Lara Croft returns in the form of Swedish born actress Alicia Vikander as two new stills emerge, fresh from the production of TOMB RAIDER, courtesy of Vanity Fair. It hits Australian cinemas on 15 March 2018 from Roadshow Films, and US theatres on 16 March from Warner.
It’s been a whopping 21 years since Lara Croft first debuted in digital form in the first Tomb Raider game. With numerous sequels, and two feature films starring Angelina Jolie under her belt, Lara got an upgrade in the last few years with a series of sophisticated and critically praised games. The more recent games appear to serve as the basis for Croft’s look in the new film
Directed by Roar Uthaug and co-starring Dominic West, Walton Goggins, and Daniel Wu, the film picks up seven years after the disappearance of Croft’s father, and like many modern day superheroes, she has refused to take the mantle of of his global business empire. Working as a bike courier in London while taking college classes, she ultimately decides to explore the tomb where her father was last seen, somewhere on an island somewhere off the coast of Japan.
Warner has moved the US release date of AQUAMAN, the sixth film in the DC Extended Universe, to 21 December 2018. So there’s an early Christmas present for Marvel fans. The previous release date was 5 October 2018.
Directed by Australia’s James Wan, the film will see Jason Momoa reprise his role as Aquaman from the Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League films. Amber Heard will be introduced as Mera, his love interest and fellow undersea badass.
Temuera Morrison, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Temuera Morrison will also star. While we’re waiting, check out the Justice League sizzle reel from Comic-Con last year, featuring some cool footage of this super seaman.
Sometimes all it takes to evoke an emotion is a bit of synth music, especially when Vangelis is doing the synthing. The first teaser trailer for BLADE RUNNER 2049 dropped this morning, as Warner Bros. Pictures and Alcon Entertainment unveiled the first look at the highly anticipated sequel to the 1982 classic. It is released in Australian cinemas on 5 October 2017, and on 6 October 2017 in the US.
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years. The trailer gives us very little of that story, focusing more on grandiose imagery and moments, conjuring up our collective memories of the original. This is wholly in keeping with the spirit of that film, and this gives us our first glimmer of hope that they get it right.
Starring Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, Lennie James, with Dave Bautista and Jared Leto, the film is directed by Denis Villeneuve, the acclaimed director behind films like this year’s Arrival, along with Sicario, Prisoners and Incendies.
A new full trailer for WONDER WOMAN has arrived from Warner Bros. Pictures, featuring our longest look at the hero’s cinematic origin story to date. It arrives in Australian cinemas on 1 June 2017.
Directed by Patty Jenkins, it is the fourth film in DC Extended Universe, a series that began with Man of Steel, and continued with Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad. It also seems to be the first one that has the lights turned on and a sense of fun and adventure about it.
Wonder Woman stars Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Danny Huston, David Thewlis, Ewen Bremner, Saïd Taghmaoui, Elena Anaya, Connie Nielsen and Lucy Davis.
Speaking with the source, Famuyiwa stated: “I pitched a version of the film in line with my voice, humor, and heart. While it’s disappointing that we couldn’t come together creatively on the project, I remain grateful for the opportunity. I will continue to look for opportunities to tell stories that speak to a fresh generational, topical, and multicultural point of view. I wish Warner Brothers, DC, Jon Berg, Geoff Johns, and Ezra Miller all the best as they continue their journey into the speed force.”
The film was set to enter production in March 2017, with a release date for March 2018. This latest news will undoubtedly delay the production schedule. THE FLASH will star Ezra Miller as Barry Allen/The Flash, who cameoed in this year’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. It will follow Suicide Squad (2016), Wonder Woman (2017) and Justice League Part One (2017) as DC Entertainment tries to capture some of the ground that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been dominating for a while.
In the meantime, the CW series continues to kick some serious ass, so fans of the Scarlet Speedster will be more than content with a weekly dose of the Speed Force.
“Even crimefighters need mindless entertainment,” comes the familiar voice of Adam West in the opening moments of BATMAN: RETURN OF THE CAPED CRUSADERS, the first of many self-reflective acknowledgements the film makes on the changing nature of Batman over the years. More than just a retro revival of a classic TV series, the animated film is a tribute to an era and a commentary of the place this comic book character has in pop culture history.
Writer extraordinaire and super fan Grant Morrison once posited that it was fun to think of every iteration of Batman being the same person. In doing so, we have to accept that the crazy and camp stories that ran throughout the 1960s are as much a part of Batman lore as Christopher Nolan or Zack Snyder’s films. Rightfully so, as it provided some of the goofier bits of levity to a character that has desperately tried to crush it with Dark Knights and even darker storylines in the half-century since.
The 120 episodes of the Batman TV series ran from 1966 to 1968, including a sharktacular movie, but the legacy of the of the show runs through everything from the Batman ’66 comic book to the LEGO playsets and video game appearances. This film takes the very simple premise of Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward) having to contend with the latest scheme from Joker (Jeff Bergman), Riddler (Wally Wingert), Penguin (William Salyers) and Catwoman (Julie Newmar) and just running with it. It doesn’t always have to make sense, as long as the tone is right.
BATMAN: RETURN OF THE CAPED CRUSADERS definitely gets the tone right for the most part, and a lot of this has to do with the presence of original stars West and Ward. It’s hard not to crack a smile as the righteous West declares “Quickly Robin: to the crosswalk!” or Ward throws in a “Holy faster pussycat kill kill!” At another point, a dazed Batman sees Catwoman in triplicate, with animated versions of Newmar, Eartha Kitt and Lee Meriwether hilariously representing the various actresses who have played the iconic villain. There’s knowing winks in the presence of Aunt Harriet, who believes she was only being kept around for “appearances.”
On the other hand, once the in-joke has delivered the first couple of punchlines, there’s a fine line between love letter and imitation. After all, it’s hard for animation to replicate the silliness of the Caped Crusaders walking up a wall, or Caesar Romero’s moustache under makeup. Catwoman is an integral part of the narrative, yet Newmar’s tin-eared delivery is stilted and far from sexy. Even at a brief 78 minutes, this may have worked better as several small episodes instead of a feature.
Regardless of these quibbles, BATMAN: RETURN OF THE CAPED CRUSADERS will undoubtedly please fans of classic Batman and tickle the funny-bones of modern viewers. In a tip of the hat to Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, Catwoman suggests that she and Batman run off to Europe to drink coffee together. Robin’s exclamation of “Holy unsatisfying ending!” speaks for countless fans who felt that the franchise might have nuked the fridge. Which is why we ultimately need this animated take, as it is a reminder of a time when superheroes weren’t fighting each other, but instead embracing the silliness of the whole genre.
[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2016 | US | DIR: Rick Morales | WRITERS: Michael Jelenic, James Tucker | CAST: Adam West, Burt Ward, Julie Newmar, Steven Weber, Thomas Lennon, Wally Wingert | DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros. Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 78 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 8 October 2016 (AUS), 10 October 2016 (US)[/stextbox]
Parents are going to have some pretty serious explaining to do after this animated outing. In fact, we have a few questions of our own. Co-directors Nicholas Stoller (Bad Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising) and Doug Sweetland (Pixar’s Presto) approach the ancient mythological association between storks and baby delivery systems, one popularised by the likes of Hans Christian Andersen and the 1946 Looney Tunes cartoon Baby Bottleneck. The union of the directors styles in STORKS is often amusing, but it doesn’t make it any less weird.
Storks have long since given up on delivering babies, and instead have shifted their operations to making parcel deliveries for online super-chain Cornerstore. Junior (voiced by Andy Samberg), the company’s top delivery stork, is on the verge of a promotion by CEO Hunter (Kelsey Grammer), but in order to get the gig he has to fire the orphan Tulip (Katie Crown), the only human working at the company. Plans go awry when neglected child Nate (Anton Starkman) orders up a baby brother, and Tulip mistakenly creates a child in the Baby Making Machine that they now have to deliver.
Co-director Sweetland won an Annie Award for his animation work on 2001’s Monsters, Inc., and the experience apparently stuck. STORKS borrows much of the same loose structure of the Disney·Pixar film, but lacks its sense of direction. Stoller’s script is more of a series of unambitious gags that play on the universal love of babies, occasionally bordering on the offensive as Tulip abandons all reason in a montage of instinctive protective motherhood. It relies on this somewhat satirical assumption too much, missing the actual adorableness that Pixar’s “Boo” and “Kitty” dynamic gave to that film.
Yet there’s a subplot about a broken human family that plays more to the heart of the film, even if it mostly feels like an entirely separate short film-within-a-film about learning to be a parent. Other elements are just odd, especially the ‘brah’-spouting Pigeon Toady (Stephen Kramer Glickman), whose assistance to the CEO largely consists of non sequiturs, incongruous musical sequences (including one set to The Heavy’s “How You Like Me Now”) and humour that doesn’t fit kids or adults. Here Stoller tries for something similar to his take on The Muppets, but misses the mark by a few inches with inconsistent tones.
It’s still gorgeously animated, conceived under the Warner Animation Group that gave us The LEGO Movie, but with the bulk of the animation service provided by Sony Pictures Imageworks. It’s a little disconcerting seeing birds with teeth, but there’s some wonderfully visually inventive moments throughout the film. The Wolf Pack, led by Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele as Alpha and Beta (and in the local edition, comedian Peter Hellier as the rest of the wolves), form giant shapes of minivans and boats to chase their targets. Later, a group of babysitting penguins are being cautious to not wake the baby, and a hilarious silent action scene makes it difficult to stifle laughter.
STORKS might struggle with it own internal logic, but it’s essentially a good-natured romp that reworks a familiar idea. Glossing over the troubling implications of the stork/human relationships, or that the film continues the heteronormative trend of suggesting that children “complete” families, there’s a well-intentioned film here, even if its exact audience might be unidentifiable. Yet if the film has taught us anything, everything has its place in the world. Even so, parents: good luck with having “the talk” as the credits roll.
[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2016 | US | DIR: Nicholas Stoller, Doug Sweetland | WRITERS: Nicholas Stoller | CAST: Andy Samberg, Katie Crown, Kelsey Grammer, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Jennifer Aniston, Ty Burrell, Danny Trejo, Stephen Kramer Glickman | DISTRIBUTOR: Roadshow Films (AUS), Warner Bros. Pictures (US) | RUNNING TIME: 90 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 22 September 2016 (AUS), 23 September 2016 (US) [/stextbox]
Warner Bros. pictures debuted the highly anticipated trailers for WONDER WOMAN and JUSTICE LEAGUE at the Comic-Con in San Diego this weekend, and now they have released them online for our universal edification. Tonally very different, they form part of the wider DC Extended Universe that began with Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Directed by Patty Jenkins, WONDER WOMAN stars Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Danny Huston, David Thewlis and more. The trailer depicts much of the reshuffled origin story of the character, transplanting her Second World War origins to the First World War decades earlier.
WONDER WOMAN is due for release on 1 June 2017 in Australia, and 2 June 2017 in the US.
JUSTICE LEAGUE is the culmination of all the DC cinematic characters, bringing together Ben Affleck (Batman), Henry Cavill (Superman), Ezra Miller (The Flash), Ray Fisher (Cyborg), and Jason Momoa (Aquaman) in the film directed by Zack Snyder.
Featuring a trailer soundtrack that includes “Icky Thump” by The White Stripes, the film is due out in the US on 10 November 2017, and a week later in Australia on 16 November 2017.
Following last month’s announcement that THE FLASH would lose director Seth Grahame-Smith, a report from Deadline now indicates that Dope director Rick Famuyiwa will helm the speedster’s solo film as part of the DC Extended Universe for Warner Bros.The film is still set for release on 16 March 2018.
In addition to directing the Sundance favourite Dope, his films have included The Wood (1999), Brown Sugar (2002), Talk to Me (2007). He has more recently been receiving acclaim for directing the HBO original movie Confirmation, starring Kerry Washington, Wendell Pierce and Jeffrey Wright.
THE FLASH will star Ezra Miller as Barry Allen/The Flash, who cameoed in this year’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. It will follow Suicide Squad (2016), Wonder Woman (2017) and Justice League Part One (2017) as DC Entertainment tries to capture some of the ground that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been dominating for a while.
While we wait for the big screen adventures to expand the Multiverse, we still have a third season of The Flash TV series to look forward to in October this year, following the cliffhanger at the end of Season 2 in May.
The much-touted GODZILLA 2 has lost a director, reports Deadline, as Gareth Edwards makes an amicable split with Legendary Picture and Warner Bros. Edwards had directed the first film, which received mixed reviews, and the sequel was dated this week as landing on 22 March 2019.
It comes hot on the heels of the news that GODZILLA 2 has shifted its originally planned release date of June 2018, but gave a new date for the face-off between titans in Godzilla Vs. Kong, a spin-off from Warner’s upcoming Kong: Skull Island. The showdown will happen on 29 May 2020.
Meanwhile, Edwards preps the release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, due out 15 December 2016 from Disney. It’s the first live-action spin-off from the Star Wars series that is not a part of the main ‘trilogies’ of continuity.
