Race remake trailer.

I thought at first, this was going to suck. But after watching the trailer, it actually looks good. I do miss the scoring system for running over pedestrians, though. That was part of what made the original so much fun.

[stray]

Lol... "He used to race for Nascar..."

Yet, I see that he still can't bother to rid himself of the East End accent.

Also, Joan Allen. Wtf. This ain't a damn Tom Clancy story. I like her, but she seems so out of place for Death Race.



Yeah Punisher looks pretty bad, but I'll watch it anyways damnit. Hate to see Tom Jane go, but Ray Stevenson rocks. 13!!!

[DraconianOne]

I thought at first, this was going to suck. But after watching the trailer, it actually looks good. I do miss the scoring system for running over pedestrians, though. That was part of what made the original so much fun.

I thought it looked like Running Man with cars - Driving Man perhaps.  Too much suggests that this is going to be as effective and probably not as good as the Rollerball remake.

[stray]

Besides the Nascar/Joan Allen thing, it takes itself way too seriously. I was half expecting Disturbed to kick in on the soundtrack.

Death Race should be a little more bizarre and colorful than what's in that trailer. Not necessarily campy, but... fun.

[Velorath]

Besides the Nascar/Joan Allen thing, it takes itself way too seriously. I was half expecting Disturbed to kick in on the soundtrack.

I can't say "takes itself way too seriously" was one of the impressions I got from the trailer.

[stray]

Statham, Joan Allen...as the creator of Death Race, those lame one-liners from Ian McShane, overused Fincher colors = Serious Business


[EDIT] Would probably be pretty damn funny if Stallone was McShane and Carradine was Joan Allen though.

Also, I really dislike Jason Statham.

[Samwise]

Also, I really dislike Jason Statham.

Communist.

[Evil Elvis]

Why'd they put a bomb under his car?  Seems pretty silly when he'll just roll his car 360 deg. midflight and scrape it off a crane hook.

[Velorath]

Statham, Joan Allen...as the creator of Death Race, those lame one-liners from Ian McShane, overused Fincher colors = Serious Business

None of those things come across as serious to me.  Especially not with Welcome to the Jungle playing.

[stray]

OK, I'm being nice. Serious is the wrong word. It looks like shit. Better?

Nah. Fuck it. It's serious. And it's not the right take. I mean, have you ever seen Death Race 2000? You do know that I'm making comparisons to THAT, right? It's serious compared to "Death Race 2000". I didn't say it was serious compared to "Cold Mountain".

They took the concept of a movie called "Death Race 2000", and are trying to make a typical action movie about some struggling, framed prisoner out of it. That's all I mean.

Besides that, the whole "prison" element of the plot is lame. For one, you're not supposed to sympathize with the guy right away. This is Frankenstein, not Ben Richards. He's supposed to be absolutely reviled. And the whole twist and complete SHOCK and AWE that was Death Race 2000 was that Frankenstein was actually the good guy in the end (magically revealed after he took off the mask and makeup). AND... after that turn of events, you're supposed to feel bad for kind of rooting for Machine Gun Joe the whole time before. Kicking the story off with you sympathizing for some prisoner fucks that up.

Secondly, having the creator of death race to be a mere prison warden is lame. Not grand enough! The backdrop of the original was that the country had been taken over by some evil political-religious group that seemed to want nothing but bloody spectator sports. There was a whole world at stake here! Or at least, a lot of geriatric people. Not just some prisoners. And Frankenstein and friends set out to fuck it up, kill the president, and crown Frank as president instead.

So anyways, that's a helluva lot less serious than this Shawshank Redemption shit I'm seeing here.

[Velorath]

You just put about 3 paragraphs worth of thought into a Death Race remake starring Jason Statham.  It sounds like you're the one taking it too seriously, not anyone actually involved in making it.

[stray]

Great. Lets not talk about anything then.

[WindupAtheist]

It's like when they took Rollerball and changed it from James Caan fighting against the hand of the corporate police state that ruled his life just like it did the rest of the world, and turned it into that weenie Chris Klein fighting against a shady Russian television show.

[Velorath]

It's like when they took Rollerball and changed it from James Caan fighting against the hand of the corporate police state that ruled his life just like it did the rest of the world, and turned it into that weenie Chris Klein fighting against a shady Russian television show.

Never saw the Rollerball remake.  From what I heard though, one of the main failings of that remake is that you never actually get a sense of how the game is played, so you can't even really enjoy it on that level.

[DraconianOne]

Great. Lets not talk about anything then.

FWIW - I'm totally with you.  I think the script needs some revisions:

To recap those revisions: women are still worth 10 points more than men in all age brackets, but teenagers now rack up 40 points, and toddlers under 12 now rate a big 70 points. The big score: anyone, any sex, over 75 years old has been upped to 100 points.

[HaemishM]

I would have to agree with Stray on that, which is why I was upset they took out the pedestrian scoring. That black comedy is the kind of not-so-subtle message to the understandly horribly camp movie. Just making an action movie around it is a bit of a disappointment. It still looks interesting, just not nearly as interesting as it could have been.

[Velorath]

Get Smart was better than expected.  Not great, and of course a lot of the jokes are shown in the trailers,, but overall I liked it.  Thought it was nice that they didn't make Max Smart a completely bumbling idiot.  He does a lot of stupid shit, but he also manages to do a lot of things right too.  I  wasn't overly familiar with the TV show, and with Steve Carell playing the character, and judging by the trailers, I was expecting something of almost Inspector Gadget proportions where the only time he ever does anything right is by accident.  Fortunately that was not the case here, and the result is a movie that's much better than the two hours of non-stop slapstick humor I was expecting.

[stray]

Complete bumbling idiot/accidental hero can be quite good sometimes though. 

[Merusk]

Get Smart was better than expected.  Not great, and of course a lot of the jokes are shown in the trailers,, but overall I liked it.  Thought it was nice that they didn't make Max Smart a completely bumbling idiot.  He does a lot of stupid shit, but he also manages to do a lot of things right too.  I  wasn't overly familiar with the TV show, and with Steve Carell playing the character, and judging by the trailers, I was expecting something of almost Inspector Gadget proportions where the only time he ever does anything right is by accident.  Fortunately that was not the case here, and the result is a movie that's much better than the two hours of non-stop slapstick humor I was expecting.

From what you describe, it sounds like they got Max right.  He messed up a lot, but it wasn't Inspector Gadget levels. I could be misremembering, though.  I haven't seen Get Smart since the early 90's.   Hrm.. come to think of it, I haven't seen Gilligan's Island since the early 90's either.   Fucking Friends and Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond reruns.

[Lantyssa]

Max in the show was a nice mix of competence and bumbling.  He accepted some of the strangest things as normal, but would likewise express astonishment at the bizarre.  He was intelligent although also prone to guessing very, very wrong.  Not an idiot savant, but an oddity savant.  It was a good mixture which is hard to recreate.

[HaemishM]

I always looked at Inspector Gadget as a retarded, satirical version of Get Smart, which is why Gadget really sucked. A satire of a satire targeted for kids that the writers think are idiots.

[Johny Cee]

I always looked at Inspector Gadget as a retarded, satirical version of Get Smart, which is why Gadget really sucked. A satire of a satire targeted for kids that the writers think are idiots.

So it's just like Scary Movie as a satire of Scream?

[HaemishM]

Yes.

[Samwise]

Double yes.

Get Smart was a goddamn awesome show that Inspector Gadget doesn't deserve to be compared to.  Glad to hear the movie didn't fuck it up too badly.

[Margalis]

Yeah Get Smart was a great show.

And Scary Movie 2 was far better than any Scream movie. The problem with Scream is that it tried to be satire of slasher movies while adopting an actual slasher movie plot. All the stupid things that happen in slasher movies happen in the Scream movies as well.

David Cross + Chris Elliot = owned.

[Oban]

Just watched Chaos Theory and have to say that it was quite good.  Not sure if I would run my life like that, but funny to watch the decline of an ordered individual in to madness and self discovery...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460745/

[schild]

Yea, saw it a few days ago. Not entirely sure if I *liked* it or not, but it was interesting.

[Oban]

Well, it was well worth the 4.99 I paid Apple to watch it.

[Riggswolfe]

Ok, I saw the Hulk and Get Smart this weekend as a double feature.

As my friend said "I'm glad we watched Hulk first."

Get Smart was much better than I expected it to be and I laughed out loud several times, something I haven't done since...hmmm...I'll have to get back to you on what movie last made me laugh outloud.

[Oban]

Hackers is the worst movie ever.