Bruce Willis has signed on to star alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt (my absolute favourite actor) in Rian Johnson’s sci-fi flick Looper.

Via Deadline:

Bruce Willis is joining the cast ofLooper, a science fiction time travel tale that reunites the Brick team of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and writer/director Rian Johnson. The Terminator-esque action film has a clever premise. Loopers are hit men whose victims are sent back in time from the future to be executed. The Loopers bump them off in the present, so there is no trace of a crime in the future. I’m told that Willis and Gordon-Levitt will play the same character, in those different time frames. That ploy is also being used in Men in Black 3, with Josh Brolin playing the younger version of Tommy Lee Jones’s Agent Kay. CAA is repping North American rights, and FilmNation Entertainment is repping it. Insiders said it is not being shopped at this fest. But buyers are all over it.

I remember hearing the title Looper a while back as something Rian Johnson was working on and being a huge fan of Brick (currently #18 on my Flickchart) I was curious as to what it was about.  The premise sounds pretty damn cool and JGL reteaming with Johnson has me super excited about the project.  After Brick and The Brothers Bloom I’m hoping that Johnson makes it 3 for 3.

Written by: Chad St John
To be directed by: Timur Bekmambetov
To star: Robert Downey Jr and Reese Witherspoon

Aliens are destroying our planet by going back in time.  They travel back each day to destroy each yesterday.  One man, James Smith (Downey Jr), beats them to a yesterday to warn people of impending disaster.

Talk about a nonstop action flick.  The action in this one starts from the 2nd page and doesn’t let up for another 109 pages.  This is nothing but pure action which will be infused with the charm of Robert Downey Jr and Reese Witherspoon and with Timur Bekmambetov’s visual flare as an added bonus.

There’s probably no-one hotter in Hollywood right now than Robert Downey Jr and it’s surprising that it took the success of Iron Man for the industry (and the public) to realise just how fantastic he is.  The guy’s 100% pure charisma isn’t he?  Show me someone who doesn’t like Downey and I’ll show you an idiot.

Reese Witherspoon is equally as charming as Downey but packaged in a different way.  I actually like Reese Witherspoon, not her tired romantic comedy roles, but the few things she’s done outside of that typically shitty genre.  She was great in Freeway and Election.  Reading the script it was exceptionally easy to picture her in the role of Riley with everything Riley says sounding like it could come from Witherspoon and her sexy as hell accent.

The dialogue and banter between Riley and Smith is pretty natural save for a few instances and I’m hard pressed to think of two actors who’d be better in these roles than Downey and Witherspoon.  Now it may be that because I had these actors in mind before I started reading the script that I somehow projected their suitability onto the characters, but the casting seems pretty spot on to me.

As for the actual aliens the jury’s still out.  From what’s in the script I pictured them as the velociraptors from Jurassic Park covered in armour, carrying futuristic assault rifles, and with a Blackberry on their hip.  Kinda like a douchebag dinosaur.  There’s something equally terrifying and comical about that image.  Depending how they’re done and the combination of live action and CGI they could be halfway decent or absolutely terrible.  I certainly wasn’t that fearful of them the way they were described in the script though.

On an end note I’d like to say that I really disliked the very last action line which has the Blackberry device powering on, indicating that the alien ships are near.  Every time I encounter something like this in a script or film it drives me fucking crazy.  Kinda like the shitty ending in the Eagle Eye script where the PS3 says hello to the kid as some indication that the supercomputer AI is still around.  Those kind of tags bug the living hell out of me.  Just end the fucking story already.  It’s one step above winking at the audience.  There’s nothing wrong with the film ending with a sense of closure.  Hopefully when The Days Before is released that final shot of the Blackberry in the trash won’t make the cut.

RATING: 6/10

CONCLUSION
It’s a very cool concept to be going back in time day by day to prevent aliens from destroying the world but I just wasn’t a fan of the aliens being repilian.  Dinosaurs take over the world with assault rifles and Blackberrys. Ugh.  I think the imagery of New York being ripped apart will be a major factor in how the film turns out, just as the visual effects for the reptile aliens will be.  I have the utmost faith in Downey Jr, Witherspoon and Bekmambetov so if the visual effects are up to scratch I think the film could turn out to be a fairly enjoyable popcorn flick, but that’s all it’s gonna be.

In the futuristic action-thriller Repo Men, humans have extended and improved our lives through highly sophisticated and expensive mechanical organs created by a company called The Union.  The dark side of these medical breakthroughs is that if you don’t pay your bill, The Union sends its highly skilled repo men to take back its property…with no concern for your comfort or survival.

I’ve liked Liev Schreiber ever since he played Cotton Weary in the Scream trilogy and I loved Carice van Houten in Zwartboek (one of my absolute favourite films of all time), so their inclusion significantly raises my interest.  Hopefully the final product won’t suck.

Written by: James Cameron
Directed by: James Cameron
Genre: Sci-fi, action, romance

Oh my fucking god.

RATING: 10/10

CONCLUSION
I’m trying to right this review 20 minutes after leaving the cinema and that’s all my brain continues to come up with.  But then I figured why waste the time trying to deconstruct the film when four little words convey everything you need to know about it.  Believe the hype, Avatar is brilliant, and it’s the best film of the year.  Plus I dare you not to fall in love with Neytiri.  It’s impossible.

© Sony Pictures Entertainment

Written by: Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell
Directed by: Neill Blomkamp
Genre: Sci-fi, drama

An extraterrestrial race who arrived on Earth 20 years ago and are forced to live in slum-like conditions in South Africa suddenly find a kindred spirit in a government agent that is exposed to their biotechnology.

That’s the quick plot for all those interested in such things, but the film is so much more.  The film is essentially a drama about race disguised as a science fiction movie.  It’s funny, gory, violent, provocative, engaging, intellectual, disturbing, and moving.  In short it’s one of the best films I’ve seen in quite some time, certainly the best in the sci-fi genre, and one which I intend to see again and again.

The film is shot as a documentary, at least initially, which follows a bureaucrat at MNU named Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) who is charged with evicting the aliens from District 9, a slum town keeping them isolated, and moving them into another area away from Johannesburg.  Whilst doing this he is exposed to an alien element and begins to transform into one of them.  MNU capture him and attempt to use him to operate the alien weapons which because of genetic coding only the alien beings can use.  Wikus escapes and with the help of alien named Christopher Johnson he hopes to reverse the process and change back to a human.

Due to the way the film plays, it lives or dies on the performance by Sharlto Copley.  He’s actually a first time actor but you’d never know from watching this performance.  He’s just brilliant.  He displays a wide range of emotions as Wikus goes through his ordeal and we’re right there with him for every second of it.  Whether it’s when he’s terrified when his hand is revealed, or when his teeth fall out, or when he tries to convince his wife that he’s innocent, or when he battling soldiers in District 9, we believe him without question.  His performance really is a revelation.

District 9 is a very good race-related drama disguised as a sci-fi movie.  I don’t think the intention of Blomkamp was to mislead people into seeing this film, but rather that he was able to tell a story based around his experience growing up in South Africa and be able to engage people in a debate about prejudice and hatred.  Afterall, this is a film which parallels the real world history of South Africa very closely.  The aliens are even referred to as “prawns”, a derogatory term given to them because of their physical similarity to the sea creatures, which has obvious links to the term “kaffir” which was used to describe blacks in South Africa.

Despite the deep material that District 9 deals with the film doesn’t lack in the action department.  In fact, the last third of the film has a great deal of very impressive action as Wikus and Christopher set their plan in action and the situation comes to a head in District 9 between them, MNU, and the thugs which occupy District 9.  It’s in this last battle that we get to see some of the alien technology in action, and where we see the damage that it can do.  It also highlights the fact that the aliens could have used this technology to overrun the city if they were so inclined, but because they didn’t we get to see that they are relatively peaceful.  This makes they way they are treated by the humans even more impacting.

FINAL GRADE: A

CONCLUSION
District 9 is a great race-related drama hidden under the veneer of science fiction, but with both aspects being represented equally well.  Ultimately the film tells the story of flawed and fearful people who live in an environment of prejudice, intolerance, and misunderstanding.  District 9 is an amazing film which is at times very difficult to watch.  To see the aliens treated the way they are simply because of their differences is sometimes quite unsettling, and to realise that this is how large sections of society are treated now is even more disturbing.  In the end I think this is the aim of the film and it achieves it’s goal admirably.

(source = IMP Awards)

The trailer for this was very impressive so I hope it lives up to it when it’s released in about six weeks time.  I’m really looking forward to this one but I’m a little concerned because it’s directed by Jonathan Mostow who did shit like U-571 and Terminator 3.

(source = IMP Awards)

The poster is nothing special, but from the comments that came out of Comic Con about the 20+ minutes that was screened it seems like the movie is gonna be simply amazing.  I have complete faith in James Cameron so role on December 18th.

(source = IMP Awards)

I’ve never seen the first Tron, and to be honest I have absolutely no idea what it’s about, but fanboys the world over love it.  They seem to be pretty excited about this footage too.  I guess that means this one is in the same spirit as the original.  Whilst I have no idea about this franchise, the trailer certainly looks cool, and that’s usually enough to get me to see something.

The film is currently slated for release some time in 2011.

© Warner Bros. Pictures

I know I’m late to the party but I’ve found it very hard to muster any kind of enthusiasm to post a review for this one.  It’s average in every kind of way.

The story revolves around the appearance of a mysterious man who doesn’t know what year it is, the discovery of a broadcast which can shut down the machines and Skynet, and John Connor’s search for Kyle Reese.  There’s some decent elements sprinkled in this mix, such as how Connor goes on to become the defacto leader of the resistance, but for the most part it’s just a very loose story as a means to join together an almost endless string of action sequences.

But that’s not the worst part.  The worst part is the crappy references to the awesomely fantastic Terminator 2.  First there’s the shitty use of the great Guns n Roses track “You could be mine” as a means to lure the motorcycle machines.  I don’t think I’ve heard that song on the radio in the last 10 years, so what are the odds that it’d be lying around on cassette in a post-apocalyptic world devastated by nuclear weapons?  Slim to none.  Then there’s the Arnie cameo as the lone terminator sent to kill Connor in the terminator factory.  For such an advanced entity, you’d think that Skynet would send every terminator in that place to make sure that Connor was killed.  After all, he’s the future of the resistance and the one thing standing in the way of victory for the machines.  But no, it thinks that one would be plenty even with the knowledge that the human-machine hybrid is on the way to help Connor.

I guess the only good thing I can say about this film is that the special effects are pretty decent and there’s some good action sequences, but it doesn’t even compare to the greatness of Terminator 2.  It just lacks the mood and feel that infused Terminator 2, and even though the action and effects in Terminator 2 were amazing, it’s this atmosphere which makes it what it is.

CONCLUSION
It was average.  Plain and simple.  From the nonexistent story to the shitty callbacks to previous films, it only succeeded in underwhelming me.  Not to mention the ludicrous notion that a helicopter can outrun a nuclear explosion.  Just like Terminator 3, this one is best left forgotten in the Terminator saga.  Stick to James Cameron’s efforts because they are two of the greatest action/sci-fi movies of all time.  McG should be shot for having the balls to attach the Terminator name to this piece of shit.

FINAL GRADE: D-