RoboCop 2013 – Credit: omnicorp.com

Fans of the British actor Hugh Laurie and star of House M.D. will be sad to find out that he, who was originally cast as villain Dick Jones, CEO of Omni Corp in the RoboCop remake, has officially decided to opt out of the role for unknown reasons. Director Jose Padilha and the folks over at MGM are reportedly looking at Clive Owen to take over the role, though nothing is set in stone yet.

Worry not, Robo-lovers, the rest of RoboCop 2013′s star-studded cast, which includes Joel Kinnaman, Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Oldman, Jay Baruchel, Michael Kenneth Williams, Jackie Earle Haley, Abbie Cornish, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste are all set and gearing up for shooting to begin in September.

RoboCop still has a tentative release date of August 2013.

Stay Scared, kids.

The Expendables 2 – Yell! Magazine review:

When The Expendables hit theaters in 2010, word on the street was that it was gonna be 16 different shades of awesome. Stallone writing and directing an ensemble action flick that showcases the best of the best? You’d have to be some kind of deficient to mess up a recipe like that.

And then it came and went, and was a little on the underwhelming side. Played too straight, too much Stallone and Statham, and muddled action scenes directed with the finesse of a gaggle of sock-puppets. It was hokey and hammy, and somehow it wasn’t over-the-top enough. The whole thing just wound up being a crying shame.

Afterward, The Expendables 2 was announced, and everybody’s thinking, “Oh, I see you’re milking the smooth udders of this cash cow so daddy Warbucks can buy himself a Stetson hat and a dump truck full of concubines. I thought this was a failed nostalgic one-shot, not a flaccid franchise showcasing old men shootin’ guns.”

At least, that’s what I said.

Pretentiously lowered expectations at the ready, I stepped into The Expendables 2 expecting more of the same. More of the same quick-cut, obscured hand-to-hand combat. More of the same lame one-liners and more of the same lack of camaraderie and buddy-buddy back-and-forth between the background members themselves.

And by Xenu, I was blown away. Blown to bits, really. Dragged under some tires and thrown into a ravine, only to be eaten by rabid badgers. I felt like I had been through some kind of religious experience.

It’s actually good. It’s actually everything it’s supposed to be. Action packed, intentionally funny, unintentionally funny, suspenseful, properly executed – it delivers on every level it promises to.

Schwarzenegger’s promoted to a role that extends beyond mere cameo. Bruce Willis receives the same treatment. Chuck Norris is a living, breathing in-universe Chuck Norris joke, and every member of the team gets the benefit of being fleshed out more.

He even makes a Chuck Norris joke.

Granted, that isn’t to say that they’re given any sort of depth, I mean, we’re not watching Lorenzo’s Oil here. Still, every member is given a 50% trait boost, and they evolve from being sentient background noise to quipping stereotypes that manage to be funny on a lot of different levels.

Yell! Rating (x/5 Skulls):

4 out of 5 stars

Year Released:

17 August 2012

Director:

Simon West

Cast/Crew

Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Liam Hemsworth, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Yu Nan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger

Genre

Action, Adventure/dd>

Official URL:

TheExpendables2Film.com

We have more on The Expendables 2 after the jump…

Christian Bale and Michael Caine are returning as Bruce Wayne and Alfred, respectively. Others who are returning, not surprisingly, include Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox) and Gary Oldman (Jim Gordon). It was also announced that Tom Hardy will join the cast as Bane, the venom-taking superhuman with the photographic memory.

But what got this guy’s attention was that Anne Hathaway will play the sexy Selina Kyle (aka, Catwoman). The filmography of Anne Hathaway shows her in two distinct roles. The first being the wholesome girl in films like The Princess Diaries and Ella Enchanted and the fucked-up bitch in films like Rachel Getting Married and Havoc. The former was easily believable, while the latter was not (even though I enjoyed the titty shots).

Catwoman is a tough character to play well; she is a mix of diabolical evil witch and flirty sexy bitch. Many have played the role (Michelle Pfeiffer, Halle Berry, and the original Julie Newmar), but only with moderate success. Will Hathaway be able to conjure up her inner kitty with claws? And do it in a way that gets the hairs on the back of our necks to stand up while simultaneously increasing the blood flow to our groins?

Hathaway is a good actress but has always had trouble shaking off her good-girl reputation that began her film career. If I was to guess, I think she will have difficulty. But if she can pull it off, then she might finally throw off the princess persona that she tried getting rid off with the roles of Allison Lang and Kym but failed. Either way, seeing Nolan’s third installment should be as enjoyable as the previous two.

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The acting in this film leaves much to be desired. As all the main characters suffer from the disease (except, perhaps, Olga Kurylenko), blame must be put at the feet of scriptwriter Skip Woods and Timothy Olyphant, as Agent 47, doesn’t help the situation with a performance lacking any believable sense of malevolence. Perhaps he needed to watch Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry or Charles Bronson in Once Upon a Time in the West to get an idea of how to generate a steel-eyed coolness before taking on the role.

The premise for the film, a secret society training hit men from childhood for use by governments in international politics, is intriguing, especially when one of its own is set up for death and must use all of his training to stay alive, but it doesn’t outweigh the bad performances by all involved. Hitman is shit, avoid it.

Yell! Rating (x/5 Skulls):

2 out of 5 stars

Year Released:

21 November 2007

Director:

Xavier Gens

Cast/Crew

Robert Knepper, Timothy Olyphant, Dougray Scott, Olga Kurylenko, Ulrich Thomsen

Genre

Action, Crime

Official URL:

Hitman the Movie (MySpace Official Page)

Did you know that film acting schools teach you how to deliver a great action hero performance?

It happened in the mid ’80s, when Sigourney Weaver took on the acid-blooded alien in James Cameron’s Aliens, that women stopped being the objects of desire or the manipulative bitches, the helpless victims or sexy seductresses, and began to take leading roles in action pictures, kicking ass just as well as the greatest male action heroes.

Although actresses such as Pam Grier as Foxy Brown were breaking ground in the ’70s, it wasn’t until Aliens that women were kicking butt in the mainstream. They had the occasional part, like Grace Jones in Conan the Destroyer that showed some toughness, but they weren’t the main ticket unless they were a superhero of some sort (Supergirl, Red Sonja) to make their toughness believable.

No, it took Sigourney in a front-end loader knockin’ the brains out of an alien to break open the idea that a female can lead in an action film. Once she did it, the floodgates opened and women have been wasting bad guys with guns and fists ever since.

We at Yell! Magazine find the last 30 years the most exciting in film. We love a woman who stands up for herself. We find women, who need no man to protect them, the most attractive females today. With that in mind, here are our choices for the best tough chick roles over the last three decades.

No.30 Rene Russo

Lorna Cole, Lethal Weapon III (1992)

This tough chick works for the Internal Affairs Dept. of the LAPD and takes no guff from anyone. Kicking the ass of five bad guys impressed Martin Riggs so much he married her.

No.29 Kristy Swanson

Buffy Summers, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer (1992)

Having an uncanny ability to kill vampires gives this beautiful teen cheerleader the responsibility of protecting her town from a infestation of the blood sucking beasts. Buffy uses her gymnastic ability along with the usual anti-vampire weaponry (stakes and so on) to dispatch every fanged monster that stands in her way.

No.28 Cameron Diaz

Natalie Cook, Charlie’s Angels (2000)

Natalie, with her two partners, uses martial arts and sex appeal to protect their mystery boss Charlie from a group trying to kill him. She takes on all comers including the infamous Thin Man.

No.27 Drew Barrymore

Dylan Sanders, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003)

Dylan is back kicking male ass all over the screen in a second Angel’s movie. This time she, with the help of her two partners, must stop ex-Angel Madison Lee and the Thin Man from selling the government’s witness protection database to the highest bidder.

No.26 Bridget Fonda

Maggie Hayward, Point of No Return (1993)

Turning her life around wasn’t in her life plans, but after taking a bullet to the leg and kicking the ass of her jailer she became Nina, one of the CIA’s ultimate assassins. She even had the balls to leave the profession on her own terms.

No.25 Cynthia Rothrock

Kathy Galagher, Lady Dragon (1992)

Seeing her husband killed on her wedding day causes CIA agent Kathy Gallagher to hunt down the murderer. Being raped and beaten, and then thrown out onto the side of a road doesn’t deter this tough chick from recovering, then confronting and defeating the arms-dealing bad guy.

No.24 Pamela Anderson

Barb Wire, Barb Wire (1996)

She is a bar owner who moonlights as a bounty hunter in a futuristic USA during a second civil war. She (Pamela Anderson) uses guns, fists, and sexuality to get what she wants and not even a fat kingpin or Nazi-like general can stop her when she decides to help a resistance leader escape to Canada.

No.23 Charlize Theron

Aeon Flux, Aeon Flux (2005)

An assassin charged with killing the leader of her world, Aeon Flux is a powerful force that can’t be stopped. Using all the technology of this future world along with an expertise in martial arts and weapon’s training she almost succeeds until she finds out the secret truth of her perfect society.

No.22 Angelina Jolie

Lara Croft, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)

A female Indiana Jones who kicks ass better than the original, Lara takes on a secret society who wishes to rule the world. An ambidextrous gun-toting karate expert who looks good in tight clothing with a sexy British accent, what’s not to be impressed about?

No.21 Sharon Stone

Ellen, The Quick and the Dead (1995)

Gun slinging is the name of the game for this blond tough chick. Riding into a town run by her father’s killer, Ellen arrives bent on revenge. She enters a gun fight tournament taking place at the time and must face both her nemesis’ henchman and son before facing the murderer himself.

Action movies from the ’80s are also another favorite of producers and are tarnished by remakes. We just recently saw a bad reboot with Predators, which was produced by Robert Rodriguez and directed by a up-and-coming American/Hungarian director Nimród Antal. However, this reboot was still much better than its predecessor series of Alien vs. Predator. Just ask Mr. “I’m the king of the World!” Cameron on what he thinks of any remake/reboot of his and you’ll get a serious Navi slap in the face.

Twentieth Century Fox announced back in April 2010 its intention to remake Commando, with Sam Worthington in the starring role. As much as we respect his acting skills from Avatar and Terminator Salvation, we question this Australian-raised actor’s abilities to pull off another Ahhnold. Apparently Fox wants to put a new spin on the main character and make it more of a tactical operation. However, the heart of the story (daughter gets kidnapped and father comes to her rescue) will still be kept intact.

George Miller has been on a serious quest to reboot his first ever feature-length movie Mad Max (1979). Sad news is that this will be the first Mad Max movie not to star Mel Gibson. Small time actor James Frecheville already auditioned for a part and rumors of Tom Hardy to cast as Max have already spread among some of us. Due to delays or possibly conflicts with other movies in preproduction like Batman 3 (another rumor) might have been a cause for his fallout. Charlize Theron seems to be onboard and Sam Worthington won’t be the star in the officially titled Mad Max: Fury Road.

Do you think it was a good call to remake these two classics? We think this will cost them at the box office!

As more news develops on Commando and Mad Max: Fury Road, be sure to check us out daily to get all the latest updates, pictures and trailers on Yell! Magazine.

Sam Worthington in Commando remake

John Carpenter and Kurt Russell have worked on many films together, including The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China and Escape from L.A., the sequel to the movie we are reviewing presently. Although the box office might not reflect the success of the two, you are usually not disappointed with the collaboration.

Escape from New York is a cult favorite from the early ’80s. Russell stars as Snake Plissken, an eye-patched anti-hero who is recruited by Police Commissioner Bob Hauk (Lee Van Cleef) to fly into the city prison of Manhattan to rescue the president of the United States (Donald Pleasence).

Snake is given two incentives to complete the mission. First, he will be pardoned (what anti-hero is not a disgruntled criminal wrongly convicted of crimes against the state?) and second, he will live as the poison he was injected with will kill him if he doesn’t return for the antidote with the president in time for and important speech he will make.

Snake flies in on a glider landing atop of the World Trade Center. From this point on he must face cannibals and arch criminals who are bent on using the president as a means of escaping their Manhattan prison. Leading the bad guys is singing great Isaac Hayes as The Duke of New York. Snake takes on the Duke with the help of Cabbie (Ernest Borgnine), Brain (Harold Dean Stanton), and Maggie (Adrienne Barbeau). Will Snake be successful?

Carpenter has created a great fantasy film of the future. Why build an enumerable number of prisons when you can just put a big wall around an island and knock out the bridges (except for one, which is heavily mined and walled) and then put sentries around the wall. There is no need for guards, you just dump the criminals in and let them attempt to survive the best they can.

With a reputation for criminality worldwide, the Big Apple earned in the ’70s and early ’80s, it’s no wonder Carpenter created a film such as this. Carpenter let his imagination go wild thinking about how the city would look and how the societal structure would develop. He even goes so far as hinting at a really dark side to letting anarchy reign in a city full of deviants without turning it into a rape and snuff film.

Yell! Rating (x/5 Skulls):

4.5 out of 5 stars

Year Released:

10 July 1981 (USA)

Director:

John Carpenter

Cast/Crew

Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton

Genre

Sci-Fi, Action, Crime

Official URL:

none

I wonder what William Golding (author of Lord of the Flies) would think of this Kinji Fukasaku’s film starring Japanese icon Takashi Kitano and a large cast of teens. Would he appreciate the discarding of most of the plot points that build up to murder in his novel and have all his characters just go at it right from the start? Instead of being shipwrecked, the kids (40 ninth graders of both sexes) are kidnapped (well, more like tricked into thinking they are going on an innocent class trip) and forced into a fight for their lives.

Sick of putting up with disrespectful and disruptive students who refuse to listen in class and debase themselves with sex, alcohol, and drugs, their professor (Kitano) decides to teach them all the ultimate lesson. Placing traps and stores of weapons around an island they now inhabit, Kitano informs the group they must kill one another until only one survives. If they refuse, they will all be killed immediately. If the game doesn’t have a winner at the end of the three days, the remaining student left alive will be killed also.

Fukasaku’s screenplay, taken from the novel by Koushun Takami, must have resonance with every teacher of public schools around the world as its sentiment is representational, though extremely exaggerated. The film, if taken seriously, is a chilling reaction to modern teen behavior (as the teachers are worse than those they punish making their authority illegitimate). But if viewed under the context it is given, as entertainment, it becomes a fun and satirical look at what would be the results if every frustrated teacher’s evil imagination is let to run amok through the student population.

Battle Royale Trailer:

Battle Royale Gallery:

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Yell! Rating:

4.5 out of 5 stars

Year Released:

16 December 2000 (Japan)

Director:

Kinji Fukasaku

Cast/Crew

Tatsuya Fujiwara, Chiaki Kuriyama, Tarô Yamamoto, Aki Maeda, Takeshi Kitano

Genre

Exploitation, Snuff Film, Horror, Cannibal

Official URL:

Battle Royale