I finally got to see the Warrior’s Way. Short version: I liked it. It’s not a great film, but it is fun.

Long version? This is pretty much a paint-by-numbers movie. Nothing in it surprised me. This was a collection of tropes dropped into a movie.

But I can live with that. Here’s what worked: the actors, the action, the visual style.

Jang Dong-gun is a Korean actor from my favourite Korean movie ever: Nowhere to Hide. In it, he played kind of a pretty boy cop, yet still being gritty-rough. In Brotherhood, a Korean war movie about the Korean War, he played a kind of pretty boy soldier, yet still being gritty-rough. This was the first time I’ve seen him as just gritty-rough. He did the Chow Yun Fat in the Replacement Killers, in which an Asian actor famed on the other side of the Pacific says very little in his first Hollywood (or at least American) movie.

The rest of the cast, including the always entertaining Geoffrey Rush and the always attractive Kate Bosworth, gave solid performances, making the cookie cutter dialogue much more palatable. I have to say, that this is the first time I’ve actually considered Kate Bosworth exceptionally hot. I also felt she delivered an excellent performance, at least for a kind of a B-movie actioner.

The fight scenes were fun, and there was no BS shakey-cam, get so close into the action that the viewer can’t tell what the heck is going on. The action, like so much else, was not revelatory. It was not ground breaking. It was just good—and very entertaining.

Finally, the visual style, being that so much of this movie is very obviously green-screened, was very arresting. Rather than attempt to hide the nature of the backgrounds, the movie revels in it, providing scenes and settings that grab you by the eyeballs. I really enjoyed it. Frankly, I never forgot  that the setting was mostly green-screened, but I don’t know if I was meant to, because I actually loved the distance that put between me and the movie. It’s almost like the director, Lee Seung-moo, didn’t take the movie seriously, maybe knowing exactly the kind of movie he was making. It just seemed like a licence to enjoy the movie on its merits rather than worry too much about its failings.

Or maybe I just liked it because it looked cool.

In the end, if you aren’t expecting too much, I think there’s lots to enjoy here.

For more about the Warrior’s Way, go here.

Nowhere to Hide is my favourite Korean movie, but be prepared, it’s basically a bunch of cool scenes stitched together with minimal actual story.

Brotherhood was considered Korea’s Saving Private Ryan.

For a while there, it looked like the Wolverine might have been the movie I wanted X-Men Origins: Wolverine to have been. Now, that’s falling apart.

First, the director, Darren Aronofsky, left the project. Then natural disasters and their aftermath scourged Japan, where the Wolverine was to be filmed. Now it looks like Hugh Jackman may be looking for other work until the movie gets back on track.

While we will likely have First Class to keep us going until the Wolverine gets made, the fact that Jackman is going to be involved in another production means that we will likely be waiting two years—optimistically—for the Wolverine to arrive, if it ever does. The sad thing is that maybe what made this movie anticipated will be lost in the interim. All it takes is a mediocre director, or one with a vision at variance with what is in the script to change it into another Origins fiasco.

Please, no.

And to add insult to injury, it looks like the Deadpool movie is languishing as well. Should Green Lantern make money, Ryan Reynolds will likely be back on for the sequel production quickly—with little or no time for Deadpool. And that’s even if a director can be found in the near future.

Things are looking grim. Thanks Hollywood—or the Fates, Satan, whomever—for taking my dreams and drilling them in the pooper.

Dune is dead. Long live Dune!

There have been a few directors attached to Paramount’s planned new adaptation of Dune, and there have been a few scripts. I met some of the announcements with cautious optimism, but most with outright pessimism. That does not matter now. What matters is Paramount’s option to the property is running out, and the reason they are going to give up on it is simply the money.

The production would likely have cost over $100 million.

It’s hard to argue that $100 mill is a hell of a bid for a gamble of this magnitude. David Lynch’s Dune, which I enjoyed—and I saw it before I read the book—failed to make money. I suppose the SyFy mini-series made some bank, because they filmed a sequel, but big budget is closer to David Lynch’s foray than the mini-series. We’re talking some major cake.

And, frankly, do we need another Dune movie? I really don’t think so. I don’t think a single movie can do it justice. Two or three movies, with significant budgets? Possibly. But there is never a guarantee of quality.

I’m not terribly sorry this adaptation of Dune is being buried. Let’s try something new, shall we, Hollywood?

Outpost is a horror movie from the independent production company Black Camel Pictures, which is apparently a Scottish couple who mortgaged their home to finance it. Given the low budget (reportedly less than $500,000, which is ultra-low budget these days), I was very, very impressed with what I saw.

If you’ve seen Dog Soldiers, you’ve got the basic premise. If you haven’t, it’s soldiers vs. monsters. It’s a different monster than Dog Soldiers, and there’s a Nazi connection—which is always good for story-telling—but the general storyline is the same. Leading the cast is Ray Stevenson. That, curiosity, and the plot’s similarity to Dog Soldiers got me onboard.

Fair warning: I am not a horror movie fan. I actually very rarely watch horror movies. Given that, some of my opinions and impressions might be far off from someone more versed in horror movies.

In general, it’s fun. The acting isn’t bad—not Oscar calibre, certainly, but absolutely passable. Stevenson does a good job, but then I’m biased. I think he was channelling a little bit of Pullo and a little bit of Vorenus—and if you don’t get the Rome mini-series reference, you simply fail . . . go watch Rome then come back.

I wasn’t terribly surprised by the plot, nor its culmination. I have to admit that the tense moments left me tense, that there were scenes that gave me chills, and that I simply had to watch the movie to its conclusion. For me, this movie was entertaining. It’s worth the price of a rental. Heck, if I found it in a sale bin, I’d buy it, because I think it has re-watch value.

There were certainly problems with it—they didn’t get the military characters right, and there were at least a couple of “idiot moments”—but it did its job. Frankly, it gave me more than I expected.

And let me tell you, there is plenty of fodder for GMs out there. I’m already formulating my take on it. Gen Con 2008, I ran “Qalashar Dogs,” which was my riff on Dog Soldiers. I’m thinking “Outpost Dogs” isn’t far behind.

Who’s in?

In summary: this is an entertaining horror movie in the vein of Dog Soldiers. It delivered a solid horror experience through tension with only a few gory moments. I would recommend this movie and give it 3.5 sprays-n-prays out of 5.

You can find out more about Outpost here.

Okay, perhaps someone has angered the elder beings. I don’t know how else to explain Guillermo del Toro’s horrible luck.

So, first there was the Hobbit. Del Toro was supposed to direct and have a hand in the scripting. This would have been amazing, because del Toro is a true fantasist, he’s got a singular vision, something very unique to him. With him directing and Peter Jackson producing, the Hobbit would have not only been amazing, it would have been different. It would have borne at least some of del Toro’s signature.

Then the financial problems at MGM delayed the production, and delayed it some more, and so finally del Toro had to pass on it. The uncertainty coupled with the expected length of the shoot led him to seek a film that he might be able to get going on sooner.

And soon after he left, all the problems cleared up, and now filming is scheduled with Peter Jackson directing. Sure I’ll go and see the Hobbit, but I think that was a huge missed opportunity.

Then del Toro linked up with James Cameron. Seems the two had wanted to work together for a long time, and Cameron had the rights to H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness. Cameron would produce and del Toro would direct. Once again, pretty much a dream situation. Cameron sometimes seems like a total dick, but there is no way one could argue he’s not a powerful force in movies. If he could use his influence to run interference for del Toro, we might have seen something really amazing. Del Toro was saying the only way to film it was to go R-rated. What’s the point of filming Mountains of Madness if you aren’t going to film, y’know, Mountains of Madness?

But the projected cost was $150 million, and even with Cameron’s influence, Universal—who is bankrolling it—balked. Production is in trouble, there’s no indication when or if it will start filming, and so now del Toro has walked.

He has another project (an alien invasion movie called Pacific Rim), but given the way things have been going, I fear for the fate of this production. It’s too bad Jackson doesn’t just call him and say “Listen, we’re back on . . . do you want to come by and direct?”

That only happens in my special happy place.

And so, the date for 3D Phantom Menace is 10 February 2012. While this is not the date of the Mayan apocalypse, perhaps it should be.

While I doubt this will be an apocalypse, there is no way Lucas is going to get me to put any more money down on the prequel trilogy. However, if we expect one movie a year, that puts Star Wars (you can’t make me write A New Hope, there is no way I’ll . . . never mind) coming out around 2015. My eldest will be 8 and my youngest will be 6.

Yup, I see a family event taking place.

Let me take my two girls to see Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back on the big screen, and I will forgive all else, Mr. Lucas. All. Else.

If you care, the announcement is here.

A couple of pieces of Superman casting news leave me conflicted. First off, apparently Viggo Mortensen, Aragorn from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings adaptations, is in talks—or may even have signed—to play Zod, the villain for the Superman movie being produced by Christopher Nolan and directed by Zack Snyder. Now, I like Mr. Mortensen. He was an excellent Aragorn, and he’s been excellent in other movies like A History of Violence. What I have not seen is the kind of bad-ass authority that Terence Stamp brought to the role in Superman II. Frankly, my love of the Zod character is much more about Stamp’s delivery and presence than anything integral to the character. The closest I can think of for Mortensen is his Command Master Chief Urgayle from GI Jane, and that isn’t good enough.

I like Viggo and I like the thought of Zod in the movie, but the two just don’t fit together in my mind.

Second is Diane Lane as Martha Kent. This conflict is something a little different. I have no doubt that she can play the role, but she really is far too hot for my conception of Martha Kent. No matter how much they “dowdy” her up, unless she’s going to pull a Charlize Theron Monster trick, I just can’t picture her as Mommy Supes.

I saw the article about an unsold pilot for Lost in Space directed by John Woo, so I had to go check it out. Much like Blackjack (for the love of sanity, won’t somebody please think of the Woo-fans?), it not only failed to impress, it failed to hold my attention longer than 5 minutes. Total cardboard cut-out opening, with nothing to distinguish it.

Starring as the young Judy Jets . . . er Robinson was an actress whose name I had heard but knew nothing about. Adrienne Palicki.

And then it turns out she’s going to be the new Wonder Woman for the David E. Kelley NBC series.

Weird how these intersections work.

I can’t say that she looks the part of Wonder Woman, at least not to me. Wonder Woman is the product of a warrior society, and perhaps the finest warrior from that society. She is also a diplomat and a kind of royalty. That’s a pretty tough job. I honestly don’t know who I would want for the role—maybe Gina Torres—but Ms. Palicki certainly isn’t it. Maybe they’ve got her on a massive training regime that is going to buff her up before filming. Who knows.

Also? Everything I’ve read about the Wonder Woman TV series leads me to believe it should suffer the same fate as that Lost in Space revival—disappear for six years only to surface on YouTube—to no acclaim.

If you want to read about the John Woo Lost in Space project, go here.

If you want to read about the new Wonder Woman, go here.

I will not Google image search for you.

Okay, so remember when Robert Rodriquez was going to direct Rose McGowan as Red Sonja? Yeah, that’s not going to happen. What is going to happen is apparently Simon West directing Red Sonja. That would be Simon “Con Air” West, though I would also have accepted Simon “Tomb Raider” West. Apparently, he’s been doing some TV stuff as well.

I liked Con Air and all, but it seems to have been an anomaly. I found Lara Croft: Tomb Raider pretty pedestrian, actually boring in parts. It totally failed to hold my interest, and that was even with Angelina Jolie in a tight shirt. He’s going to need to really up his game if he’s going to interest me in Red Sonja, which basically has the same assets as Lara Croft . . . well, that and it’s based on a sword & sorcery property that is tangentially linked to Conan.

And the young lady to play Red Sonja? Well, the producer wants Amber Heard, of whom I had not . . . heard. Sorry about that. Google image search tells me she’s an attractive enough young lady, but I don’t really see her as Red Sonja. She’d have to hit the gym a lot to make me believe she’s a warrior-woman.

So yet another “meh” response to big Hollywood news. Get yer shit together, Hollywood.

You can find my review of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider here.

Somewhere along the way, somebody apparently forgot the most important part of the Highlander mythos:

There can be only one.

Thankfully, we can ignore everything that came after, and I have a feeling I’ll be ignoring the next installment as well. This time, it’s not a sequel. Nope, this time they are going for a remake.

Written by the scribe who brought Twilight to the screen.

I shit you not. I wish I did, but I do not.

This is Hollywood, once again, thinking that everything is interchangeable. I mean, it’s young people that went to see Twilight, right? So if we get the same writer on Highlander, we’ll get more of the same. Simple.

Only not so much.

Okay, so Melissa Rosenberg has done much more than just Twilight, including co-producing Birds of Prey for TV and doing all sorts of stuff for Dexter. I haven’t seen any of those, but there’s lots of good buzz about Dexter, and I know enough to know it ain’t about sparkly vampires and such.

I have literally no hopes for this. It’s not that I don’t think Ms. Rosenberg can pull off a good script. I have absolutely no opinion about that one way or the other. It’s just that every single big screen attempt to make another Highlander has flopped. And, let’s face it, it’s not exactly a quality movie. It has its charms, and I thought it was awesome back in the day, but watching it now isn’t the same. It’s a great idea. It had its time. Let’s just leave it lie.

Seriously, Hollywood, have you got no fucking new ideas?