My 8 Least-Favorite Movies from 2015

31. American Ultra



I should start by explaining the weaksauce title of this list. Usually, the bottom several movies of a year are ones that I actively disliked, but that wasn't the case this time. In fact, I like some of these - at least some things about some of them - quite a bit. 2015 was an extraordinarily strong year for film, so even the bottom of the barrel has some good stuff.

For example, American Ultra is sort of Chuck: The Movie, but different enough in every way - characters, plot, tone, and setting - that it's not fair to compare the two. The two leads are wonderful (and I say that as someone who doesn't usually enjoy Stewart's performances) and the focus isn't nearly as drug-oriented as the marketing makes you think. Mike and Phoebe are stoners, but that doesn't define everything about them.

My biggest issue is that the ending undermines the theme of the rest of the movie. It doesn't ruin the film, but it does lessen its impact. Otherwise, it was a fun, last action flick for the summer.

32. Krampus



I was hoping for a horror/comedy like the House movies from the '80s or maybe Tucker and Dale vs Evil. This is more like Gremlins; mostly dark and wanting to be legitimately scary with some humorous moments.

My favorite thing about it is the creature designs. The monsters look amazing and I recommend it if only for that. It's biggest failure is the way the characters react to their situation. There's exactly one moment where I felt like a parent actually acted like a parent would when a child is in danger.

Still, it's a great-looking movie with a cool premise. Not as awesome as I wanted, but not nearly as bad as I feared.

33. The Last Witch Hunter



I had a lot more fun than I expected. I'd written this off as derivative of the numerous monster-hunter movies that came before it, but got to go to a press screening with Diane and David and we had a great time.

For those who've seen a bunch of monster-hunter movies, there's not much new in terms of plot, but it has some cool things going for it. I love Vin Diesel and he's doing his tough-tender thing here in the best way. Michael Caine is also a lot of fun as Diesel's younger associate and there's some genuine chemistry between the two of them. Rose Leslie is a unique presence too, which adds some unpredictability. And there's some great world-building with plenty of hints at things left unexplored for either sequels or just the imagination.

But the dialogue is pretty clunky, it does that thing with voiceover exposition to bring the audience up to speed, Elijah Wood's character doesn't deserve to have Elijah Wood play him, and a lot of the CGI is murky and uninspired (though not all of it; there are some cool moments).

For younger viewers - like my 13-year-old son - The Last Witch Hunter is a fine introduction to the genre. But even as someone who's seen a bunch of these, I found it to be enjoyable pulp, too.

34. Goosebumps



Not too shabby as a horror-themed piece of entertainment for kids. It's never really scary, but it's not trying to be. It's genuinely funny in parts too (though it could have used more of Timothy Simons and Amanda Lund as the cops; they were great). And the actors are all good enough to make me care about their thinly-written characters.

35. Tomorrowland



A huge disappointment. The hugest of the year. Before Tomorrowland, I would have told you that Brad Bird could do no wrong. And he seemed like the perfect person to present the ideas of this movie in a great, powerful way. I don't know what happened.

I still love the ideas of the movie, but the problem is that the themes of positivity and problem-solving are reduced to simple plot points. Rather than being what the movie is about, they're just the MacGuffin that the heroes need to defend. The movie ends up being about summer action beats and set pieces, only a couple of which are notable.

36. The Visit



The best Shyamalan film since After Earth.

That's not quite fair. It's probably his best since Lady in the Water, though that's not saying much either. It's an interesting idea and a lot could have been done with it, but The Visit settles for borrowing imagery from other horror movies to talk about how old people are scary.

I could maybe set aside the ageism in that premise if The Visit actually had any thoughts about why some people are frightened by the elderly. But nope. It's as uninterested in exploring that as it is in commenting thoughtfully on its secondary theme about forgiveness.

For all that though, the actors are all a lot of fun to spend time with and there are some great, scary visuals. The imagery may all be borrowed from The Ring, Paranormal Activity, and The Blair Witch Project, but at least it's copying great stuff.

37. Seventh Son



And now we hit the part of the list where I just don't like these movies. I think I knew that Seventh Son wasn't going to be great, but I did hope it would at least be entertaining. It might be fun on a Saturday afternoon on the couch, maybe as a double-feature with Hawk the Slayer, but it wasn't worth seeing in the theater and I feel like a sucker for having spent money on it.

38. Hitman: Agent 47



Boring. Does nothing new. I cared about none of the characters.

It's not aggressively bad, but there's nothing here to recommend. And that's too bad, because I defend the 2007 film starring Timothy Olyphant.

The War of the Worlds: Adapt or Die [Guest Post]

By GW Thomas

HG Wells inspired so many branches of the Science Fiction tree: time travel, human-animal hybrids, invisibility, moon men, giant animals, super intelligent animals, and alien invasions. When I skim through The Great Book of Movie Monsters (1983) by Jan Stacy and Ryder Syvertsen, I can identify that at least one third of the films included have Wellsian roots. HG Wells is surely the single most important writer of SF in Hollywood.

That being said, the adaptations of his works have been confused, cheap or downright stupid. Every giant insect drive-in thriller is his legacy as much as objects on strings, giant killer ants chewing up Joan Collins, or men in rubber suits. Not to mention the entire Irwin Allen disaster movie and Godzilla genres. Wells was a great thinker; a controversial social critic, but his films usually come off as silly screamfests.

To my mind, his masterpiece is The War of the Worlds (1898). Wells imagines an invasion of earth by Martians who come in meteor-like canisters that open and produce killing machines on tripod legs and armed with death rays. The narrator journeys through the London landscape, seeing the devastation until the invaders die from earth bacteria. (This is bad Science but Wells was making a comment on Socialism not bacteriology.) This novel, due to its scope, has had fewer adaptations than most: four, not including Orson Welles' famous radio scarefest of 1938 and other media. (The most popular film product is The Invisible Man with twelve.) Destroying all of London (or is it New Jersey?) is a big enterprise, so the low-budget schlock makers have avoided it for the most part.

The first adaptation in film was the 1953 George Pal classic with its saucer-like machines. Garishly brilliant in color, it plays out Wells' novel in a modern setting and philosophically misses the boat with its churchy ending. (Wells must have spun in his grave faster than the Lord of the Dynamos.) An Oscar for special effects proves it typical SF fare in that the effects take center stage, making Gene Barry and Ann Robinson even more forgettable. To my mind, I missed the tripods but understand that flying saucers were all the rage in the 1950s. Pal would have been crazy to use the great stalking machines.

The 1960s and '70s did not produce a new film version. We had the cool, if superhero-sized comic book Amazing Adventures featuring Killraven created Roy Thomas and Neal Adams. This Marvel comic supposed an earth overrun by the Martians and how they would reshape our planet. Even better was the Jeff Wayne musical starring the voice of Richard Burton as the narrator. Wayne leaves the Victorian setting in place with tripods and all, though he did reshape the story a little to create scenes worthy of emotional duets.

The next adaptation on film was the 1988-90 TV series that was begun in the 1970s by George Pal, but took another 10 years to be realized. The Canadian-filmed show starring Jared Martin and Adrian Paul offered a more modern alien invasion. The Martians from 1953 have been sealed up by "the Government" and hidden from the public. Rather than being dead they are actually in suspended animation. Once released they assume the bodies of the terrorists (I didn't know they could do that!) who have stolen and released them. Their plans to take over the world are back on. The themes of government cover-up, UFOs, toxic waste, and terrorism are the flavor of the show rather than Wells, whom they piggybacked rather unnecessarily. Everyone in the first season dies and is replaced (along with the creative team) for a second season that was no more successful. The show was cancelled after two seasons, pretty much guaranteeing nobody would touch the property in the 1990s.

The next adaptation is one of my favorites, despite being reviled by some. This was M Night Shyamalan's Signs (2002) starring Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix. Shyamalan does something amazing and gets no love for it. First, he does an alien invasion movie without showing a thousand buildings falling down, tripods, or ray guns. Instead, he focuses on one family and how it affects them and only hints at the mayhem and destruction. That alone is amazing. This same technique will be used in Cloverfield (2008) (and receive much more praise).

The second and even better thing he does is to play his own philosophical riff from Wells. One of the strongest themes in the novel is that aliens have come therefore everything we thought was real has changed. How can a world with aliens in it believe in religion? Wells uses the character of the curate to explore these ideas. Shyamalan turns this on its head and actually finds a way to say, yes, religious belief is possible. Though I side with Wells on this personally, I still found Signs a wonderful rebuttal to the curate. I may be the only person on the planet that liked Signs, but as a Wellsian I'd love to see more films like it.

The last adaptation of War of the Worlds was the 2005 Steven Spielberger starring Tom Cruise. Now that it's ten years old I think I can look at it with some perspective. Visually the film is stunning. It also does a good job of being truer to Wells, having the Martians injecting human blood directly into their veins and such details, while at the same time being faithful to the New Jersey version of Welles and Pal. It uses the tripods, which is a big thumbs up from me. There were some justifiable criticisms about Cruise being able to drive from New Jersey to Boston without running into car jams. I could make the same criticism about a lot of recent disaster films too. Tim Robbins is great as a combination of the Artillery man and the curate. Cruise and Miranda Otto are able to bring some romantic energy to the tale, most likely inspired by Jeff Wayne's rock opera. Even Wells was not much for romance in his novel.

This film is likely to be the last for a while since it featured cutting edge special effects that haven't dated much. When CGI advances to the point where it can do something more, then perhaps we will get a new version. My personal hope is that the BBC does an incredibly faithful version as they did with The Day of the Triffids in 1981. I'd love to see the Victorian setting with really good CGI. John Wyndham's pal and fellow Wellsian, John Christopher's Tripods series would also be up for a remake with a good special effects budget. Until then, we'll put up with the schlock. Syfy's Sharknado Meets the Martians, anyone?

GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.

8 movies I didn't care for in 2013

Counting down the 2013 movies I saw, from worst to best:

38. Gangster Squad



I wanted another L.A. Confidential or The Untouchables, but Gangster Squad is a cliché-ridden mess that can't decide if it's serious and brutal or a tongue-in-cheek lark.

Re-assessing Shyamalan (or, What's up with the water?)

Now that you've had a chance to listen to the Trial of Shyamalan, I want to share a few observations from the Shyamalanathon I undertook to prepare for it. I wasn't able to find a copy of his first film - the semi-autobiographical Pray with Anger - on short notice, so I started my viewing with his second movie. Keep in mind that the podcast was about him as a director so I didn't include films like Stuart Little and Devil.

Wide Awake (1998)

This was my first time seeing this one, what most people think of as "the Rosie O'Donnell one." She's not in it much though and this was from the period when I still found her funny, so she's not the problem. In hindsight, the problem may have been me. Or at least my attitude about Shyamalan.

I went into this project with a bad taste for Shyamalan's work. I defended him longer than most of my friends, but he lost me with The Happening and then The Last Airbender and I didn't even have the tiniest bit of desire to see After Earth. I wondered if my negative opinion of him would change my thoughts on his early stuff so that I'd see flaws in them that I hadn't before. It didn't, but I think it may have colored my perception of Wide Awake.

On first viewing, I thought the script was really hammy and that the film explored the same territory as Signs, but in a less interesting - and as ultimately unsatisfying - way. It's about a kid who's on a literal search for God, which I saw as an on-the-nose metaphor for the development of faith. I got frustrated with the journey, but looking back on it now with the perspective of Shyamalan's better films, I can see more clearly what he was trying to do.

One of Shyamalan's favorite themes is characters' being saved by reaching out and reconnecting to other people. In Wide Awake, the boy's main connection, his grandfather, has died and that sends the kid into a spiral. His year-long quest to find God (in order to make sure his grandfather is in good hands) leads him to adventures that wake him up and bring him to rejoin the world. It's clunky, but I love the general idea that we find God by helping people. I mean, Victor Hugo said it so much better when he wrote, "To love another person is to see the face of God," but it's still interesting to watch Shyamalan try to find his legs.

The Sixth Sense (1999)

I was kind of afraid to watch this one again and possibly not like it anymore. No worries, though. Whatever else happened to Shyamalan's career, no one can take this movie from him. It's such a great film. Haley Joel Osment and Toni Collette break my heart every time I watch it; especially Osment who's so great as this unbelievably brave, tragic kid who's cut himself off from his mom and the rest of the world. Through helping other people (dead though they may be), he's able to reconnect and save himself. This theme is all through Shyamalan's stuff.

Unbreakable (2000)

One of my problems with Shyamalan started when I noticed how low-energy the performances are in his films. It's a tick that I found really distracting once I noticed it, but that was sometime after Unbreakable. Like with The Sixth Sense, I was afraid I wouldn't like Unbreakable as much this time as I did when I discovered while watching it that it was a superhero movie. The thing is though that the low energy in Unbreakable (and The Sixth Sense) works because it helps convey the disconnectedness of the main character. When Shyamalan's directing a film without that major theme, the tone doesn't work as well.

Something I'd totally forgotten about Unbreakable was that the superhero's kryptonite is water. That struck me hard, knowing that it's also the weakness of the aliens in Signs. And as someone pointed out to me on Twitter, there was that whole Shyamalan-afraid-of-water hoax on the SyFy Channel around the time of The Village. And then there's a whole movie about a Lady in the Water. And then of course there's water-bending Aang (which I thought was a funny coincidence, but didn't truly see as part of the trend).

What was hard to figure was just what water represented to Shyamalan. It seemed to be force of evil in Unbreakable, but a force for good in Signs. I hoped that Lady in the Water might help me figure it out, but in the meantime I started thinking about common uses for water as a symbol: change, life, death. It's such a fluid (ahem) symbol that that line of thinking wasn't helpful to me.

My wife unlocked it for me by suggesting that it could be about cleansing. In Unbreakable, it's a weakness for the hero, but what that does is create a situation in which he's forced to accept the help of others, in this case, the two kids he's just rescued. By helping them, he's helped himself, and the deadly water of the pool becomes a sort of baptism for him, marking the point at which he's reconnected to the world. He comes out of the pool a new man.

Signs (2002)

I had mixed feelings about Signs when I first saw it. Shyamalan does a fantastic job of creating tension, and the theme of disconnectedness is there again. In this case, Mel Gibson's character has disconnected himself from his community and from God. That's all really great until the resolution, which doesn't do service to what's come before.

My problem with the climax isn't the revelation that the aliens are harmed by water. I know that's a huge sticking point for a lot of people and Signs is when a lot of folks started turning on Shyamalan. It's a big flaw in the plot that the aliens attack a planet filled with an element that's so harmful to them, so I'm not going to defend it except to point out that Shyamalan does at least take a swing (ahem again) at filling that hole. The dialogue makes it clear that the aliens aren't on Earth to stay; they're a strike force trying to abduct as many humans as possible and then get the heck off the planet. They're also specifically targeting areas away from large bodies of water.

Yes, there's still moisture in the air and dew on the ground, and I get why people are bothered by it, but it doesn't bother me. I don't see Signs as a science fiction film, but a fable. Like in Unbreakable, Shyamalan's more interested in water as symbol than science. And like in Unbreakable, it's a symbol of cleansing; in this case, cleansing Earth of the alien invaders.

The Village (2004)

This is the one where most of society threw up its hands and gave up on Shyamalan, but I honestly don't understand why. I think it has to do with the twist ending being lame - and yeah, it's not one of Shyamalan's best twists - but the movie's about so much more than that.

For one thing, it's superbly acted, including one of the highest energy performances of William Hurt's career, which is ironic considering this is a Shyamalan film. Bryce Dallas Howard is amazing, as is Adrien Brody. And though Joaquin Phoenix has a lot of scenes where he's withdrawn and repressed, that's exactly the point of his character and it all pays off when he finally blurts out to Howard how he feels about her.

Water plays an important part in The Village too. To save her true love - by reconnecting to the outside world - Ivy has to follow the river. Water always accompanies cleansing and transformation in Shyamalan's films.

That said, the ending of The Village is more ambiguous than Shyamalan's other films. The community stays disconnected from the rest of the world, which is something that didn't happen in the previous stories. However, they stay disconnected as a community, which I think is important. Lots to think about and discuss with this one, and that only makes it a stronger movie, in my opinion. Probably Shyamalan's strongest after The Sixth Sense. I just do not get the hate for it.

Lady in the Water (2006)

I enjoyed Lady in the Water when it came out and I still do, though it's much less defensible than the ones that preceded it. This was where I started doubting Shyamalan back in the day.

One of the things I enjoyed this time was the water theme still being around. It's even more overt though with the idea of an entire race of water-people who are trying to save humanity. And Shyamalan actually spells out the symbolism in a line of dialogue, that water represents "purification and starting anew." Though I got a kick out of getting it right, that lack of subtlety makes Lady in the Water a weaker film.

The whole movie is very meta, with Shyamalan's talking directly to his critics. I found that funny the first time I saw it, but it creates problems on later viewings. He also didn't do himself any favors by casting himself in the story as a world-changing writer. He's good in the role (I always like Shyamalan's appearances in his movies), but it comes across as arrogant and it's off-putting, even to defenders like me.

The Happening (2008)

I don't have a lot to say about this one. Shyamalan all but abandons the themes I like about his earlier films in favor of a dark, hopeless movie. His wry sense of humor helps liven the serious tone of his early stuff, but it's out of place in The Happening and none of the actors seem to know what kind of a film they're in.

There's some stuff about Zooey Deschanel's character learning to reconnect by looking out for John Leguizamo's daughter, but it's a minor subplot and leads to stunning lines like "We're so much the same, Jess. I don't like to show my emotions either." Dialogue has never been Shyamalan's strongest thing, but he's way better than that. I seriously don't know what happened with this movie, no pun intended.

The Last Airbender (2010)

Condensing a whole season of Avatar: The Last Airbender into a feature-length film sounds like a losing proposition from the get-go, regardless of who wrote and directed it. But before it sounds like I'm letting Shyamalan off the hook even a little bit, I want to point out that a) like CT said in the trial, Shyamalan took the gig and bears some responsibility if only for that, and b) I came up with a way that could'a made it work.

As I see it, the script's biggest problem is that it tries to hit certain story beats from the TV series without earning any of the moments. Aang's rescue by the Blue Spirit is one of the coolest things in that first season, but only because we've spent so much time getting to know Zuko and learning how conflicted he is. The movie doesn't have enough time to do that properly, so I argue that it doesn't really have time for the any of the Blue Spirit stuff. The script would've been much better had it simply tried to develop the characters in its own, meaningful ways. There are other ways to show Zuko's conflict, even if Shyamalan would've had to create them from scratch. That may have disappointed some fans who wanted to see favorite events played out onscreen, but it would've been a much stronger movie.

For all that, I love the last twenty minutes of The Last Airbender. I wish that the rest of the movie would have led into that finale better, but I contend that it's a powerful ending with great action, beautiful shots, and a showcase for my favorite Shyamalan themes. "Go," the Dragon Spirit tells Aang, "and show them the power of water." I dismissed it earlier as a coincidence, but Shyamalan actually does use water as a powerful symbol of cleansing and rebirth as Aang uses it to chase away the Fire Nation and save his world. Even better, I love what Uncle Iroh says to General Zhao in their final confrontation: "You stand alone. And that has always been your great mistake." That's the Shyamalan I love.

But for whatever positive touches he put on The Last Airbender, Shyamalan's fingerprints left some nasty smudges, too. He tried to make Aang's journey one about reconnection with the world, which completely destroys the charming, vital, already deeply connected character from the TV series. TV Aang has a journey, but it's different from the one that Shyamalan's drawn to and he screwed it up by forcing his onto that character.

After Earth (2013)

As messed up as the last couple of Shyamalan's films had been, he wasn't done any favors by teaming up with Will Smith and Gary Whitta (The Book of Eli) to write After Earth. I don't know who's responsible for what except that Smith came up with the story while Shyamalan and Whitta wrote the screenplay. What I do know is that the story didn't start with Shyamalan, and it has none of his traditional hallmarks.

In fact, it's in direct opposition to Shyamalan's usual themes. Conquering fear is a great subject for a movie, and I would have loved to see Classic Shyamalan do it, but After Earth has nothing interesting to say about it. If it's true - as I've heard suggested - that the approach to fear in After Earth is based on Scientologist teaching, and if it's true that the movie presents an accurate representation of that teaching, I find it really sad.

Conquering fear by creating a box of isolation around yourself sounds empowering, but it creates the very disconnectedness that Shyamalan's films typically battle. I mean, does anyone look at Cypher Raige, Will Smith's character in After Earth, and see him as someone to emulate? He's miserable! According to Shyamalan's best stories, fear is conquered through compassion and connecting with people.

And we do seem to see some of Shyamalan fighting against the ideas in Smith's story. It's impossible to know for sure, but I do think it's interesting that Cypher Raige admits that his life is crap and ends the film wanting to give it up and reconnect with his family. The character arc doesn't follow the movie's major theme, which is a huge problem, but it makes me smile a little to see some pushback on After Earth's handling of fear and to imagine that Shyamalan is responsible.

The Trial of Shyamalan

Yesterday, the latest episode of the Nerd Lunch podcast came out and I was honored to be one of the guests. It was the third in a recurring feature where the Nerd Lunch guys put on trial a controversial director and determine whether or not he should be allowed to make movies anymore. Previous defendants were Michael Bay (no relation) and Tim Burton and those are a lot of fun to listen to. Our episode though was the trial of M. Night Shyamalan.

CT was the only actual member of the Nerd Lunch crew on the episode and he prosecuted the case. Aaron Nix of Movie Hodge Podge defended, Andrew Bloom judged, and I was called as the "expert" witness. We had a blast recording it and I dare say there was some great discussion. I don't want to spoil anything (there may or may not be a twist or three along the way; be sure to listen all the way through to the end of the credits), so go listen to it. I bet you'll find yourself nodding at some things while being challenged by others. At least I did.

Tomorrow, I plan to post here with follow up thoughts about some surprising things I discovered about Shyamalan's films in the process of preparing for the trial, including why I've softened towards The Last Airbender.

Movie News: Blackbeard's daughter and Frankenstein's hottie

Blackbeard's Daughter



Penelope Cruz's role in Pirates of the Caribbean 4 has been announced as Blackbeard's daughter. Since she's also a potential love interest for Captain Jack Sparrow and this man is her dad, this should be a blast. [MTV]

A Film with Me in It



I love the premise of this comedy about an unlucky man whose friends and acquaintances keep dying from unbelievable accidents that clearly look like he murdered them. Check out the trailer and see if you don't too.

Don McKay



I'm not sure what it is about the trailer for Don McKay that makes me so interested. I like Thomas Haden Church, but he carries the same, stunned facial expression throughout the entire trailer. I also like Elisabeth Shue, but that's largely out of nostalgia for Adventures in Babysitting. Maybe I'm just in the mood for a steamy thriller about a woman manipulating her former lover into murdering someone in the deep South.

Frankenstein, Captain America, and more Johnny Depp (as a spy this time) after the break.

Quick Reviews: WALL-E, Get Smart, The Happening, and Wanted

Did a lot of catching up at the movies this week.

WALL-E



As promised in the trailers: very cute and sweet. I was hoping for more than cute or sweet though, like with Ratatouille, Toy Story 2 or Finding Nemo. All of those movies touched me. They made me re-feel things I'd forgotten about. The robots weren't able to do that for me. I liked them all and wanted them to be okay, but they didn't tell me anything about me, so I didn't like it as much as some other Pixar stuff I've seen.

Also, I have serious questions about life on that spaceship.

Four out of five Fred Willards.

Get Smart



Not at all what I expected, but I still really liked it. I've never watched Get Smart, but I imagined it was sort of like Inspector Gadget or the Pink Panther movies. I figured Maxwell Smart was one of those incompetent heroes who managed to bumble and slapstick their way to successfully closing cases. Steve Carell's Maxwell Smart actually knows what he's doing most of the time, but things just don't always go his way.

The funniest bits were in the trailer, so I was disappointed in it as a comedy. I was pleasantly surprised though about how well it worked as a straight - if lighthearted - spy movie. Everyone in it was awesome from Carell to the Rock to Alan Arkin (who had way more to do than I thought he would) to Anne Hathaway.

Four out of five swordfish.

The Happening



I like the premise. This would've made an awesome B-movie in the tradition of Day of the Animals or The Day of the Triffids. Absolutely nothing wrong with the plot. What's wrong with it is all in the execution.

Shyamalan takes the movie way too seriously and tries so hard to ground it in reality - to make us feel what it would be like if this really happened - that he achieves the opposite effect. The performances practically quiver with the strain of looking sincere in the ridiculousness of the situation. I wanted so much to lose myself in the story, but the dialogue and the acting were so forced and fake that I never could.

Two out of five killer plants.

Wanted



After seeing Wanted, I truly believe that if you sling your gun just right while pulling the trigger, you can curve a bullet. Okay, maybe not, but my problem with Wanted has nothing to do with unbelievability. My suspension of disbelief is quite healthy and the movie did nothing to compromise it. The story stayed true to the internal logic it set up for itself and it was a darn fine story besides. There were plenty of surprises and everyone stayed in character, even when doing so wasn't the easiest choice for the movie to make.

My complaint is about the main character. The movie goes to such great extents to portray Wesley as a loser in the first act that it succeeds too well. I didn't feel sorry for him; I pretty much hated him and felt like he was getting exactly what he deserved out of life. He was such a pushover and let people walk all over him to the point that I finally figured, "If this guy doesn't care about himself, why should I?"

The movie eventually overcomes that flaw by turning Wesley into someone I like and can root for, but then drops the ball at the end by having him go back and revisit his old life from his new perspective. I'd rather he have left that life behind completely, but he still cares enough about the jerks who've made his life miserable that he feels he has to go back and prove himself to them.

If Superman was created as wish-fulfillment fantasy for kids, Wanted is wish-fulfillment fantasy for the cubicle set. If I hated my life as much as Wesley does, I might like Wanted more. I might feel challenged by the final line of the movie instead of thinking it sounded hollow and stupid.

Still, lots of cool action sequences, a really smart plot, and the movie raises some interesting questions about things like faith and loyalty.

Four out of five super-bullets.

All in all, not a bad week at the movies.

What Looks Good?: June Theatrical Releases

Oops. I forgot to do this earlier. Here's what looks good this month at the movies.

June 6

You Don't Mess with the Zohan: The Michael May from early June was way looking forward to a movie with a laugh-out-loud trailer in which Adam Sandler plays a bullet-catching super-spy. That's the only reason I'm listing it. The current Michael May is hearing that it's even worse than Little Nicky. That's impossible, but my interest in it is still severely diminished. Still, I'll give it a look on DVD and find out for myself.

Mongol: (Limited release) I know precious little about Genghis Khan, but I've always been curious about him. Plus, the trailer for this looks amazing.

Kung Fu Panda: Already saw it. It was exactly what I expected: a fun movie about anthropomorphic animals kicking each others butts as only CGI martial artists can. The theater where we saw it lost sound for about ten minutes, but I liked it enough that I'm interested in sitting through it again to fill in what I missed.

June 13

The Incredible Hulk: Seen it. Liked it.

The Happening: This is another one that I'm less excited to see now that it's been out and people aren't saying very nice things about it. Then again, people tend not to say nice things about Shyamalan movies and I tend to like his stuff anyway. Still, I was hoping that the buzz would be more positive.

June 20

Get Smart: Everything about this looks hilarious. Steve Carrell and the Rock can do no wrong anyway, but even Anne Hathaway - whom I can usually take or leave - looks very, very takeable here.

June 27th

WALL-E: I'm not as excited about this as I think I should be (too much emphasis on the Cute in the marketing probably), but it's Pixar and I trust them.

Wanted: Now this I'm excited about. And only a little because it's Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman. Mainly it's the level of energy I've seen in the trailers. I'm expecting great things.

What looks good to you?

The Awesome List: Guardians of the Galaxy, Mr. T, Where the Wild Things Are, the Man with No Name, trailer for Shyamalan's new film, and more

Guardians of the Galaxy



I've never been fond of Marvel's science fiction comics until this whole Annihilation thing. Their scifi stuff has always been too "cosmic" and mystical. Too caught up in exploring the Mysteries of the Universe. Annihilation though is all space opera and robot wars and infiltrating impenetrable fortresses and secret labs hidden in suns. It's awesome.

So, I'm glad that it's going to continue in an ongoing series. And that it's going to include the "new," steampunk Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon. I'd forgotten that the original Guardians of the Galaxy took place in an alternate future, so that doesn't bode well for Yondu's making an appearance in this version, but according to this interview, "during the first arc, we get two extra (and big surprise) additions to the mainstay." And -- just to tease me -- they mention Yondu as a possibility. Of course, they also mention Mr. Rogers and Alf. Can't wait to see who it really is.

What could be better than a new Mr. T comic?

One lettered in Comics Sans, that's what!

Oscar night is almost here

Amaze your pool by having actually seen the nominees for Best Animated Short.

You win some; you lose some

I'm disappointed that Josh Ortega's Necromancer isn't one of the new series to come out of Top Cow's "Pilot Season" event. But I'm very glad that Josh Fialkov's Cyblade is. Josh turned a comic about a Psylocke rip-off into a very cool spy story.

Where the Wild Things Are



Catwoman writer Will Pfeifer's day job is the movie critic for The Rockford Register Star. He's got some concerns about the live-action version of Maurice Sendak's classic Where the Wild Things Are. That picture there makes me feel really good about the movie, so hopefully the rumors causing Pfeifer to worry are untrue.

Man with No Name comics

Dynamite's series based on the classic Clint Eastwood character picks up where The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly left off.

I like reading The Comics Reporter for its thoughtful insights into the comics industry

But sometimes, Tom Spurgeon just makes me laugh.

M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening

I've enjoyed all of Shyamalan's stuff more than the average person, but there's a part of me that's still wanting to recapture the experiences of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. I'd love for this to be it.

Stuff to Watch For: Firefly comics, RASL, FCS, Wild Things, and The Happening

Firefly/Serenity comics

Dark Horse has released information about their new Serenity mini-series co-written by Joss Whedon:

"Joss Whedon returns to the world of his blockbuster film Serenity with the three-issue comics series Better Days. Better Days revisits everyone's favorite space cowboys in this thrilling, action-packed adventure, with Mal and his crew on a heist that promises a big payoff -- what's surprising is that this heist just might make good on that promise. Whedon reunites with Brett Matthews and Will Conrad, his collaborators on the best-selling 2005 series Those Left Behind. Adam Hughes joins the team for covers."

The series takes place before the movie and will be on sale in comics stores on Mar 12.

(Also at that link, check out the Frankenstein's Monster bust. Not half bad.)

RASL

Jeff Smith (Bone) has a 6-page preview of his new crime/adventure series RASL. I love Sims' take on the series: "Of course, given that I can’t read the title without thinking of the word 'wrestle,' there probably won’t be quite as many steel chairs and/or ladder matches as I’d like. Still pretty exciting, though."

Fantasy Crime Squad

Oh, wow. You gotta check out this image from Paul Jenkins and Humberto Ramos' Fantasy Crime Squad. Ramos describes it as "soon to be in pre-production," so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it, but when it does eventually come out, it looks gooooooood.

Where the Wild Things Are, etc.

Heidi's got stills from a bunch of upcoming WB movies, including the first I've seen from Where the Wild Things Are. There are also some from Speed Racer and The Dark Knight that have been making the Internet rounds.

M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening

I know it's in vogue not to like Shyamalan anymore, but I'm still a believer. I don't really like the title of The Happening, and the poster is pretentious, but I'll look forward to seeing the movie.