News of the Week (20/02/12) – Jason, Jennifer, Jason, James…

Troubled sequel Dawn of the Planet of the Apes finally has it’s leading man. It’s taking some time getting done but Jason Clarke has been cast in the lead role; lets face it, we all knew James Franco really didn’t want to come back so this isn’t really a surprise. What may come as a shock, however, is the news that ‘Dawn‘ is due to take place FIFTEEN years after Rise of the Planet of the Apes so it will be interesting to see how far the apes have come since ‘Rise‘ and how the planet is shaping up. Clarke has previously appeared in Public Enemies, Lawless and most recently Zero Dark Thirty so he has a surprisingly good track record.

 

They haven’t won any Oscars yet but it looks as though David O. Russell and Jennifer Lawrence clearly enjoyed working together on Silver Linings Playbook because they have agreed to do another two projects together. First it was announced the Lawrence had joined the cast in a lead role in a currently untitled film (previously known as American Bullshit) which also stars former O. Russell collaborators Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook) and Christian Bale (The Fighter). The second is The Ends of the Earth; this time it was Lawrence who was already signed on and clearly David O. Russell thoroughly enjoys her company as he has agreed to direct this film too.

 

Marvel have a lot of film projects dotted about studios as well as their own ‘two films per year’ scheme they seem to be operating so you can pretty much guarantee that there will be something in the news regarding them every week, even more so with Bryan Singer back directing X-Men as he LOVES to talk about the project. Firstly, Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones) has been cast as Drax the Destroyer in Marvel’s own cosmic team-up film Guardians of the Galaxy, which is moving well on the casting front. As well as this, Momoa’s co-star on Game of Thrones, Peter Dinklage, has been added to the ever expanding cast of X-Men: Days of Future Past. After early speculation of Dinklage playing Alpha Flight team member Puck was dismissed it now seems as though he will be playing a villain, probably Bolivar Trask, creator of the Sentinels.

 

And now, to end on a very good note! The previous James Bond film, Skyfall, was a smash hit around the globe winning both critically and commercially. Now it seems that it is almost dead certain that director Sam Mendes WILL return to direct the 24th Bond film in the series. Bond 24 is already being written by the same writer as Skyfall so to have Mendes back on board would increase expectations even more but I am certain that he can deliver.

Star Wars Episode VII: Jacen Solo.

Yesterday, I took a look at the character of Jaina Solo and put forward a few suggestions of who should play her if she was to be included as the main character of the upcoming new Star Wars trilogy. Today, I will be looking at her twin brother, Jacen Solo.

Who knows why the Star Wars families go like this (probably because it makes for a good theme of family and good showdowns which classic lines such as “I am your Father”) but for every good member of the family there’s an evil one: for every Luke, there’s an Anakin. And the Solo twins are no different with Jacen eventually growing up to become Darth Caedeus, a prime antagonist in the Star Wars expanded universe. So who could play Jacen Solo?

 

Dane DeHaan

The actor that immediately sprung to my mind was Dane DeHaan. Shooting to fame last year in surprise hit Chronicle, DeHaan became an instant success and has subsequently been cast as Harry Osborn in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I think that DeHaan would be a perfect fit and could easily perform the kind of conflicted personality and the turn to evil that encompasses Jacen Solo.

 

Tom Felton

Obviously world renowned for his role as that pesky Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter series. Since then Felton has failed to really do much with his career, releasing an awful music single and unleashing almost just as awful American accent for his villainous role in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. His seemingly below-par acting skills may see him quickly cut out of the running for this part and Felton himself may not want to play another bad guy. Although with Jacen beginning the trilogy as a hero that could convince him.

 

Anton Yelchin

I have made it quite clear in an earlier blog that I am disappointed about Abrams being the director of Star Wars as well as Star Trek so it may be more than a little bit hypocritical for me to suggest Anton Yelchin (Chekov) for a main part in the Star Wars franchise. However, Yelchin doesn’t really feature as a big part in the original Star Trek reboot and I doubt he will have a bigger part in Into Darkness. Really, he deserves greater attention and with a connection with Abrams already established he may just be in mind.

 

Stick around, maybe there’ll be some casting suggestions of Anakin Solo and Ben Skywalker heading your way soon.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) Review

Sometimes when you see a trailer for a film it can either make you really want to go and see that film or it can make you decide that there is no way you are going to see that film if not even the trailer looks good! I felt the latter about Rise of the Planet of the Apes when it was released last year. However, a friend of mine asked me to go and see this film with him and, never being one to turn down a trip to the cinema no matter how bad a film looks, I went along. I went into the screen expecting to be twiddling my thumbs for an hour and a half; I did not expect to be sat there having my heartstrings played with by a CGI invention but this is what actually occurred!

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the story of Will (James Franco) and Caesar (Andy Serkis).  Will is a bright young scientist working on ALZ-112, otherwise known as a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, and is desperate for his cure to be put into a phase of human trials after successful trials on apes. This is because Will’s father is suffering from Alzheimer’s and Will cannot cope with his father’s illness and the suffering it is putting the family through. After ‘Bright Eyes’ goes rogue at the lab, all chimpanzees have to be put down. This is where Will and chimp handler Franklin (Tyler Labine) find a new born baby chimp, soon to be known as Caesar. Caesar instantly shows signs that he inherited the ALZ-112 drug from his mother and his intelligence charts off the scale for a chimpanzee. Although this is fantastic new for Will at first, events take their toll as Caesar grows older and more ambitious.

In truth this is not one of James Franco’s best performances but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad performance, just not neccassarily as good as one might expect from a man who put in a terrific performance in 127 Hours and managed to grab an audience’s attention and hold it all by himself for ninety minutes. However, his friendship with Caesar is truly believable. Tyler Labine, Brian Cox and David Oyelowo put in an adequate shift, John Lithgow as Will’s father is one of the best performances whilst Tom Felton and Freida Pinto seemed to be competing in a competition of who could act worse. But the real star, of course, is Andy Serkis as Caesar. Serkis has made a name for himself in motion capture performance with roles as Gollum in Lord of the Rings and King Kong in Peter Jackson’s remake of the classic film. Here, Serkis is once again brilliant; his emotion he brings to the character make Caesar one of my favourite characters (and one of the best characters) of this century.

Caesar’s relationships with the human characters are wonderful to watch. Will and Caesar soon have a mutual respect for each other as Caesar soon becomes one of Will’s closest and only friends where he one was just a test subject. Caesar develops a heart-warming relationship with Will’s dad and some of the most touching scenes take place between these two. So for a film that bases so much of it’s development and early story on relationships it seems almost implausible that there is this ridiculous love story happening at the same time between Franco and Pinto’s characters which really adds little to the overall story.

You’d be surprised how emotionally captivating and driven Caesar can be to say he is just computer generated. His creation is a wonderful credit to the visual team on Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Andy Serkis himself. But it is not just Caesar, in the final act there are hundreds of primates running about the town and the special effects are wonderful – the special effects in this film are among the best that I have ever seen. You would honestly think that they were real chimpanzees at times.

The final act is fantastic. There is the climatic battle on the bridge between humans and apes that audiences have waited for since the beginning of the movie with seeds planted leading to this moment for a while. And it does not disappoint; the action is directed superbly and everything happens so smoothly – it really is great to watch and exciting as the apes bring down the police force and war wages throughout the streets.

There were obviously a few things that annoyed me (besides Freida Pinto’s involvement in the film). Most notably, the fact that in the first twenty five minutes eight years pass by and the only character that ages is Caesar. I know it was important to speed through this so that we could get to Caesar’s story as a grown ape but at least make James Franco and the rest of the cast look eight years older. How hard is it to do that when you’re creating hundreds of apes? Come on.

Anyway, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a very emotional and touching film, not just a nonsense popcorn flick which many people seem to mistakenly believe it to be. I went in with a negative approach and I really enjoyed it, there are some shocks, some great action, fantastic character development in Caesar and a great ending setting up the sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, very nicely indeed.

My Rating: 7/10.

News of the Week (19/09/12) – Guardians of the Galaxy & Silver Linings Playbook

So, this is the movie news that should have been posted yesterday, however I got slightly side tracked by the fact that there was a new trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey being released and I was so excited and highly anticipating that trailer that I forgot to post this. So let’s all just pretend it’s on time and bathe in the news of the past week.

First up, director news, both joining projects and possibly leaving projects too. James Gunn, after plenty of speculation, has officially been announced as the director of Guardians of the Galaxy, probably Marvel’s most ambitious movie to date. Gunn recently directed Super which received mixed reviews from critics and failed to make any impact at all on the box office. More worryingly is that Gunn will also be re-writing the script: Gunn’s previous writing credits include Scooby Doo and Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. However, Joss Whedon has said that he has complete faith in Gunn’s vision for Guardians of the Galaxy and that can only be good news!

The internet is rife with rumours of the directorial departure over at FOX of Rupert Wyatt from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the sequel to the rather surprisingly very good Rise of the Planet of the Apes. There have been a few shake ups over at FOX recently and the rumours are now that Wyatt will be leaving the sequel because he is not confident that he can both produce a top quality film and meet the release date which FOX announced as May 23rd 2014. This is a real shame if the rumours are true because Wyatt did a great job of directing the first instalment; he had a very difficult job to do and he managed to pull the story together and get real emotion from most of the characters. The choice of his replacement could be make of break for the new Apes franchise.

Over at the Toronto International Film Festival the awards were given out as the festival drew to a close and there was a surprise winner for the People’s Choice Award. This is a pretty important award because in the past The King’s Speech and Slumdog Millionaire both won this award and went on to be huge successes and obviously clean up at the Oscars. The winner this year was Silver Linings Playbook, starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. While I thought the trailer looked very good I wasn’t sure what to expect from the whole film but early signs suggest this is going to be a fantastic film, even though I doubt it will do as well at the box office as those previous winners.

The other little tid bits of news this week include the announcement that Universal has planned fir sequels to both Ted and The Bourne Legacy. The fact that The Bourne Legacy is getting a sequel should come as no surprise although it received mixed reviews from critics and mainstream audiences. With Ted getting a sequel this is clearly just a money making scheme by Universal as one film was definitely enough. And finally there has been an announcement made on who will be singing the theme tune to this years James Bond film Skyfall. After months of speculation Adele has finally been confirmed to have been given the honour. A perfect choice.

And the Oscar goes to…

The Artist took home five golden statues

So that’s that. Last night the awards season came to an end with the 84th Academy Awards. Despite winning the award in three of the big five categories The Artist will have to share the honour of most Oscars won this year with Hugo; both films received five Oscars each. The only real controversy came from an obvious source, Sacha Baron Cohen, but ultimately the show was well received and Billy Crystal did an infinitely better performance as host than James Franco and Anne Hathaway last year.

There were no real surprises on the night in terms of winners; The Artist has been a huge success and has won awards wherever it has been. At the Oscars it took home Best Film, Best Original Score and Best Costume Design whilst Michel Hazanavicius won Best Director and Jean Dujardin won Best Actor for their efforts on the film. Meryl Streep unsurprisingly won the Best Actress Oscar for The Iron Lady and Christopher Plummer (Beginners) and Octavia Spencer (The Help) took home the awards for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress respectively.

It was nice to see Rango win Best Animated Film although the competition in that category looked very weak compared to the 2011 awards which included Toy Story 3 and How to Train Your Dragon. The Muppets returned to the cinema this year and took home the Best Original Song award for their ‘Man or Muppet’ number. Perhaps the only surprise on the night, if you’re really looking for one, is that neither Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II or Rise of the Planet of the Apes took home the award for Best Visual Effects with Hugo winning instead.

Below is a full list of winners of the 84th Academy Awards:

Best Picture – The Artist

Best Director – Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)

Best Actor – Jean Dujardin (The Artist)

Best Actress – Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)

Best Supporting Actor – Christopher Plummer (Beginners)

Best Supporting Actress – Octavia Spencer (The Help)

Original Screenplay – Midnight In Paris

Adapted Screenplay – The Descendants

Best Animated Feature – Rango

Best Foreign Language Film – A Separation

Best Original Score – The Artist

Best Original Song – The Muppets

Best Sound Editing – Hugo

Best Sound Mixing – Hugo

Best Art Direction – Hugo

Best Cinematography – Hugo

Best Make Up – The Iron Lady

Best Costume Design – The Artist

Best Film Editing – The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Best Visual Effects – Hugo