Do you want to see the best series opener you’ll probably see this year? If you’re a J.K. Simmons fan–and even if you’re not–set your DVR for tonight’s premiere of Counterpart on Starz. It’s Dirty Harry meets The Adjustment Bureau as J.K. Simmons plays mild-mannered Howard Silk, a thirty-year veteran of a low-level interface job in a Berlin carryover Cold War installation. But his world is turned upside down when he learns an experiment back in the 1980s split time apart and created a duplicate world, and he meets his counterpart–the Howard Silk from the other side, a brusque, 007 spy, who has little patience for his genetically-identical, under-achiever self.
Could Counterpart be J.K. Simmons chance at a coveted television role like Tatiany Maslany’s multiple roles in Orphan Black? We can only hope. His role is similar to Jason Isaacs’s dual role in the 2012 series Awake. But will there only be two Howard Silks, or more? With so many characters in series these days not making it through a single character arc all season, Simmons’ Silk gets plenty of development in his first hour. It’s clear we’re going to get a season of Simmons vs. Simmons, and the series opener allows for audiences to witness plenty of nicely filmed interactions between the two.
It’s exciting, smart, dramatic, and even poignant. Silk’s wife, played by Olivia Williams (The Sixth Sense, The Postman, Rushmore) on this side of the timeline is in a coma, and Silk visits her to read to her each night. He is confronted by her brother, an unlikeable sort played by Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica, Horatio Hornblower). Sara Serraiocco plays a badass counterspy.
Tom Cruise. No matter the character, no matter the story, no matter the director, he just can’t make a bad movie. Last year’s release, Jack Reacher, available now on Netflix streaming and DVD and Blu-ray, is another home run. But for the lackluster title and so-so marketing effort, Jack Reacher might have been a really big hit last year. Cruise turns in a solid performance again, similar to his high-calibre lead acting in last year’s sci-fi release Oblivion, reviewed here at borg.com. Later this year the 51-year-old screen legend is back again, in another sci-fi release, Edge of Tomorrow, with co-star Emily Blunt.
Jack Reacher, odd name aside, could be one of those heroes you compare to Harry Callahan, Frank Bullitt, or a Daniel Craig-era James Bond. The character is that good, as is Cruise’s fit into the role of a smart and tough drifter who turns to the aid of a comatose defendant and his struggling defense attorney in the case of a shocking, random mass shooting. Cruise’s drifter is also ex-military, the kind of ex-military that can take on a group of thugs by himself, and take part in a big-screen shoot-‘em up. We see Reacher learning and growing as he tries to make all the right moves–and get constantly set back–throughout the movie, not something many films give audiences much of these days. He thinks like a lawyer or detective and does so believably, and Cruise taps into his work in The Firm or A Few Good Men, making Reacher a good follow-on for fans of those films.
As Reacher attempts to find the top gunman at a rifle range, we find Robert Duvall in another great role similar to his work in A Civil Action, this time as a craggy expert with a rifle. Along the way we meet several villains, including one played by A Good Day to Die Hard’s Jai Courtney, but far and away the most intriguing is writer/director/producer Werner Herzog as what could be a Bond villain as “Zec”. Creepy. Vile. Evil. He gives a pawn who screwed-up a choice: death, or chew off his own fingers. Yikes. Rosamund Pike (Surrogates, Pride and Prejudice) excels as the defense attorney in several scenes with the opportunity to convey a wide range of emotions for a single film–and cinematography by (Zooey and Emily’s dad) Caleb Deschanel (The Right Stuff, The Natural, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, National Treasure), gives her plenty of well-timed, stare-into-the-camera close-ups.
Not long ago the idea of having all your favorite movies available for viewing instantly was as far out there as hover cars. With streaming options like Netflix you can have access to thousands of movies and TV series in a flash, only limited by the speed and quality of your own home access and viewing technology. But just like online news will never replace the physical daily newspaper, streaming will never replace the home video library.
If there is a constant as we look ahead to movie franchises and other entertainment properties in 2013, it is the sequel, spin-off, and remake. We’re sure someone will provide new content and stories for us for movies and TV from entirely new characters and worlds in 2013, but just take a look at the 24 biggest genre movies coming out next year and it is obvious that Hollywood is following the “tried and true” model of investing in current properties rather than investing money in “the new”.
So with that in mind, what are the big characters to watch out for next year–the characters we already know that seem like they can only get bigger?
10. Jack Ryan. Back in the 1980s and 1990s it seemed like Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan was everywhere, first with Alec Baldwin taking on the role in The Hunt for Red October, then mega-star Harrison Ford in two sequels, followed by a big break and then Ben Affleck in the prequel Sum of All Fears. With Star Trek star Chris Pine bringing us yet another prequel effort next December, we think a wide audience will come back again to see what this CIA agent has been up to.
9. Wolverine. I’ve always thought Wolverine should be Marvel Comics’ key property. Spider-man always relied on Peter Parker (well, until recently) who seemed pretty planted in the psyche of the past. The Avengers seemed too cartoony with characters with too little in common to really be a huge property (happily I was wrong!). But Wolverine has a certain modern grittiness that readers, especially young readers, would seem to really attach to. Audiences seem to like Hugh Jackman’s take on the character and his incredible fifth outing as Logan/Wolverine in July, titled The Wolverine should tell us if this will be the end of a big-screen Wolverine for a while or whether he will only get bigger.
I really like Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor. He’s in a rare group of current actors like Tom Cruise, who, no matter what he does outside acting, so long as he keeps making good movies I’ll keep showing up to watch him.
In many ways Arnold is like his Expendables and now Expendables 2 brethren, especially Sylvester Stallone, whose self-made rise to fame was a lot like Arnold’s, and Bruce Willis, who seems to churn out movies of all types like nobody else. But Arnold is also one of those bigger-than-life/megastar/film legend/superstars who could arguably be lumped in with John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. These three have a more distinctive, almost superhuman aura. And just as Wayne and Eastwood did, it looks like Arnold is entering a distinct “third act” of his career. You can look back and see Wayne in his B-movie days before Stagecoach, where Clint was making TV shows like Maverick and Rawhide, and Arnie was getting his sea-legs as Conan the Barbarian. Then with their second acts they all made it to the bigtime, Wayne with John Ford Westerns and war movies, Clint with spaghetti Westerns and then Dirty Harry, and Arnold with his blockbuster action films: Predator, Terminator 1&2, and True Lies.
So what’s next? Wayne got gruff in his elder years as highlighted in his Rooster Cogburn role. As did Clint, even going back ten years he began this new life persona as old man, but always a modern take on what it means to be an old man. His character as a geezer in Gran Torino is nothing like Dirty Harry or The Man with No Name, but it’s still one of his best performances.
So what about Arnold? After his hiatus as California’s Governator, he slips back into movies this month with his bit part in Expendables 2. But his first film returning in a leading role is due out after the holidays: The Last Stand. Arnie’s stilted acting shown in the first trailer for the film put aside, I see some things I may like in this new action flick.
First, I loved The Rock/Dwayne Johnson in his remake of Walking Tall, co-starring Johnny Knoxville. I didn’t think that film could be remade and I loved the result. The plot of this film seems strangely similar. And that’s Johnny Knoxville again… in apparently the same role! Although–Knoxville looks a bit more psychotic than normal here. And that’s saying a lot for the guy from Jackass and MIB 2.
Next, I really liked Sylvester Stallone’s performance as a worn down police officer caught in the middle of a culture of bad cops in the universally praised film Cop Land. This movie, from the preview, feels like it could be a similar work for Arnold–a grizzled lawman needing to step up and take a stand, maybe the last stand, as the movie’s title would indicate.
It also reminds me a bit of Chris Cooper in Lone Star.
They are certainly not standout roles for John Wayne, but he played a cop twice toward the end of his career, in McQ and Brannigan. And despite the dated look, both are darned good movies. This type of role may be a good way for everyone to get back liking–and cheering for–our returning megastar.
And finally there is that Clint Eastwood gruff, cracked speech thing. Call it tough as nails, call it dry, it is partly why we see Clint as the tough guy we see him as today. Is this the future of the once young and pumped-up Arnold on the big screen, moving from his classic “Ah-nold” accent to a raspy smoker-like delivery?
Check out the trailer:
The Last Stand, directed by South Korean director Jee-woon Kim, hits theaters January 18, 2013.
from Warner Bros. to the eight-film 
