SEPTEMBER, 23


WILD CARDS: DOUBLE SOLITAIRE

Action / Sci-Fi
Cast: Elijah Wood, Liv Tyler, Keneth Branagh, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Schwartzman, Megan Fox
Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Producer and Screenwriter: Matt Kubrick / Midnight Movies

Box Office: 97 mill.
Net Gains: 74 mill.

Stark’s Reaction: If I’m not wrong, the best box office of the saga. Wild Cards’ fans keep growing movie after movie. Wonderful directional job by Del Toro. I enjoy this saga so much.

Q*BERT

Comedy
Cast: Will Ferrell, Julia Stiles, Topher Grace, Kieran Culkin, Jackie Chan, Harland Williams, Taye Diggs
Director: David Zucker
Screenwriter: Josh Collins


Box Office: 110 mill.
Net Gains: 96 mill.

Stark’s Reaction: Wow! I never expected such a great box office breakdown. Zucker proves again, after ‘Lieutenant USA’, he knows how to make a comedy. And Ferrell keeps gaining prestige as one of CMP’s main comedians. A delicious surprise for a little low budget comedy.

FALLOUT

Action
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Robert Downey Jr., Hugo Weaving, Asia Argento, Chloe Sevigny, Ted Levine
Director: Richard Donner
Screenwriter: Richard Franzwa


Box Office: 60 mill.
Net Gains: 54 mill.

Stark’s Reaction: Here is a very entertaining and well done action/sci-fi movie that moviegoers have not appreciated as much as they should. Anyway, decent results for a quality production. Satisfactory enough.


WILD CARDS: DOUBLE SOLITAIRE

"Wild Cards is becoming more a more a franchise 'for fans only'. I mean, it has become a cult saga with its crowd of followers. Although, after six movies based on the original books, it keeps attracting new fans, 'Double Solitaire' is not a product for beginners but for those regular followers that love each and every new movie from the saga. If you are not one of them, it will be pretty hard for you to feel interested in this movie. Personally, I think this is one of the poorest movies from the franchise. One of the appeals of each new episode is the introduction of new and even freaker characters. This time, the only addition is a sexy superhero played by Megan Fox and Dr. Taychon's brother, played by Branagh under a different characterization than when he plays Taychon himself. Not very appealing any of them. The new adventure of the four superheroes already introduced in 'Ace In The Hole' - a bunch of characters much less attractive than the crowd of characters of the two first movies of the saga - is just a routine superhero adventure. It could be a Fantastic Four adventure and it would just be the same. The movie comes out of the usual location of the saga, that decadent bladerunner-esque New York, and it loses with that all its ordinary visual power. In conclusion, a disappointment. This episode does not add anything new to a saga that may have begun its decadence – at least from a creativity point of view - with this feature."
-Vic Carter

"Hellboy visits Wild Cards. The new director meeting Wild Cards' universe, Guillermo del Toro, is still under an obvious influence of his latest movie, the sequel of Hellboy. There are a lot of similarities between that and this movie: the look of the creatures, with all the make up effects based on a comic look quite similar to Hellboy, the sense of humour, the ordinary visual power of some sequences, even the choreography of some action set pieces... It is a shame that Del Toro - without doubt, one of the most interesting directors behind a Wild Cards' movie - didn't have a better material to deal with. Matt Kubrick's screenplay for this episode is, without doubt, the weakest of the whole saga. This 'Amazon adventure' is far away from the innovative and brilliant storylines of the two first movies. Lacking of a solid and more elaborated plot, Del Toro has focussed on the visual effects and he proves again he is one of the most daring and visually powerful directors of our days."
-Roy Winslow

"Wild Cards begun as a fresh concept in movie industry. Strange characters living strange adventures in a strange world. But, step by step, the saga is dangerously moving to mainstream superheroes concepts. Although its two spin offs have opened up new ways for the saga, the 'official' episodes like this one are becoming more and more 'ordinary' movies, leaving aside the originality of its origins. Kubrick, the brain behind the saga, can find in the original books storylines and characters enough to return to the unexpected enchantment of the first movies. In this one, while Keneth Branagh's character keeps losing strength, the four superheroes we met in 'Ace In The Hole' don't get to recover the appeal of classic characters from the saga like the walrus Jube, the ambitious and evil Puppetman or the mysterious and sexy Chrysalis. Dwayne Johnson or Jason Schwartzman cannot compete in screen presence and charisma with Angelina Jolie, Samuel L. Jackson or Bruce Willis. So we will have to wait to the promised sequels of the spin offs to see if there is future for this franchise or if the concept is beginning to suffer from an obvious exhaustion, although box office keeps responding so well to each new release."
-Alex Stampton

Q*BERT

"Are you a fan of Will Ferrell? If not, forget about this movie. Ferrell - specialized in playing the villain in different CMP's comedies, from the first Lieutenant USA to 'Ultraman's Revenge', not forgetting his peculiar creation of Bush in 'No More Bush!' - finally gets a vehicle just for himself with this funny parody of movies like Karate Kid or Rocky. And the silly concept - his aim is to be the best player of a primitive arcade game - works as the excuse to show how simple we were in the 80's when we used to love those underdog movies. Ferrell is again a villain, with his ambition to keep the Q*Bert's throne, and he proves again he can be considered, together with Steve Carrel, one of the most solid comedians in CMP. After this one, specially considering the great box office, I'm sure he will keep starring not only the introductory sequence of the Golden Moon Awards ceremony but also some more upcoming comedies from the Studio."
-Lily Stevens

"CMP keeps trusting in the group of comedians launched with the first Lieutenant USA movie: Ferrell, Carrel, Wilson, Black, Braff. The truth is that this group has released until now quite a few successful movies and is becoming and influential gang in the Studio. Past Season, Black won the Best Actor GMA, Wilson touched the sky with Captain Planet and, now, some of them are back in the Lit. USA's sequel while others, like Ferrel, are starring their own projects. 'Q*Bert' is a funny and simple movie. It works as well as it pretends to work. And that means that it can't be considered as a comedy masterpiece but, at least, entertains and make you smile as other Ferrel's comedies like ‘Blades Of Glory’. Ferrel's sense of humour works better for american moviegoers than for european but, step by step, he is being more and more acknowledge as one of the references of contemporary movie comedies. And this movie is just another step in that direction."
-Amy Ratched

"Where has intelligent comedy one? The funniest thing in this movie is Jackie Chan's recreation of Karate Kid's Mr. Miyagi. Scary, ah? But audiences seem to love this superficial and pretty brainless sense of humour. Even more scary, ah? David Zucker returns to spoof in CMP, after his successful 'Lieutenant USA'. He and screenwriter Josh Collins have taken an ingenious premise - the fight to become the world's best player of an arcade game - and stretched it to the limit with a succession of jokes based on laughing at good old underdog movies. Far away from the intelligence of movies like 'Schroedinger's Litterbox', 'Q*Bert' gets closer to 'The Metal' and it works at the same level that one did: laughing at certain stereotypes - life in a rock band there, arcade games addicts here - from a superficial sense of humour. Ferrell - a comedian far away from the classics, from Marx Brothers to Jerry Lewis - makes his usual routine. He knows what works for him and doesn't seem interested in taking any risk. The rest of the cast try to be funny and do not get to be it as much as they should. But the whole thing works well enough to add another superfluous title to the sad list of contemporary American comedy."
-Anne Roman

FALLOUT

“Each time a big budget action movie is released it is expected to break some records. They always want to be ‘even better than…’ any previous blockbuster in terms of digital effects, noisy action, violence or whatever. But the main virtue of this movie is that it does not seem to be looking for records. It is just a modest, entertaining and well done action sci-fi movie not trying to compete with anything or to become anything beyond what it is. It has the right doses of digital and special effects, without becoming slave of them, as it happens with many productions of this kind. It has a solid storyline and it takes the time to develop the characters enough and not just putting them into a non-stop action show. In some way, although being a sci-fi story based on an action pc game, it returns to a classic way of making movies – far away from the Michael Bay style – without falling into a brainless spiral of action set pieces not caring for the inside sense of the whole story, as many blockbusters do these days.”
-Charlie Kiggs

“Richard Donner is not McG. Thank God. Past week, CMP released ‘Bullet Witch’. And, in so many ways, ‘Fallout’ is the opposite to that one. This is not a ‘shoot’em up’ empty show. An experienced director like Donner knows how to build up an action movie without easy tricks like abusing of slow motion and matrix-esque visual effects. ‘Fallout’ is a good movie. It deliberately looks a bit old-fashioned at some moments and that’s maybe why this generation of moviegoers has not connected with it as much as they do with other similar releases. But it recovers the adventure spirit of sci-fi classics adapting it to the visual language of our days with talent and effectiveness. In some way, it has been a reconciliation with sci-fi for me.”
-Tim Reeve

“Entertainment and quality shake hands in this production. I wonder why CMP does not seem to have bet for it as much as they do with other similar products. ‘Fallout’ has been produced without the top budget of other CMP’s features and its marketing campaign has not been as aggressive as much of them. A mistake. The movie has an interesting storyline – yes, retaking elements from other CMP’s productions from ‘Planetside’ to ‘The Last Lawman’, but still interesting -, a careful production design, an appealing cast of stars, but it seems like the guys from CMP didn’t appreciate enough this little jewel. Sign of the times. Studios always think that quality won’t mean big box office and maybe it is the other way around: box office does not respond to quality just because producers do not believe in quality anymore.”
-Chris Burguess


Interesting set of releases we have this week. Two big action films and a Will Ferrell comedy film. Kubrick is the busiest writer this season with yet again, a new film of the week from him. I have a new rating system since I grew tired of trying to distinguish for myself the differences between thumbs and toes.

WILD CARDS: DOUBLE SOLITAIRE

I felt more intrigued in Del Toro's nifty effects than the actual plot and mediocre actors. I think I've been more interested in the spinoff films than the original series. It's definitely for those who love action, which usually always makes a good turnout. Just like Hitman, another long running CMP series, this was the fourth installment, but unlike that film, I just wasn't into the plot or characters, but the distraction with the innovative special effects worked.
RATING: 5/10

Q*BERT

When it comes to Will Ferrell, all a critic has to do to summarize their review in a short phrase, "It's a Will Ferrell Movie' and you're either going to love it or hate it. I thought Collins was done with comedy after Super Bowl, but he came up with a clever parody of the critically acclaimed documentary of last year, 'King of Kong' and underdog films. Those idiots who ruined the art of parody by churning out those atrocious 'Date Movie, Epic Movie' films should take notes from pros such as Mel Brooks and the Zuckers. For me, the film had some good laughs, it was worth it for me to hear Jackie Chan openly talk to his student about getting him laid with Julia Stiles. Asians in films are like kids and "little persons", whatever they say or do is always going to be cute.
RATING: 5.5/10

FALLOUT

Gamers have been drooling, anticipating the release of one of the biggest popular games of the modern days. Once again, a film released this week that hopes to reach out to the fanbase while trying to draw in a new crowd. Sure video game adaptations are as common in cinema these days as Sunday happening before Monday, but the cast was good and worked their roles well enough to not bore. I always want to look at these films with an open fair mind but I usually end up saying to take it for what its worth. You get what you want out of it. I got an entertaining film that's not going to make you think, but will keep you on the edge of the seats and high fiving your friends when a cool stunt happens.
RATING: 5.5/10