May 2013

RoboCop Sixth-Scale Figure

Robocop

Dead or alive, you are coming with me. Seriously, this 30 cm RoboCop Sixth-Scale Figure is pretty damn sweet. Featuring more than 30 points of articulation and diecast materials “for greater realism,” RoboCop comes with his gun (and leg holster), swappable hands along with battle-damaged helmets and chest plates, and will even speak six phrases from the film. If you’re willing to go a little further you can get him complete with his mechanical chair for $425 or stick with RoboCop alone for $300.

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Do you believe in magic?

  • Title: Now You See Me
  • IMDB: link

Now You See MeWho better to center a glitzy over-the-top heist caper on than masters of misdirection? Director Louis Leterrier offers us a tale of four talented but struggling magicians (Jesse EisenbergWoody HarrelsonIsla FisherDave Franco) brought together be forces larger than themselves to become the most sought after magic show in the world. And in their free time they also rob banks.

Those looking for an example of what separates a good movie from a great movie need look no further than the script by Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin, and Edward Ricourt. That, along with the film’s talent cast and a slick look balancing real sleight of hand with CGI effects, gives Leterrier all the necessary ingredients to offer us what could have been the coolest movie of the Summer. Despite a great set-up, however, Now You See Me eventually runs out of gas with an over-complicated final act, a questionable late twist, and a prolonged epilogue that draws out events well beyond what is necessary. The film’s biggest weakness is not allowing itself to play the magician or be willing to leave the audience with any questions about what they have seen.

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After Earth

  • Title: After Earth
  • IMDB: link

After EarthBased on an idea from one of the film’s stars, the latest from director M. Night Shyamalan stars Will Smith and Jaden Smith as an estranged father and son in the far future who crash-land on a post-apocalyptic version of an abandoned Earth and must work together to survive. Part coming of age story, part father/son dynamic, part horror film, and part shaky science fiction, After Earth proves to be the most straightforward movie of Shyamalan’s career. Instead of twists or late reveals After Earth relies on drama, action, and ramped-up tension to play out a predictable story.

After racing through setting up this version of the future, the destruction of Earth, the settlement across the galaxy, and humanity’s battle with generic movie monster aliens known as Ursas (creatures who can smell and track fear of their prey across great distances), our story begins in earnest with General Cypher Raige (Will Smith) arriving home from his latest assignment to his talented but skittish son Katai (Jaden Smith) who on that very day has been denied advancement in the Ranger Corps for his inability to show calm in the face of danger.

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Psych – No Trout About It

  • Title: Psych – No Trout About It
  • tv.com: link

“He showed all the tell-tale symptoms of Blink-182 poisoning.”

Psych - No Trout About It

When a out of control car chase ends in the wrecks of both Lassiter (Timothy Omundson) and Gus’ (Dulé Hill) cars as well as disrupting a holiday marathon, the new mayor sends in a consultant to take a hard look at The Santa Barbara Police Department. The first thing Harris Trout (Anthony Michael Hall) does is to fire Shawn (James Roday) and Gus. In an attempt to win back their jobs, Shawn relates the series of events that led to that morning’s fiasco through a series of flashbacks inter-cut with Trout’s questioning, beginning with their client (Joey Slotnick) who hired the pair to discover who poisoned him and is responsible for the theft of $10 million dollars from a safety deposit box in the bank where the victim worked.

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A + X #8

A + X #8The concept for A + X is pretty simple. It’s your basic team-up issue with one member of the Avengers working with one member of the X-Men. Broken into a main story and a back-up story (featuring a different team-up) I’ve found the series to be occasionally entertaining but also inconsistent as usually one story in each issue is far better than the other. A+X #8 marked an occasion where I liked the possibilities of both team-ups.

The first story gives us Spider-Woman and Kitty Pryde working together to take down the Absorbing Man and agents of A.I.M. in the New York underground. Although it was Spider-Woman’s inclusion that made me pick up the issue, the story is actually far more about Kitty Pryde and how scary powerful she has become. In truth Jessica Drew is little more than back-up here.

Although I’ve never been a big fan of Hawkeye, I really enjoyed Deadpool Team-Up and the idea of Deadpool driving any Avenger crazy for half an issue appealed to me. Despite having some nice moments as well, the story isn’t nearly as zany or outrageous as I was hoping. Hit-and-Miss.

[Marvel, $3.99]

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