Movie Scum

As N ick Offerman ’s character says in 22 Jump Street , no one gave a shit about the “Jump Street reboot” but it did well enough to be brought back again. Only everyone wants the exact same thing. Fortunately, this movie is smarter than to retread standard sequel ground. After a illegal goods bust gone bad, Jenko ( Channing Tatum ) and Schmidt ( Jonah Hill ) are reassigned back to the Jump Street project, still under the direction of the angry black captain Dickson played by Ice Cube, to go undercover to college and investigate a new synthetic drug. Everyone emphasizes that Schmidt and Jenko are to do the exact same thing to crack the case. Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller know well enough that standard sequel shenanigans won’t cut it after the meta-infused original that skewered the idea of Hollywood recycling and unoriginal ideas. As such, Lord and Miller turn their attention to the notion of second outings, and their built-in expectations of more of the first film...

Unbreakable   was a modest success for director M. Night Shyamalan after his genuinely good (remember when that was true) debut and now, Night longs to bring it to TV. Speaking with IGN , Shyamalan expresses interest in continuing the saga of undercover superheroes (note: I haven’t seen this movie in forever) saying. “as a way continue the story, yes. That would [interest me].” We here at Movie Scum are strongly in favor of the shift to great, truncated TV dramas but are hesitant that M. Night (regardless of whatever acclaim his recent show Wayward Pines is getting) should be allowed anywhere near the same medium as The Good Wife , Game of Thrones , or Breaking Bad . And let us not forget that he directed The Happening . And The Last Airbender . And After Earth . And ...

San Andreas : Opening May 29 The Good : Disaster movies are fun, especially when they take place (like they seem to do the majority of the time) on the West Coast full of granola-crunching hippies singing Kumbaya (note: I’ve never been further west than Ohio). Disaster movies these days are also good for mediocre special effects showing the complete destruction of iconic areas and landmarks and San Andreas looks no different. But if anyone can take on the mother of all earthquakes, it’s The Rock with sidekick Carla Gugino. The Bad : Let’s be honest though. The disaster movie genre of the 70s is long gone and it took with it any sense of characterization or possible realism. San Andreas is a Hollywood producer’s wet dream with big blockbustin’ stars, action, effects ... the whole nine yards. And boy, does it show it in every single trailer or TV spot I’ve seen for this with the crumbling buildings, massive chasms in the ground and a 100’ tidal wave that The Rock(!) powers a speed...

Aside from a voice-over role in Gnomeo and Juliet and an assuredly special episode of Walker, Texas Ranger , Hulk Hogan has mostly kept his hijinks in the fake ring of professional wrestling. Will that be changing soon? Not since Hogan and Tiny ‘Zeus’ Lister faced off with the smarmy assistant from Ghostbusters 2 in No Holds Barred have I been as excited about The Hulk appearing against a bunch of wrinkle-faced mutants (Gremlins 2 not withstanding). The Hulk confirms talks with Sylvester Stallone about appearing in the presumably forthcoming Expendables 4 as the villainous villain who no doubt will kill and maim and bring our rag-tag team of Expendables (and maybe -belles) together. Considering The Rock is likely a good twenty years away from taking this role, Hogan seems like a good fit. I just hope they can find a suitable stunt man.

In a grim look a at teenager’s life, White Rabbit shows that some people are born to be hunters and some are molded that way. Tim McCann ’s film is at times not predicable and at others you can completely see everything unfold. Beginning with Harlon ( Nick Krause ) as a boy whose father eggs him into killing a trapped white rabbit and jumping forward through the years to show the systematic abuse he suffers from classmates, teachers, and even his own drug-addled and drunk father, it is clear that Harlon is not emotionally stable. Couple this with his obsession with a comic book that he speaks to, Harlon has little in his life of note with the exception of Steve, a younger boy also forced to suffer at the hands of society. Things begin to get better when Harlon meets Julie ( Britt Robertson ), a new transplant into his high school who has issues of her own but the two forge a bond and almost a relationship through alcohol, drugs, and shooting guns in the small town. Soon though,...

If you weren’t aware, there is a new Fantastic Four film coming out this summer. By all accounts (and certainly by previous output), it will suck. But it will not be because of race. Michael B. Jordan plays the Human Torch (aka The Flamer) in the newest adaptation of Marvel’s iconic comic series that so far has registered a big fat zero on the interest scale of Puck’s movie watching. This one was really no different, not for race or changing of the villain to a blogger or anything of that nature, but because I don’t really care. Some people really do care though. In case you have never seen Chronicle, Jordan is black. The Human Torch in his comic form is white. This has apparently caused much consternation for people. On one hand no doubt, you have comic book purists who would would rather flamboyantly set themselves on fire than have any deviation from their precious source material. They are idiots and lonely and have nothing to hang to other than seeing big screen adven...

One’s a low-cost remake of an 80s classic while the other’s a big-budget original tale. Who will win? Tomorrowland Having only skimmed advance reviews, I still have little idea what Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland is about save for George Clooney being a curmudgeon and a magical pin that transports Britt Robertson to the titular place. Of that skimming though, I took away that Bird may have been better off taking over the Star Wars Franchise. Verdict: Live Another Day Poltergeist Some might say this is an unnecessary remake (and they’re probably right), but the fact is that kids born prior to the 90s aren’t scared by static on TV anymore than they know what a stinkin’ CRT TV looks like. Some of the scenes shown thus far look good but the whole affair seems to hem quite closely to the original (and still very effective original). Verdict: Just another reel on the cinematic Indian burial ground of needless remakes.

The only film director more past his prime than Kevin Smith, George Romero , will have his groaning, shuffling corpse of relevance displayed on weekly TV. Romero, fresh off the disappointments of his last several zombie movies, apparently turned to Marvel to create ‘ Empire of the Dead ,’ a story which features humans, zombies, and vampires for some reason all vying for control or social issues or some nonsense. And according to Variety , it will be joining the growing party of the undead on weekly broadcast. No word yet on how much it will suck.

In spite of the rumor* that all the Transformers films thus far have been impromptu sketches from the mind of Michael Bay, there actually were credited writers on each and every one. Now their are more writers who get the renowned prestige of listing Transformers on their resume. Variety reports that the threatened Transformers spin-offs and sequels have found writers ranging from The Walking Dead ’s Robert Kirkman to at least four other action writers not currently attached to scribe a Marvel film. Perhaps it is best that Paramount is going this thoroughly asinine way of expanding the Transformers universe to finally fulfill either the prophecy of End of Times or a public saturation of robot-based racial and testicle jokes. One of the two has to be the result. *I made up this rumor. But it tracks.

One for the kids ... one for the slightly more grown kids. Pitch Perfect 2 When 2012’s Pitch Perfect opened, it was a modest hit but with tremendous staying power thanks in no part to that damn Cups song. But now Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson are back in a ‘Bring It On’ style dance off after being booted from their competition. Will they succeed? Will Rebel Wilson steal the show again? Will there be another damn song that somehow is still popular a year after the movie premieres? Verdict: Please no more Cups! Mad Max: Fury Road We’ve already covered this one before but guns! Explosions! Tom Hardy! George Miller returning to his roots after some questionable directorial affairs like Babe and Happy Feet! Verdict: It’s Tom Hardy! Of course it’ll be badass.

According to Comingsoon.net , the Fairuza Balk & Neve Campbell scorcher The Craft is next on the reboot chopping block. Add in a remake of She’s All That , I Know What You Did Last Summer , and a TV revival of the series Scream , there seems to be little else to remake from just fifteen years ago. And yet, still no word on a remake for Urban Legend . I wonder about the world sometimes.

In his interview with Indiewire , 28 Days Later writer Alex Garland may have come up with another sequel following the not-quite-zombie exodus from England to the rest of Europe. “In that conversation, an idea for ‘28 Months’ arrived. I had a sort of weird idea that popped into my head. Partly because of a trip I’d taken. I had this thought, and I suggested it to Andrew [Macdonald] and Danny, but I also said I don’t want to work on it. I don’t really want to play a role, and Andrew said, ‘Leave it to me.’ So he’s gone off and is working on it.” Considering the first film was a powerhouse of man versus nature-ish as well as emphasizing the brutality of human nature, the sequel, 28 Weeks Later which Garland was not directly involved in was a laugh-fest of poor decisions and questionable plot points. Here’s to hoping the next one gets it right in the quasi-zombie and/or infected saga.