It’s time to talk about movies again. With the end of the year quickly approaching, movie studios are trying to capture the holiday shoppers with a distraction from all the sales at the mall, and prepare us for the fare coming in 2008. There are several films that are upcoming that have my attention already. I won’t bother with the fluff that will obviously fail.
I’ve already mentioned the Iron Man film. From the trailer you can see that the dialogue sounds good. The casting of Mr. Robert Downey Jr. is perfection. The fact that Mr. Terrence Howard is involved as well is another indication of the potential quality of the film. And the red and gold suit is a page out of the comic books. Plan for that in May and pray it’s not another Ghost Rider / Hulk fiasco. I truly doubt that it will come to that.
Another film for 2008 is The Dark Knight. This is the sequel to Batman Begins, featuring Mr. Christian Bale as our dark hero. This is a far darker vision of Batman and it hits the mark. I expect the sequel will be equal to the first film, and hopefully better. The main villain is the Joker, which was hinted at in the first film. Mr. Heath Ledger is slated to take on this role.
I know that I initially had reservations about Mr. Bale being able to pull off his portrayal of the Batman. He did an excellent job though. Yet I find myself having reservations again, though this time it is the role of the Joker. I have difficultly seeing Mr. Ledger as the Joker. It’s a critical role. Not only is the acting ability crucial, the look is absolutely vital. While Batman has a suit that creates a large part of his presence onscreen, the Joker is always in costume. If his look misses, his character fails the same as if the acting was bad. Like Mr. Jack Nicholson, or even Cesar Romero, the look is the character and sets the tone of the whole thing. Hopefully the fact that the Joker’s image is still a solid secret means they got it right. If not, this will fail miserably.
Looking at more up coming films there is Hitman, which is based on the video game of the same name. I loved the calculating and thoughtful premise of the game. More than a mere shoot ‘em up, deliberate thought is required. The storyline was well planned and made a lot of sense. It should easily transfer to the big screen of movie theaters. Lots of gun fights, explosions and action. I expect this to do well. I just hope they stick with the classical music in the background as the trailers seem to indicate. It really makes the mood.
Another film of interest is the Golden Compass. Think of this film as a cross of several fantasy genres, most notably The Lord of the Rings. Of course it looks like this film is geared more towards children a la Harry Potter. But the animation of the armored polar bears is interesting. Given the look of the film, it may well be the first film in quite some time that Nicole Kidman is involved with that will do well. Witches, magic, talking polar bears and familiars are all contained in this film, and heavy CGI use. But the trailer looks interesting. This one I call 50/50.
Continued in part 2...
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