Mickey Rourke has taken the reins from Channing Tatum in a film version of Philip Carlo’s book The Ice Man. The book centers around the mystique of Richard Kuklinski, a real-life contract killer for the Italian-American mafia who happened to slay 200 people until his death in 2006.

The man was particularly cruel, and I don’t think Rourke would take offense to the comment that he has an ability to embody someone with the ferocity of Kuklinski far more capably than Tatum.

Carlo announced after meeting with Rourke that the pair would be “producing it together. We’ll shoot in the spring in New York, New Jersey and Florida.” Also, according to Carlo, “[Rourke's] talking about it being his Raging Bull. ” While no director has been attached to the film (it’s not even apparent whether Carlo will be writing the script or not), it seems that at least Carlo and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura are aiming to transform a monster into Oscar gold.

What do you think? Does a story like Kuklinski’s deserve to be rewarded with a high-profile Oscar-bait film?

G.I. Joe, where have you been all summer? Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and X-Men Origins: Wolverine failed to deliver the kind of mindless, entertaining fun that summer so often brings while everything else outside of Star Trek has been more concerned with being artistic than enjoyable. It’s strange, scribing those sentences and the ones that will be written considering all the bashing and hate I’ve spewed toward Stephen Sommers ever since he poisoned humanity with Van Helsing. He picked the right year to finally make a decent film; Sommers not only beat, but destroyed Michael Bay at his own game. Yes, as much of a shock as this will be to some of you, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is not the worst film ever made. In fact, it’s the G.I. Joe movie one imagines when playing with action figures as a boy.

Sommers not only beat, but destroyed Michael Bay

Back to Sommers though, who (for starters) I owe an apology to. The material is well-suited for him – cheesy, patriotic and bombastic. True, a serious G.I. Joe film would be intriguing. Sommers is able to capture the spirit and tone of the cartoons and comic books. We’re never promised an award-winning plot or artiste acting. Not the product Sommers wants to deliver to us. He provides us with exactly what we wanted out of all those comics and ‘toons which is good guys and bad guys knocking the hell out of each other. And boy do we get plenty of that, as G.I. Joe assaults with one exciting action scene after another, giving just enough time for everyone to catch his breath before ramping things back up again. The much hyped Paris scene doesn’t disappoint and maintains a perfect thrill ride of an action sequence. Missiles whiz by, men jump over and through trains and mayhem ensues. Best of all, the entire thing is coherent and displays some engaging action shots that tell the adrenaline to pump.

Yet with these exciting, thrilling sequences, Sommers is kind enough to let each of the characters have a moment to shine. No one character takes the spotlight from the others as each contributes to taking down the villains in some way, shape or form. For instance in the last battle, one can easily follow who’s fighting who and who’s doing what. Snake Eyes has an epic showdown with Storm Shadow, Duke chases down Cobra Commander and Destro, Ripcord has to save D.C. and Moscow, while Heavy Duty destroys Cobra subs left and right. Sommers allows the characters to all be unique so we know who’s on screen, and it’s not carbon copies of Duke or General Hawk. It’s not a case of getting to know a main character, but knowing who is who and how different purposes mesh. Quite honestly, this is a pretty good example of how to handle a film that deals with a team working together.

Taking a deeper look at the team, most of the actors fit like a glove and, like in Paramount’s other great summer film, they help to elevate the movie. The biggest surprise comes in the form of Marlon Wayans’ Ripcord who actually has some form of a screen presence. Known for his comedy stylings, Wayans keeps it in check here and delivers a solid leading performance. The movie, for many fans, will rest on how Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow are portrayed. Fear not, both are handled exceptionally well, especially Ray Park’s turn as the mute ninja. Unfortunately he’s only in a handful of scenes but by the same token, he gets the best stuff to do. Essentially, Park is in Darth Maul-mode but that doesn’t make Snake Eyes any less of a performance. While the film doesn’t delve into her romance with the aforementioned ninja, Rachel Nichols just feels right as Scarlett. She’s tough when she needs to be, sassy when she needs to be, and sexy at all times. Rounding them out is Dennis Quaid, who hams it up to just the right degree as General Hawk.

On the Cobra side of things, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Cobra Commander. He was a worry going into the picture, but he comes out as the best of all the Cobra operatives by far. He’s menacing and recreates the voice long-time fans are accustomed to without having it sound too over-the-top. Christopher Eccelston holds his own as Destro, although he’s really a downgrade compared to what Gordon-Levitt is doing. Eccelston is still enjoyable, but hardly menacing or conniving. His main squeeze (The Baroness) will surely take away the breath of any male left by Rachel Nichols. Sienna Miller’s fine here, even when she’s not being sexy (which she excels at in this picture). Lee Byung-hun compliments the great work by Ray Park as Snake Eyes’ rival Storm Shadow, never playing the character with angst but a competent coldness. Arnold Vosloo is pure gold as Zartan.

With all of these fine performances on hand, the one who messes up the worst is Channing Tatum. He was originally against doing the film and maybe it should have stayed that way. He’s the John Cena of this group, always showing one emotion and only two or three tones of voice. He’s a tough sell as Duke largely due to Tatum’s complete lack of screen presence. If that’s not enough, he doesn’t have any of the aura of command that the role of Duke needs. The film doesn’t necessarily need it, as it does focus on the team, but it lacks the presence of the other strong protagonists. Duke is just there, admiring all the cool stuff and going along with the flow like his audience. The difference, though, is that he needs to be engaging. We don’t.

Having finally seen the movie, it’s a letdown that Paramount handled things like they did. Understandably it was a troubled production as the trailers didn’t excite anyone and the accelerator suits were huge turn-offs. They had the film they wanted with Revenge of the Fallen and it’s entirely possible The Rise of Cobra will perform better with critics and audiences. It should, as it has some top-notch effects (surprising for Sommers, who usually goes cheap), and some of the most engaging action of the summer.

That’s what G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is at the core. Pure dumb fun, this is the G.I. Joe film fans want and should come away happy with. It doesn’t mask what it is, and that works in the movie’s favor. After Terminator Salvation, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen it’s time for a movie to come and keep to the basics of stupid fun. The boy (or girl) in all of us will want to proclaim it the greatest movie that ever happened and it’s good to know these type of films still exist. Welcome back, Dumb Fun Action Film. This summer’s needed and missed you.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

"I will own you stupid random alien...dude!"

Video game adaptations will never die, despite what we all might think after the abomination trilogy  on the big screen that is Resident Evil. Still taking great advantage of this semi popular genre of sorts, Universal Pictures nabbed itself the rights to the hit 1979 Atari game, Asteroids. For those of you who do remember the game, its the one where…you just hit asteroids and ocassionally a flying saucer. Yeah, I know.

Matthew Lopez will pen the script with Lorenzo di Bonaventura producing, and yes Di Bonaventura is attached as producer to the upcoming late summer movie, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. Pertaining to the actual storyline, it has not been revealed but due to the very simple nature of the video game and overall lack of plot, Universal Pictures will conjure up some form of an original storyline for this feature. After all, this is the booming studio that is coming up with ideas for features out of such classic board games like Candyland.

There was a time when an Eddie Murphy film would be released and it was guaranteed gold. His stint on “Saturday Night Live” is one for the ages, and who can deny the hilarity of Coming to America and Trading Places? Somewhere around Beverly Hills Cop III he took a turn for the worse only to slightly be redeemed by The Nutty Professor and Shrek. As brilliant as he was in Dreamgirls, he seemed to sully that with Norbit and Meet Dave. And now comes Imagine That, a film that slowly rights the ship but ultimately brings it down and crashes it.

Now this blanket will give my career a third comeback right?

The concept of the film itself is actually pretty cute with a father actually going to his daughter’s imaginary world to find solutions to his problems. It’s interesting at the very least and the film plays off of it well for a short time. Murphy’s Evan Danielson comes off well in an otherwise cliche role as Eddie plays him more of a man rushing his daughter out of her “blanket phase” than an overbearing dad who doesn’t care. Director Karey Kirkpatrick delivers a formidable job during these scenes and rarely lets the film stray off. Perhaps the biggest success here in the opening is where most films would have just painted the father as Asshole Supreme, this picture gives Evan problems to paint his character. True it’ll dip into being way too cutesy at time or trying too hard, but somehow everyone makes it work. Even Thomas Haden Church’s over the top Johnny Whitefeather is tolerable during this time. Special mention should be given to Yara Shahidi as Evan’s daughter Olivia. Their relationship is handled fairly decent and nothing comes off forced or stilted.

It’s when Imagine That falls back on what every single family film does where it fails miserably. One might think that’s because it’s been there, done that but it has to do with how terrible the film handles the moments. There’s moments that can easily be seen coming (i.e. – Olivia’s concert colliding with Evan’s big meeting, gasp!) and it’s at this moment the wheels come off. Granted hey were already starting to, but this when the film loses control before it crashes into a fiery explosion of suck. Up to this point, the only groans that are evoked come from Murphy trying to sell a joke too much or some of the hi-jinks Olivia gets him into. Yes, this movie is what it is and no one should be surprised but it’s such a let down after the film had been working up to this point. Kirkpatrick tricks us into trying to like it by saving all of the cutesy bull for the end of the picture. Understandably this is a children’s film and should be taken as such, but the film did goodwill by not thinking it’s audience as mentally handicapped. When it finally thinks the viewers are too stupid to function, it has characters acting one way in one scene only to be the complete opposite in the following scene. This is why Imagine That could clock in as a disappointment given how different everything is handled in the first half as opposed to the second.

The supporting cast is all over the place which will begin with Thomas Haden Church’s Whitefeather. One assumes he’s a metaphor for the film as at first he’s tolerable but ultimately causes pain to the membrane. His “Indian” methods of being better than Evan at pitching work the first time, then make to wish Ronny Cox calls him into his office and introduces him to ED-209 (which, one a side note, I waited for the whole film but never received. Would have been much better had that happened.) The aforementioned Cox is fine even if he’s essentially Dick Jones minus the Dick part. On a personal level it was refreshing because he’s always going to be the Number Two Guy at OCP in my book. Nicole Ari Parker seems to be collecting a paycheck as nothing in the movie surprises, disappoints, or even makes her happy. Martin Sheen makes an appearance as well and he’s always welcome. Unfortunately he plays on one of the terrible cliches this film succumbs to, but Sheen guides the audience through it.

Imagine That‘s a film primed for children so the question is will it play to them. There’s no quirky characters or anything identifiable that a child can shout “that’s awesome” to and relies more on the silliness of Eddie Murphy than anything else. It’s easy for a kid’s film to be “critic proof” but rare that it’s likely to be “audience proof” too. The things that worked were more of the “this isn’t so bad” variety and when the film doesn’t work it’s incredibly off the mark even for children. Eddie Murphy’s better than this, and Imagine That is proof he needs to go back to doing rated-R material.

Rating: ★½☆☆☆ 

UPDATE (10:55 AM PST): According to the good people at CHUD.com via Latino Review as George “El Guapo” Rush posted the following:

We spoke with Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura about this whole firing mess and here’s what he had to say:

Lorenzo: Its very unfair to Steve, its completely untrue he was never asked to leave or been fired or any of that. That’s ridiculous. The movie tested very well.

I hear it tested as good as the first Transformers.

Lorenzo: Well listen, we tested very well and I don’t compare the movies because they are different movies, but you know I think its really destructive for a director…It hurts a guy’s career when people go around talking about that he was fired or he didn’t do a good job and truth is he did a really good job. People are going to enjoy the movie and the test audiences enjoyed the movie.

He did a very good job the movie tested well and it couldn’t be more false that the studio in anyway did anything negatively to Steve.

So what really happened in the editing room?

Lorenzo: Nothing that doesn’t happen on every other movie, which is that you constantly work and work and work and you make it better and better. We had a delay on visual effects so we waited a long time to finish the movie but that’s the only thing. I don’t really know why that would be interpreting it negatively but I guess it was.

In regards to the testing the film has had so far:

Lorenzo: Everybody was happy, the studio was happy, the filmmakers were happy, the audience was happy with the movie. We had three test screenings, three different times and tested it and each time it just got better and better. We started off in a good place and we ende

d up in even in a better place, which is what you hope on a film from testing it.

So there you go. Straight from Lorenzo as he debunks the firing story. Like I said, I’ve heard from my sources that the film was tracking well. We’ve stuck up for this film from the get go. Why? Because we’re fans of G.I. Joe. And I’ve mentioned on Twitter and here numerous times that I think the movie looks kick ass. All know is fans want a good G.I. Joe movie despite the Hollywood politics.  We’ll find out when it hits theaters on August 7th.

So there you have it. Sommers is still attached to G.I. Joe and Kyle Broflovski still gets hemorrhoids. It looks like it’s still set for August 7th but you can’t help but wonder if this is just a clean-up job to prevent bad press for a film that doesn’t have the best buzz. We’ll find out come August.