If the movie Bad Boys featured two white guys in the lead roles it would be This Means War.  The only difference between them is the filmmaking mechanics were executed better in the former while the latter encompasses playful and sharper skit ideas.

The first 10 of the 98 minutes, quickly has one getting nervous that this could be another McG stinker.  After coming off a horrible directing performance with Terminator: Salvation, the guy goes back to a genre that he has shown glimpses of being able to handle (he directed the Charlie’s Angels adaptations).  This action/comedy/romance, well, more like comedy/romance/action requires just a bit of patience.  But once the screenplay finds its groove, the laughs pile on.

And much of these laughs stem from the surprising charismatic performances of Tom Hardy and Chris Pine.  Both are secret agents with different lifestyles.  Pine embodies the flashy playboy, not-care-in-life character while Hardy is the quiet conservative…aside from his assortment of tattoos.  One thing they both have in common is they are kick-ass agents with their own unique sense of humors.  And they love wearing one-size too small V-neck t-shirts.   The duo complements each other well and their timing and chemistry is natural and fluent.  When they are separated though, the entertainment levels can falter.  The reason they get detached on screen is due to them both becoming infatuated with the same girl in Reese Witherspoon – who is aging quite well by the way.  At this point, they both try to stay one step ahead of each other as they have a gentlemen’s agreement not to sabotage the other’s chances in winning Witherspoon’s heart.

Now while their individual scenes with Witherspoon are tired and clichéd; the script remedies that with a nice angle showcasing both guys using their agency resources to gather Intel on the girl, and also keep tabs on each other’s respective progress.  Their teams fill in nicely and also project great chemistry with the leads.   And the script is aware that each agent knows what tactics the other will use, therefore, an amusing one-upmanship game is injected that also instigates laughing-with-noise moments (hey, at least I didn’t type LOL).  Then there’s the times where the camera focuses on Witherspoon and her older sister played by Chelsea Handler.  Though it was a nice surprise to see two action movie guys display solid comedic chops, the pro that is Handler steals the show with her hilarious brutal metaphors and candid one-liners.  All of this occurs when Witherspoon needs advice and runs to Handler in a decent of amount of isolated scenes when it’s just girl time.

Is there any action?  Not really.  The opening segment, which introduces the film’s underutilized villain (Til Schweiger), is moving too fast for anyone to care.  In fact, the only other action-sequence doesn’t pop up until the final 15 minutes or so.  However, that one – centered on a high-speed chase/shootout – is pretty cool in a tongue-in-cheek type of way.

Bottom line, This Means War is funny in a clever, yet dorky, manner.  McG keeps this one together behind the lens, despite going over a few rough patches.  Even elements such as the mood-setting soundtrack gives some credence that this was a well-thought-out game plan, save for a handful of execution and editing blunders.  The team of Hardy, Pine, and Handler elevate a generic script to ideal date movie satisfaction.

For the record, I went solo to the press screening and still obviously dug it.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5

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In November Disney halted production on their remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea which was to be directed by Terminator Salvation director McG. The film was said to be an origin story for the central character, Captain Nemo, as he builds his warship, the Nautilus.

There hasn’t been any signs of life from the project in months and it was looking likely that it was being sent back to the watery depths of development hell, however the man who made Brad Pitt wrinkly in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button may have caused the Nautilus to resurface.

From HeatVision:

Months after deep-sixing a McG-helmed version of “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” Disney is in negotiations with David Fincher to direct, and hot “Bourne Ultimatum” scribe Scott Z. Burns to write, a new take on the classic Jules Verne story.

The project came together after Fincher approached Disney’s new production head Sean Bailey a few weeks into his job this winter. The Oscar-nominated helmer wanted to tackle a four-quadrant tentpole movie, somewhat of a departure from the dark, R-rated dramas such as “Fight Club” and “Zodiac” (or even “Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) that he’s done in the past.

The project was being developed under the radar as Bailey settled into his position under new studio topper Rich Ross, then gained steam in the past few days with Fincher and Burns entering talks for deals.

Nothing more is known at the moment, however HeatVision say it is described as being in the vein of Star Wars or The Empire Strikes Back and will aim to be visually dazzling.

What do you think about the man behind Fight Club and Button taking on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?

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Things don’t seem to be working out for McG recently. Before the release of Terminator Salvation he began development on Terminator 5, however he intended to film Captain Nemo: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for Disney before that. Cut to now and the Terminator rights are being auctioned off, preventing any work on the next Terminator film, and now according to Variety Disney have halted Nemo.

Disney has put “Captain Nemo: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” in dry dock.

The picture, tentatively scheduled to begin production in February, has been halted indefinitely, and McG is no longer steering the ship. The studio confirmed that it won’t proceed with the film for now, and reps for the director confirmed he has withdrawn. While names like Will Smith were rumored as possible stars, no cast was ever set. The project had been on a fast track under the Dick Cook regime. Studio sez event pics like “20,000 Leagues,” “John Carter of Mars” and “Tron” are still priority under new chief Rich Ross.

McG will now focus on a drama called Dead Spy Running for Warner Bros.

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Warner Bros have released a 5 minute featurette which shows a scene involving Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) and Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) taking on The Harvester, or as director McG puts it “The Harvester attacking humanity”. After the clip we go behind the scenes and see how they filmed it. I usually don’t post clips because I think you should watch the film in it’s entirety, rather than watching 20 minutes worth of the film beforehand in clip format, however this is cool and it is sponsored by Pizza Hut. I like pizza.

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Earlier this year McG said that he expected the ending of Terminator Salvation would “piss off a lot of people”, and now we know what that ending would have been (it has since been changed).

From io9:

That was at a time when there was a very dark ending. There was a great irony in the way this film shook down. There was this leak that Connor dies and they put Connor’s face on top of the machine body of Marcus. Everybody went, “Booooooo, what’s that?” That’s half of it [the ending]. We had a jet-black ending. Connor dies, we’re in a room with all the people we care about. You take Connor’s likeness, you put it on the living machine of Marcus. He sits up, now looking like Christian Bale, takes a gun, kills Kate, kills Kyle, kills Star, kills everybody, eyes flare red, [snaps] the end.

If this ending was still part of the film I think it would piss off a lot of people. Everyone goes into a movie expecting a happy and fulfilling conclusion, so this would have been a major shock to the system. I quite like it when movies do something different so I would probably enjoyed this ending (despite the murdering).

To see the new ending we’ll have to go and see the film in a few weeks time.

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Terminator Salvation takes place in 2018 where Skynet and the machines are running the show. John Connor (Christian Bale) is leading the human resistance who are trying to stay alive and take down Skynet. However, for the sequel McG has suggested that we may see John Connor battling machines in a modern day 2011.

From Film Journal:

“I strongly suspect the next movie is going to take place in a [pre-Judgment Day] 2011,” McG reveals. “John Connor is going to travel back in time and he’s going to have to galvanize the militaries of the world for an impending Skynet invasion. They’ve figured out time travel to the degree where they can send more than one naked entity. So you’re going to have hunter killers and transports and harvesters and everything arriving in our time and Connor fighting back with conventional military warfare, which I think is going to be fucking awesome.

I also think he’s going to meet a scientist that’s going to look a lot like present-day Robert Patrick [who famously played the T-1000 in Terminator 2], talking about stem-cell research and how we can all live as idealized, younger versions of ourselves.”

McG has said in the past that he has a outline for the new trilogy, so this will no doubt be part of the master plan. I wonder where the third film will take place? When you introduce time travel anything is possible. Skynet vs. the dinosaurs anyone?

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Since filming on Terminator Salvation began people have been speculating as to whether Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger would be making an appearance. Last April he said he would be interested if they film in California, but since then we’ve been hearing about bodybuilder lookalikes being used and director McG has made comments about ILM pushing special effects to the limit and that he doesn’t want “today’s Arnold Schwarzenegger.” Now Arnie himself has spoken, and all the hints seem to be making sense now.

From AICN: [spoilers]

Right now, they’re looking at the technology and see if it is possible to create a technology where they can use my image in the film without me actually filming, because I made it clear I don’t have the time… and if they shoot outside the state, I would not participate… But I would be willing to be in the movie if they get the technology together. We have a great relationship with the people making the movie.. McG is the director, he’s a terrific talented guy. I’m going to be at the premiere, I told him I want to be as supportive as possible.

I think that within the next week or so, we will see if they are technologically able to do that. It’s terrific because they basically take technology out of Terminator 1 and use that walk of mine, and somehow bring it in… it’s just a brief scene, where we see one of the leads run into a room and he sees the future terminators because it’s kind of a prequel… then he gets thrown around, then he goes in another room and there’s other terminators, so there’s supposed to be all these new terminators. I think it’s cool to continue on with the franchise, and in case I want to jump over again and get into the acting when we’re through here.

This would be cool if it were to happen. Add the fact that Linda Hamilton will be lending her voice, and it looks like we may have a kick-ass Terminator movie on our hands!

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The whole plan from the beginning was to reboot the Terminator franchise and spawn a few sequels. If Terminator Salvation brings in the money next month (which it probably will) then that will happen, and Terminator Salvation director McG already has those sequels planned out.

From MTV:

“If we have good fortune we have indeed planned out two more ‘Terminator’ pictures,” explained the director, keeping his fingers crossed that “Salvation” opens strongly on May 21st. “There’s an arc of story [in the new sequels].”

This arc will be left open with the ending of “Salvation,” which will point to a “Terminator 5” film. “The ending is indeed elliptical,” McG told us. ‘And it challenges the audience. It’s not a happy little bow of an ending at all. The ending is tough and requires reflection, and in some degrees it bifurcates the audience. You walk back to the car and one person thinks it means this, and the other person thinks it means that.”

As fans know, McG recently signed on to a film version of the Broadway hit “Spring Awakening,” and is also working on an update of another sci-fi classic.

“I’m working on ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ out of Disney,” he said of the update of the Jules Verne tale. “I’m prepping that.”

But if “Salvation” is a big enough hit, those other movies might have to wait until McG and Christian Bale reunite for the fifth “Terminator” flick.

“I would never presume there would be another picture – that is up to the audience,” he explained. “But if the audience jumps up and likes it and wants another one, Christian and I have been talking about it and we’ll see what happens.”

“You have to see how the film is received,” McG added. “And that’s in the hands of the fans.”

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Director McG has spent the past year or so in 2018 with Terminator Salvation, and now according to Production Weekly he has signed up to direct a film set way back in the past.

McG is attached to direct Medieval, a spec script by Mike Finch & Alex Litvak, described as The Dirty Dozen set in medieval times.

That is all of the information that has been released so far. McG is also set to direct 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea: Captain Nemo for Disney, and if all goes well, Terminator 5. This means we probably won’t see Medieval for a year or two.

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First Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen director Michael Bay had a dig at Terminator Salvation due to their use of big robots, to which director McG replied “our large robots have nothing to do with the Transformers robots”. Now it seems the rivalry is still alive and well after McG compared the two films in a recent interview.

From DigitalSpy:

Terminator Salvation director McG has said that his forthcoming action movie is more realistic than blockbuster rival Transformers.

McG dismissed Michael Bay’s robot movies, claiming that they rely on “breakdancing”, “backspins” and implausible action scenes.

“I think Transformers is a terrific picture, but that’s a picture whose genesis is in a toy. They’re sort of more colourful and optimistic and the pictures are sort of breakdancing and flips and backspins,” he said.

“But ours is a very different, real world. Ours is a world of, ‘This is where we can be ten years from now’. The whole idea for doing this movie was to honour the first three movies… But begin again!”

I hope McG and Bay keep this up until the movies are released. I’m quite enjoying the public rivalry.

Who’s side are you on? Transformer Bay or Terminator McG?

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