Perhaps it’s because The Hunt for Red October was such a fantastic story and film. It’s often in Hollywood that sequels are worse than the original, but with Tom Clancy screen projects it seems to be progressively so. Since Tom Clancy’s death in 2013 we’ve seen his Jack “Ryanverse” come to the screen twice, first on the big screen in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) with Chris Pine as Ryan, and later on the small screen in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (2018) on Amazon Prime with The Office’s John Krasinski stepping into the role of Ryan previously handled by Alec Baldwin in The Hunt for Red October (1990), Harrison Ford in Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), and Ben Affleck in The Sum of All Fears (2002). Nothing anyone has tried has reversed the downward trend in quality, action, and intrigue, and that includes Amazon Studios’ new movie, Tom Clancy’sWithout Remorse. Even worse, the latest sequel is barely recognizable from Clancy’s original novel. Or his style.
It’s been another long year of great entertainment. It’s time for the eighth annual round of new honorees for the borg Hall of Fame. We have several honorees from 2020 films and television, plus you’ll find many from the past, and a peek at some from the future – 44 new borgs or updated variants in all, bringing the borg Hall of Fame total to 265.
You can always check out the updated borg Hall of Fame on our home page under “Know your borg.”
Some reminders about criteria. Borgs have technology integrated with biology. Wearing a technology-powered suit alone doesn’t qualify. Tony Stark aka Iron Man was named an honoree because the Arc Reactor kept him alive, not because of his incredible tech armor. The Spider-Man suit worn by Tom Holland is similar to Tony’s, but it’s not integrated with Peter Parker’s biology.
Also, if the creators tell us the characters are merely robots, automatons, or androids (as in Westworld, and as in the Synths of Star Trek: Picard, and the new Dark Troopers of The Mandalorian), we take their word for it. Again, integration is key, but in the Hall, once a member, always a member.
A little bit Robocop, a little bit Bionic Man, a little bit of every Marvel solo character origin story, and very Vin Diesel, the movie adaptation of the 1990s Valiant Comics Harvey and Eisner Award-nominated sci-fi/superhero Bloodshot was the first movie industry collateral damage from the pandemic because it arrived March 13 in theaters, the same weekend the U.S. federal government began responding and theaters began to modify their rules and ultimately close. Which also made it the first for a studio to release at theatrical prices via the new “theater-at-home” option from Vudu and Amazon Prime. The good news is it’s well worth full ticket prices, and would have been even better on the big screen. It has all of the right beats we’ve seen in the past decade in the better movies adapting comics beyond the traditional superheroes of DC Comics and Marvel. It also introduces fans of all things borg to the next squad of cyborg warriors worthy of sequels.
You still have a month before visual effects artist-turned director Dave Wilson’s Bloodshotmovie arrives as the next cyborg superhero from Valiant Comics to hit the big screen. But if you want to get a jump on your friends, there’s Bloodshot: The Official Movie Novelization, just released from Titan Books, a great read for fans of all things borg. Readers will be pulled inside the story of Ray Garrison, a slain special ops Marine, who is resurrected thanks to Dr. Emil Harting, a (mad?) scientist who is perfecting his use of nanotechnology and cybernetics to create an unstoppable squad of super-soldiers. Written by Gavin Smith and based on the Jeff Wadlow and Eric Heisserer screenplay, Bloodshot creates the next step in the evolution of cybernetic technology stories that began with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, mixing the rage of The Punisher with the impact on the human psyche and dehumanization of turning from man to cyborg, as we’ve seen in stories like RoboCop (who was inspired by Judge Dredd and Marvel’s Rom).
As for the comics in film, Bloodshot is poised to stack up neatly beside the lab-created Hulk, the merger of body and “something else” of Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, the mission and science of Captain America, Wolverine, and Deadpool, the determination of Cable, and it’s a fitting follow-up to the half-man/half-monster movie, Venom. That’s a lot of Marvel characters with similar struggles, and there are certainly more, characters with the same vintage of origin story–an unlikely or involuntary super-soldier–so how do you spin this key comics trope in a fresh, new way? As Smith, Wadlow, and Heisserer have done it, you go back to the human condition, and look to what has come before. Bloodshot isn’t from Marvel, but indie publisher Valiant, but it’s sourced in a common creative mindset.
Bloodshot reads much like Martin Caidin’s original story of the first modern cyborg in his novel Cyborg, about Steve Austin, the Bionic Man–the Six Million Dollar Man–a military hero brought to death’s door and back via science. In many ways Bloodshot–the program that pulls in the story’s hero and becomes the name of his new persona–is an update to Cyborg–what you could imagine the Bionic Man reboot with Mark Wahlberg to be like. And it pulls in good mind-twisting sci-fi elements evoking Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse and Duncan Jones’ Source Code.
A little bit Robocop, a little bit Bionic Man, a little bit Deadpool and Venom, a bit of The Punisher, and very Vin Diesel, the comic book adaptation of the 1990s Valiant Comics Harvey and Eisner Award-nominated superhero Bloodshot is finally making its way to theaters. Sony Pictures released the first trailer for the film this week, and it has all of those components we’ve seen in the past decade from movies adapting comics beyond the traditional superheroes of DC Comics and Marvel. The inclusion of nanites as part of Bloodshot’s powers make him the latest borg to make it to the big screen. Whatever Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola or anyone else wants to say about superhero movies, these films are an art form in their own right, with their own language, look, music, editing, and story–just like every other genre of film. Fans will be the only judge that matters when Bloodshotarrives early next year.
Diesel, who somehow seems to be the pick for Italian characters despite his own northern European roots, is a smart casting decision for Ray Garrison aka Angelo Mortalli (which fits Diesel so well), the new incarnation of the cybernetic warrior whose modified blood gives him regeneration abilities (think Wolverine) but also makes him controllable by others (think Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse). He has the action hero role solidly on his resume from his role as fast car driver and ex-con Dominic Toretto in seven (so far) Fast & Furious films and Xander Cage in two xXx films, and he brings sci-fi street cred playing Riddick in the Chronicles of Riddick series. And, of course, he’s one-half of our favorite superhero duo, playing the voice of Groot in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The movie co-stars Guy Pearce (hopefully more LA Confidential and less Iron Man 3),Eiza González(Hobbs & Shaw, Alita; Battle Angel, Baby Driver),Lamorne Morris(New Girl, Game Night),Toby Kebbell(Warcraft, Fantastic Four, Planet of the Apes, Kong: Skull Island),Sam Heughan(Midsomer Murders, Outlander), and Talulah Riley(Doctor Who, Thor: The Dark World, Westworld). Kick-Ass 2 writer Jeff Wadlow wrote this story, which will be directed by visual effects artists Dave Wilson. Music was created by horror movie go-to composer Steve Jablonsky(Ender’s Game, Transformers series, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, The Amityville Horror, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre).
As with Deadpool and Venom, this second tier character and footage is going to get superhero fans into theaters. Here is the first trailer, with Vin Diesel starring in Bloodshot:
Actor and Kansas City Royals baseball fan Paul Rudd stars in a new World War II movie premiering next month. He plays real-life professional baseball Morris “Moe” Berg in this espionage thriller from director Ben Lewin (Please Stand By). The movie adapts the true story of the catcher who became a World War II spy. The Boston Red Sox player was a private figure when, in 1944, the U.S. government’s wartime intelligence agency enlisted his services. His mission: To go behind enemy lines in Europe to assassinate the Nazi’s chief nuclear scientist before the Germans develop an atomic bomb. IFC Films is marketing the film as a high-stakes game of cat and mouse.
The film stars Rudd along with Paul Giamatti(Cinderella Man, The Illusionist, The Amazing Spider-man 2),Mark Strong(The Imitation Game, Kingsman, Shazam!), Jeff Daniels(Good Night, Good Luck, Radio Days),Sienna Miller(G.I. Joe: The Rise of COBRA, Layer Cake), Tom Wilkinson(Valkyrie),Guy Pearce(Alien: Covenant, Iron Man 3), and Wonder Woman’s Queen Hippolyta, Connie Nielsen. Adapted from a book The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg, by Nicholas Dawidoff, with a script by Robert Rodat(Saving Private Ryan, Thor: The Dark World), the film has a similar look and feel to other recent World War II espionage thrillers, like Tom Cruise’s Valkyrie and Benedict Cumberbatch’s The Imitation Game.
Production design is by Academy Award-winning designer Luciana Arrighi(Howard’s End, Remains of the Day). Costumes were designed by Joan Bergin (The Prestige, In the Name of the Father, My Left Foot, Vikings). Three-time Oscar winning composer Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit) created the musical score.
Here’s Paul Rudd starring in the trailer for The Catcher Was a Spy:
Directed by Ridley Scott and written by John Logan, Alien: Covenant is coming to theaters this summer. It is another of those rare and unusual films: The prequel that is also a sequel. It is the sequel to Prometheus (2012), so it is the second installment in the Alien franchise chronologically, prequel to the original Alien (1979), and the sixth movie produced in the series.
The film tracks a colony ship, the Covenant, which arrives at a habitable planet and finds Michael Fassbender’s cyborg David, who we last saw at the end of Prometheus. Fassbender plays dual roles, as the Weyland Corporation’s creation is also a member of the Covenant, as seen in the below preview.
Fassbender, Noomi Rapace, and Guy Pearce return from Prometheus in Alien: Covenant. New players include James Franco, Katherine Waterston (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), Billy Crudup (Watchmen), Danny McBride (Superbad, Fanboys), Demián Bichir (The Hateful Eight), Carmen Ejogo (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), Amy Seimetz (Stranger Things), Jussie Smollett (Revenge), Callie Hernandez (Machete Kills, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For), Nathaniel Dean (Farscape), and Alexander England (Gods of Egypt).
Check out this unusual preview, the first five minutes of the film: Continue reading →
On Christmas Eve 20th Century Fox released the first trailer for Ridley Scott’s next gory chapter in the Alien cycle, Alien: Covenant. In a bit of a deja vu, only four years ago we saw the first trailer and images of Ridley Scott’s touted reboot of the Alien franchise in the 2013 theatrical release Prometheus. Like the trailer for Prometheus, we are left scratching our heads. Alien: Covenant is the sequel to Prometheus, and prequel to the original Alien, yet the trailer makes the new film look an awful lot like the original Alien. Is Scott really releasing a cloaked remake of Alien, banking on some idea similar to the formula J.J. Abrams succeeded with in last year’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens (a remake of sorts of the original Star Wars)?
Assuming the trailer reflects the final film, which admittedly is not always the case, Alien: Covenant may appeal to fans of the horror and sci-fi shocker Alien. But what about the fans of the Alien sequel Aliens, which focused more on the action above the science fiction and horror components?
Viewers are left to assume that blood-and-gore horror is going to take center stage in Alien: Covenant, although we’ll no doubt get some bits and pieces of sci-fi and some action along the way. The story revolves around the crew of the colony ship Covenant. The crew encounters a planet that is not what it seems and a familiar face–Michael Fassbender’s synthetic borg David, survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.
Is it me, or does Tony Stark have more supersuits than any other superhero? Robert Downey, Jr. returns next spring with the fourth movie featuring Iron Man, Iron Man 3, with the new Iron Man armor we previewed here this past summer from Comic-Con in San Diego.
You wouldn’t think you could go wrong with Downey playing Stark in another movie, but all you have to do is think back and remember Iron Man 2, possibly the weakest of the Avengers films so far. Yet the first Iron Man and The Avengers were brilliant. Why can’t they just stop everything and work on The Avengers 2? Check out the first trailer released hours ago for Iron Man 3:
