Category: BMT Live!

Warcraft Preview

It’s the time you’ve all been waiting for! BMT Live. It’s the break in the cycle where Patrick and I take valuable time out of our busy schedule to head to the theater, plunk down our hard earned cash, and watch the worst that Hollywood has to offer (that is playing concurrently in London). If you follow the movie scene at all you might have already realized that Hollywood has provided a golden BMT opportunity in Warcraft. Not only did it get largely negative reviews, but is also far and away the most lopsided domestic/foreign grossing film in history. While it literally broke records overseas, it straight bombed here. A true curiosity. Additionally, because of the solid reception by fans it will almost certainly be the lowest BMeTric scoring film we’ve ever watched. It really couldn’t be missed by us. Almost a BMysTery in and of itself. Let’s go!

Warcraft: The Beginning (2016) – BMeTric: 1.1

Warcraft_BMeT

Warcraft_RV

(Ha. Obviously not much here at the moment. Although fun to see a film like this in action. Sitting at a 7.6 on IMDb Warcraft is an objectively good movie according to that metric, and so obviously the BMeTric is depressed. I liked this movie for Live! Because of how divisive it is. At one point it was under 20% on rotten tomatoes and internet brains were melting. So we’ll see how the BMeTric develops over time. I have a feeling though this will be a sub 15 BMeT for a long time, and yet I’m somewhat confident it will make the Razzie longlist for consideration. We’ll see.)

Rogerebert.com (Christie Lemire) – 1/2 stars –  It is brutal. It is repetitive. It is numbing. And just as it’s ending, “Warcraft” leaves all kinds of plot threads dangling for the ambitious possibility of a sequel. But you’ll be likely to cry “Game Over” because this first one is easily a contender for the worst movie of the year.

(Wow. I wasn’t expecting this review to be quite this brutal. This movie seemed ripe for the classic Leonard Maltin 2 stars “Terrible movie, fun visuals” type of review where you can’t quite figure out where the extra stars are coming from. But rogerebert.com went for the jugular and took this thing down. Gaining confidence in our choice)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rxoz13Bthc

(I believe this is the second trailer. The first trailer was an absolute catastrophe and was when I had a slight inkling this movie probably wouldn’t break the video game adaptation streak. This looks slightly better than that, but still. Leans heavily on the visuals with a somewhat trite seeming story, pretty standard for high fantasy actually.)

Directors – Duncan Jones – (Known For: Moon; Source Code; BMT: Warcraft; Notes: David Bowie’s son, Jones became somewhat of an indie darling with Moon. Subsequently Moon, due to how much of a “little known gem” it is on the internet, has become a meme related to high school aged male cinephiles. Which is unfortunate because Moon is a pretty nice little Sci Fi film, just don’t ever tell anyone you saw it because we all know … it is a hidden gem of a movie.)

Writers – Duncan Jones (screenplay) – (Known For: Moon; BMT: Warcraft; Notes: His middle name is Zowie.)

Charles Leavitt (screenplay) – (Known For: In the Heart of the Sea; Blood Diamond; K-PAX; The Express; The Mighty; BMT: Seventh Son; The Sunchaser; Warcraft; Notes:  A prolific re-writer, his two main bad movie credits (Seventh Son and Warcraft) are rewrites of others works. Born in Pittsburgh, PA.)

Chris Metzen (story and characters) – (BMT: Warcraft; Notes: Well known game designer for Blizzard covering Diablo, Starcraft, all of the iterations of Warcraft, and most recently Overwatch.)

Actors – Travis Fimmel – (Known For: Maggie’s Plan; BMT: Surfer, Dude; The Baytown Outlaws; Warcraft; Notes: A former Australian model discovered working out in a gym in Melbourne. He eventually turned to acting as a career over modelling. Well known for his leading role in the show Vikings.)

Paula Patton – (Known For: Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol; Deja Vu; 2 Guns; Precious; Hitch; About Last Night; Disconnect; Just Wright; Jumping the Broom; Idlewild; BMT: Baggage Claim; Mirrors; Warcraft; Notes: At one point she provided background vocals for Usher. Former wife of Robin Thicke, he has promised to win her back through the power of song, mmmhmmmm)

Ben Foster – (Known For: The Finest Hours; X-Men: The Last Stand; Lone Survivor; The Program; 3:10 to Yuma; Alpha Dog; Hell or High Water; 30 Days of Night; Phone Booth; Big Trouble; Kill Your Darlings; Contraband; The Mechanic; 11:14; The Messenger; Rampart; Get Over It; Ain’t Them Bodies Saints; The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things; Liberty Heights; BMT: 360; The Punisher; Hostage; Pandorum; Warcraft; Notes: Best known to me as the kid in Flash Forward. He’s put together a pretty impressive resume of smaller films since then in his transition from a child actor. Born in Boston.)

Budget/Gross – $160 million / Domestic: $24,356,000 (Worldwide: $286,100,000)

(Will be a resounding financial success internationally, but is going to be an absurd Pacific Rim level catastrophe domestically. Like Pacific Rim I fully expect Legendary, which was just bought out by a Chinese company, to pump out sequels geared toward Chinese audiences going forward (see: Transformers 4 which focuses heavily on Chinese product placement in the back half of the film which was set in Hong Kong I believe).)

#190 for the 3D genre

3dAnalysis

(Again, I like these because there is just so much data it makes a pretty plot. 3D has been going down a bit (I would guess because tentpoles have been sucking up IMAX showings with or without 3D and so there are marginally less theaters available for 3D releases). I will, sadly, likely see this film in 3D, so that makes me sad. Not that I hate 3D, I just don’t want to pay for 3D for this movie).

#64 for the Fantasy – Live Action genre

liveactionfantasyAnalysis

(Will probably end up near Hansel and Gretel and between the two recent bombs in Huntsman and Alice Through the Looking Glass. This genre saw quite the surge after Lord of the Rings I would guess and seems to be a pretty consistent genre since then.)

#15 for the Sword and Sorcery genre

swordandsorceryAnalysis

(It is kind of useless to compare Warcraft to these now, but it looks like it is going to take somewhere in the 50-60 million range domestic … which is absurd. That will most likely be less that fucking Willow! Anyways, I think people were putting too much stock into this movie anyways. Look at these last three plots and realize something: All of these genres aren’t really “surging”, but rather have kind of been consistent in production and performance since 2000. Nothing is really hinging on Warcraft’s success beyond maybe video game adaptations (and they still got their best shot coming, Assassin’s Creed).)

#21 for the Video Game Adaptation genre

videogameadaptationAnalysis

(The good news is Warcraft should make the top ten in the genre. The bad news is that domestically it will now probably be at best the third highest grossing video game adaptation of the year. The genre is surprisingly consistently produced considering literally no video game adaptation has ever reached even the modest benchmark of 50% on rotten tomatoes. The best ever reviewed? Final Fantasy Spirits Within (I saw that in theaters, go me) at 44%. The best on metacritic was Mortal Kombat btw. It really is quite dire, over 15 years that RT record has stood).

Rotten Tomatoes – 27% (34/127): Warcraft has visual thrills to spare, but they — and director Duncan Jones’ distinctive gifts — are wasted on a sluggish and derivative adaptation of a bestselling game with little evident cinematic value.

(See above for some commentary on the RT score. Basically this did nothing to help the cause in getting video game adaptations taken more seriously by critics. This film is incredibly divisive. On the internet there is much debate about the stark contrast between critic reviews and audience reviews. And yet people openly admit that the movie is in fact derivative and possessing little cinematic value. The question you have to ask yourself is: is merely being entertaining the benchmark for success for a movie like this? And this is why I’m actually genuinely interested in seeing this film)

Poster – Sklogcraft (C-)

warcraft_ver8_xlg

(I don’t like it, but I feel like I should. Like I’m an old man and behind the times and that I should somehow understand that this poster is good. But I don’t. I think it is terrible. I think it looks old, and is silly, and I hate the colors, and it is busy, and blah. I don’t like it. [Jamie’s Note: Check out The Avengers poster that is graded an F- for being the worst thing I have ever seen? Look familiar? Wow.])

Tagline(s) – Two worlds. One destiny. (B+)

(I like it. Good cadence. Short. Does a little to get across the basic plot. It is still a little vague. Like, if I was staring at the poster what does that sentence mean? But after watching the trailer it makes sense, so only a bit of a minus there.)

Keywords – based on video game Top 10 BMeTric examples: 82.4 Street Fighter (1994), 81.2 Alone in the Dark (2005), 79.1 House of the Dead (2003), 78.7 In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007), 78.6 Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997), 78.3 BloodRayne (2005), 77.1 Super Mario Bros. (1993), 69.9 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009), 63.8 DOA: Dead or Alive (2006), 62.4 Wing Commander (1999)

(Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne and House of the Dead are all Uwe Boll. DOA will be watched for BMT as some point. Other landmark movies above 20 BMeTric are Max Payne, the entire Resident Evil series, and both Lara Croft movies. Unfortunately a cycle really can’t be made out of it, but it sounds like it is ripe for the Sequel Cycle we are planning. We have seen 12 of 34 20+ BMeTric movies based on a video game, although I would argue that maybe 26 actually qualify. I mean, I’m going to watch all of the Pokemon movies, just not in the context of BMT)

Notes – Director Uwe Boll contacted Blizzard about directing the film, but Blizzard refused. As quoted by MTV news Uwe Boll stated: “I got in contact with Paul Sams of Blizzard, and he said, ‘We will not sell the movie rights, not to you… especially not to you. Because it’s such a big online game success, maybe a bad movie would destroy that ongoing income, what the company has with it.” (Good fucking choice considering he directed 6 of the top 12 BMeTric video game adaptations)

The source for the movie adaptation is being taken from the books “Rise of the Horde”, which tells how the Orcish Horde was formed; as well as “The Last Guardian”, which shows the human side and reaction to Orcish invasion. (Oh well I guess I should have read this book… but nope. I did not.)

The film was going to be released in December 2015 but was pushed back to May 2016 to avoid the release of Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (2015). (Again solid choice)

Duncan Jones said that the original script was very one sided in terms of the two factions (Horde and Alliance). after signing on to direct, he made major edits to the story, as well as the script, so both factions could tell their side of the story. (ehhhhhh, probably not a great choice)

Bill Westenhofer, the lead visual effects supervisor for the film, is a long time World of Warcraft player and has mentioned getting up at 2 AM to raid with his guild while on film sets. Robert Kazinsky is also a die hard Warcraft player and recalls producers telling him to turn the game off while on the set of Pacific Rim (2013). (uh oh, you mean you intentionally signed someone who worked on the other gigantic domestic catastrophe for Legendary, Pacific Rim? Yikes)

An Orcish dialect was created specifically for the movie. (And people will undoubtedly learn it. I look forward to it. Let’s leave it there).

Advertisement

Zoolander 2 Recap

Jamie

I come here with somber news my friends. Patrick and I made a terrible mistake. Once the Great Gods of Egypt Disaster of 2016 was realized, we panicked and decided we had to (had to!) watch a BMT Live! film before it was too late. After all, the Stallonian Calender was fresh out of the box and still had that new BMT game smell. We couldn’t have it go off the rails in the first two months. So we ran into the open arms of Zoolander 2. Well I’m here to report that not only was the film not that bad (Not that bad! Not that bad! Not that bad!), we also watched it the week before London Has Fallen totally tanked with reviewers. God help us. Can we do nothing right? We may as well give up this whole endeavor and shut down the site now. But no! We will persevere! We will not let our loyal reader down! And with that we move ever forward.

In terms of Zoolander 2, I found it oddly absurdist considering the first film had absurd elements, but was at least seemingly rooted in reality. This type of shift in tone isn’t unusual. We’ve seen it with the Anchorman sequel and the Wet Hot American Summer series. Seems like with such a long time between the first film and the follow-up, the world is just in a different space comedy-wise. Necessarily you’re going to end up with a sequel that feels very different than the original. This can turn out well or not and I think Zoolander 2 came out on the slightly underwhelming side of things. Was it as good as the original? No. Was it totally not worth watching? No. At least I found myself laughing at several points (looking at you Kyle Mooney)… I just know that I probably would have laughed harder and longer if we had been able to watch Gods of Egypt.

For my BMTsolution this year, I will try to read the source material for all the films that we watch. Zoolander 2 is not based on a book, but if it were it would be a 1950s spy thriller series detailing the adventures of male model/international spy Zander (nicknamed Agent Z by MI6). Embroiled in the world of espionage he uses his perceived lack of intelligence to infiltrate the most dangerous of criminal organizations. Joined in the first novel by brother and sister folk singers Hansel and Gretel (curiously combined into the single character of Hansel in the film adaptation), he continues his adventures in the sequel in Rome attempting once again to foil the dastardly plans of Malaysian crime lord Mukashi. I found the book offensive due to the excessive number of ethnic stereotypes employed, but otherwise exciting and engaging.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Zoolander 2? More like It’s Not That Bad! It’s Not That Bad! Woooooooooooooo. This was pretty expected honestly.

  • The Good – The third act had some serious laughs. I still enjoyed the characters and they played the 15 years later thing pretty well. Once Will Ferrell arrives the movie picks up and it ends before his character (which had less non-stop exposure in the first film) got on your nerves.
  • The Bad – The cameos. But it wasn’t just the cameos, a lot of them were good and made sense. It was a specific moment. I get into it more below, but basically a two minute sequence in which Susan Sarandon, Willie Nelson, Katy Perry and (ugh) Neil Degrasse Tyson appear in an absurdly grating scene. That ejected me from the film. Also the product placement (Netflix and Uber in the beginning) in particular was pretty rough.
  • The BMT – Nope. Not only too good, but just didn’t feel BMT. Gods of Egypt? I would have been rolling down the aisles Pompeii style with that movie. Oh what could have been. This though? I enjoyed it reasonably. Laughed a bunch. I have no issue with Zoolander 2.

For this week’s game I would like to go with Tril-Oh-Geez myself. In this case it is, as of now, incomplete. The first leg is missing, but here goes. Basically, the aforementioned cameo immediately dropped the movie from Good to Okay-Kind-Of-Shitty. So here we go.

Movies Ruined by a Single Scene (Beginning-Middle-End edition)

  • Beginning – [Missing] (Jamie’s note: Conan the Destroyer? Opens with a lot lot lot of callbacks and unnecessary comedy bits, but then picks it up a bit in the middle and up to the end. That’s the most recent one where I felt like the critics probably were out from the beginning, but it wasn’t the worst and I didn’t totally understand the reviews. They seemed ready to pan it and took their chance with the beginning.)
  • Middle – Zoolander 2 – The cameo scene really knocks the movie down a notch and comes completely out of nowhere. Until that point I was thinking to myself “these cameos aren’t that bad! What are the reviewers talking about?”
  • End – The Call – The immediate ending (literally the last 5 seconds) of the film changed my opinion of the movie from “Wow, that was a legit good thriller!” to “Nevermind, that movie is literal garbage and I’m angry now”.

I’m not sure about Conan the Destroyer, but hey, it is always nice to have a complete trilogy. I’ll have to mull on it.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Zoolander 2 Preview

This week we were preparing for BMT Live! and a BMergenT erupted! A little backstory. We were planning (hoping, dreaming) on Gods of Egypt for the first Live addition to the inaugural Stallonian Calendar. Everything seemed set, it looked like a disaster and the UK and US release dates on IMDb synched perfectly. I was going to prepare the preview and thought “ooooooooo I’m going to pick my showing for the weekend” and then …. there were none. No London showings. But how could this be? Because IMDb was wrong! The Gods of UK releases had pushed the release date to the summer! (or was it always?) I am very disappointed, what a disaster of a country I live in. Backwards. Truly saddening. But as my mentor (Michael Caine in Batman Begins) said: “Why do we fall? So we can pick ourselves back up … and become crazed vigilante Batmen.” And so we are (becoming crazed BMTmen I mean). Not wanting to risk the inevitable 45% London Has Fallen is going to receive upon release next week, we are instead picking up Zoolander 2. Fun fact: Leonard Maltin walked out of this movie. So I got that going for me. Let’s go!

Zoolander 2 (2016) – BMeTric: 33.6

Zoolander2_BMeT.png

(For the record, at this point in time this is the highest BMeTric for a 2016 film vaulting over The Forest and 5th Wave. It has helped that this winter has been particularly uninspiring … besides Gods of Egypt *sniff* alright, that’s the last I’ll mention that. The wound is still too new)

Leonard Maltin – ? stars – Ten minutes passed, then twenty, filled with puerile and unfunny gags; along with gratuitous cameo appearances by everyone from Katy Perry to Willie Nelson. … Finally, after almost an hour, I strode out of the theater, proud of myself for taking positive action and sparing myself further insult.

(This was the semi-review from Maltin in which he explains that life is too short to actually watch Zoolander 2 in its entirety. He handled it well, not even reviewing the film ultimately, although his explanation is vicious enough. For the record, rogerebert.com gave the film 3/4 stars with this as the closing line “I laughed so much my wife thought I was going to have a stroke. There’s the blurb for you, Paramount. Thanks, Derek!” And that is after Ebert himself gave Zoolander 1/4 stars in a scathing review starting with “There have been articles lately asking why the United States is so hated in some parts of the world. As this week’s Exhibit A from Hollywood, I offer ‘Zoolander.’” Incredible stuff all around.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CL4LNWHegk

(I like this trailer. The only thing that is disappointing is they should have saved the Mugatu body suit gag for the movie, it is fantastic. Otherwise, while I can see the cameo issue, it also looks really fun. At what point does someone take a chance and cast Bieber into a major role in a feature film?)

Director(s) – Ben Stiller – (Known For: Tropic Thunder; Zoolander; The Cable Guy; Reality Bites; The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty BMT: Zoolander 2; Notes: Amazingly solid record as a director. Really impressive that this is his first major flop.)

Writer(s) – Justin Theroux (written by) – (Known For: Iron Man 2; Tropic Thunder; Rock of Ages; BMT: Zoolander 2; Notes: Also a prolific actor and married to Jennifer Aniston. Cousin of Louis Theroux, who I know as the person on half of the UK Netflix programs scowling in awkward photos with weirdos (or so it seems).)

Ben Stiller (written by, character Derek Zoolander) – (Known For: Tropic Thunder; Zoolander; BMT: Zoolander 2; Notes: Again, pretty good record with his first two Writer-Director-Star gigs. I’m getting very very impressed with Ben Stiller weirdly.)

Nicholas Stoller (written by) – (Known For: Yes Man; Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Dir); Neighbors (Dir); Get Him to the Greek (Dir); The Five-Year Engagement (Dir); The Muppets; Muppets Most Wanted; BMT: Sex Tape; Gulliver’s Travels; Zoolander 2; Fun With Dick and Jane; Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay, Sex Tape (2014). Frequent collaborator of Jason Segal he went to Harvard. Impressive directoral record.)

John Hamburg (written by) – (Known For: Meet the Parents; Zoolander; Safe Men (Dir); I Love You Man (Dir); BMT: Meet the Fockers; Along Came Polly (Dir); Little Fockers; Duplex; Zoolander 2; Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay, Little Fockers (2010). Attended Brown University.)

Actors – Ben Stiller – (Known For: Tropic Thunder; Night at the Museum; Zoolander; Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa; Meet the Parents; There’s Something About Mary; The Cable Guy; Starsky & Hutch; Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted; Tower Heist; Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb; Dodgeball – A True Underdog Story; The Royal Tenenbaums; Keeping the Faith; Reality Bites; Greenberg; Megamind; While We’re Young; Mystery Men; Madagascar; Happy Gilmore; Empire of the Sun; Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny; The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty; Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian; BMT: Along Came Polly; Meet the Fockers; The Heartbreak Kid; The Watch; Duplex; Little Fockers; Envy; Zoolander 2; The Suburbans; If Lucy Fell; Black and White; The Marc Pease Experience; School for Scoundrels; Fresh Horses; Being Canadian; Heavyweights (Blasphemy!)); Notes: Nominated for Worst Actor, Along Came Polly (2004), Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), Envy (2004), Starsky & Hutch (2004). Oh my, that is an impressive year.)

Also stars Owen Wilson and Will Ferrell.

Budget/Gross: $50 million / $24,797,992 ($41,818,769 Worldwide) –

(This is almost definitely a disaster financially. I would guess what? $80 million total worldwide. Not even close. Disaster.)

Rotten Tomatoes: 22% (38/167), Zoolander No. 2 has more celebrity cameos than laughs — and its meager handful of memorable gags outnumbers the few worthwhile ideas discernible in its scattershot rehash of a script.

(I predict this will be fun but ultimately forgettable. But maybe this will be like Anchorman 2. Where a bunch of people hated it and I was sitting there like “but I mean that Ice Castles parody was killer” and everyone I knew was like “what?”. Hopefully there is at the very least a Color of Night gag or something.)

Poster – I don’t hate it (C+)

Zoolander Poster

(I like how clean it is. It gets the point across. I like the play on perfume ads. Five people is close to too many, but I still think it works. Just kind of boring. Nothing about this says that it is funny just that people are in it. But I don’t hate it.)

Tagline(s) – Long time no Z. (C+)

(I’m giving the plus just for the lampshading of the fact that this sequel was released waaaaay too late. Otherwise it is nonsense, a bad pun, and forgettable, probably like this movie will be.)

Notes – Eddie Murphy has expressed interest in being in Zoolander 2. He has even developed his own pose called “Black Iron”. (I feel like this would have been fun. I just watched Coming to America again though so maybe I’m just misremembering how fun Eddie Murphy is. One sec, I’m going to watch Norbit and hate my life again).

Released 15 years after the release of the first movie. (Terrible idea for the record).

Paramount partnered with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to feature Derek Zoolander on their advertising campaign for the Fiat 500X. (This is how you make movies boys and girls. Disregard my earlier comment about this being a financial disaster, they probably made back everything in product placement and then some).

Not the first movie where Penelope Cruz encounters “The Fountain of Youth”. She visits the fabled fountain in “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”. (Cool story Hansel)

The Last Witch Hunter Recap

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Last Witch Hunter? More like Latest Huge Blunder! We went BMT Live! this week, and I must say, it did not disappoint. I’m just going to get into it since I’ve been so long winded the last few weeks.

  • The Bad – Poorly written dialogue (although I found the fundamental story compelling, surprisingly so). It should be no surprise to people this movie bombed because it had like a million credited writers. Five according to Rotten Tomatoes (although only three make it to IMDB). The reworking of the script is evident.
  • The Worse – Speaking of witch (BAM!), the action scenes were terrible. Mostly that is on the director. But again, the script is the culprit at times. The movie ends with four small battles (Vinny D v. Belail, Ygritte mind melding with the Irish dude, Vinny D v. Chekov’s Jail Monster, and the final Vinny D v. the Witch) which just smacks of three different endings getting smashed together “because they had some good ideas guys”.
  • The Worst – The acting was terrible. Before Michael Caine gets rendered into a corpsy budget sucking wax model he was okay. I always like Elijah Wood, I’m not sure why. But Ygritte and Vinny D were bad. For a while I talked myself into Vinny’s acting, but there is a scene right at the end where Caine just acts circles around him and all of a sudden my brain went “NOPE!” and rejected him as a reasonable leading man. His schtick works for the Fast and Furious franchise, but something about his mumbling about a fantasy movie just doesn’t do it for me. Unless, Netflix signs him. If Netflix signs him I’ll watch all of his movies and enjoy them thoroughly.
  • The Good – So to recap: bad script, bad direction, bad acting from the leads. Terrible movie right? Meh. Really fun movie to watch for BMT. Kind of Pompeii-y in how much I can laugh at myself for paying money to watch this in theaters (the anti-Sabotage). But something about it was just kind of enjoyable. Not sure why really, but I don’t think it gets a personal nod for anything but direction. The action scenes are unforgivable. They could have been so much better and immediately salvaged the film.
  • The BMT – First, the movie was in theaters for a second. I went to a showing five days after the UK opening and I was in the second to last showing in London. Straight up. My showing was so late in the release it was for the hearing impaired (not joking, there were english subtitles. Perhaps someone thought it wasn’t in English after watching a few of Vinny D’s scenes, SLAMMED). I assume this is a legal requirement, but was genuinely unavoidable for me as it was the only showing in London that Tuesday night (!). So yeah … that movie made no money. Poor show. Almost makes me feel bad …. Where was I, oh yeah, I liked this for BMT. Like Pompeii.

Prequel, Sequel, Remake. I think I’m going to go with Prequel. I want some more of these witch hunters. Call it Penultimate Witch Hunter as it follows Vinny D and his BFF Witch Hunter uh … Blinton? Vinny D’s name was Kaulder of all things, I just made something up. This is of course played by The Rock. They are killing it as Witch Hunters. Until (Uh oh!) The Rock falls in love with a witch. Is he bewitched? Can Kaulder save him? What is love? Will Kaulder dreamwalk his way to happiness? Find out in the Penultimate Witch Hunter: A Love Story.

Jamie

Aaaawwwwwwwww shit! Jamie’s back, Jack. Talking smack on time and in rhymes (that was embarrassing). It’s just the freedom that comes with not being behind on the emails. It’s just so… so… freeing. Anywho, last week (and truly it was last week) we watched The Last Witch Hunter IN THEATERS and it was as dark and dreary as a boy could have hoped for. I feel like we’ve already watched this film twice this year. It had a faint whiff of Jupiter Ascending (suffering the Icarus Effect, where the filmmakers fly too close to the sun using their Grav boots only to realize how fucking lame they are) mixed with a little Hitman: Agent 47 (writing so bad that the screenwriters probably watched Jupiter Ascending and were like ‘Grav boots! Damn, wish I thought of that’). My main takeaways from the film were:

  1. It wasn’t quite as bad as the reviewers made it out to be! The overall story was actually a refreshing twist on a really, really overplayed plot (secret underground supernatural war that threatens an unknowing humanity). I liked the entire idea of Vinny D’s character and his immortality and why as long as he exists the witch queen can never be truly defeated. Also hard to fault a film for trying too hard to make something interesting.
  2. But it was still really bad! In particular it was just extremely wordy. Like I think they spent so much time coming up with a plot that wasn’t I, Frankenstein level horseshit that they then had to fill the film up with explanations of the plot. It seemed like everywhere they went they were just talking, talking, talking like nerd alerts. Made it a bit boring.
  3. Didn’t help that the action scenes were trash! Really horrible choreography and blocking, really short with no suspense, and mixed with very odd dream fights that bordered on bad abstract art. The dream sequences in particular were rough. Almost seemed like they were added because they didn’t know how to make actual fight scenes… so why not have a bearded Vinny D just run through fields for a while with a shaky cam? That works, right?

Overall, I wasn’t a fan of the film, but at the same time I can understand why there are people out there defending it. It is probably better than Jupiter Ascending (which is the best comparison for the film), but barely. A little surprising how low it got on RT (16%)… I would give it like a 28%.

BTW I like that name for Patrick’s prequel. And anything with The Rock will be… solid (PUN INTENDED). Also reminds me of a little story from last week. My wife was recovering from a cold and just wanted to watch some films for the day so I convinced her to finally see Gravity (which I love). By the end she was like “boring artsy film, whatever” and I was shocked. Gravity? Too artsy? It didn’t occur to me when I watched it in theaters. Later that night we settled in for another film and I had to think to myself, “What film might she like if she just rejected Gravity because it was too artsy?” So obviously we selected San Andreas and she fucking loved it. She was like “Yup, I like this, whatever.” So that’s my wife. Gravity? Too artsy. San Andreas? Yes, please. I’ll take seconds if you have it. Probably just cause of The Rock. I bet if Gravity had The Rock floating around, busting heads, and taking names then she would have been way into it.

Anywho, since The Last Witch Hunter was in theaters we don’t have a MonoSklog (I bet there was one, though. Even inadvertently. They just talked so God damn much). Instead I’ll just make up a new game. I call it BMT Mash-up and it’s where I combine two BMT films to make an ultra BMT film. I’ll call this one The 2 Fast 2 Furious Witch Hunter. Obviously the sequel to The Last Witch Hunter we find our hero a bit suspicious of some heists going on in the Czech Republic. Could it be a new harem of witches who got a need for speed? Looks like Vinny D’s gotta strap into his mean witch-hunting machine and take out some fools. In a clever reversal of The Fast and the Furious, Vinny D goes undercover with the gang (and under covers with the gang leader’s sister, ayo!) in order to find what sinister black magic they are using in their elaborate, stunt-filled heists. When it comes time to take them out for good, will Vinny D have the heart to break his own heart?

Funny enough this actually kinda works cause Vinny D’s character in The Last Witch Hunter also loves fast cars. You’re welcome, writers of the next installment in the Witch Hunter series. Patrick and I just gave you the plots to the prequel and sequel. NBD.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The Last Witch Hunter Preview

Alright, well this week we have a very special interlude in our Razzie cycle. While normally we would be watching something that came out earlier in the year in one of our genres, this week we are watching an IN-THEATERS BMT SPECIAL!!!! That’s right, every once in a while a movie comes out that is just too crazy/beautiful to resist. The last one we were so fortunate to catch was Hitman: Agent 47, this time it’s a little Vin Diesel doozy that we’ve been waiting for with great anticipation. It’s finally here! The Last Witch Hunter! And just in time for Halloween! I love it. I can’t remember a film I would have been more disappointed to find that it didn’t end up qualifying for BMT. But it did. And it’s here. Hooorrraaayyyy! Let’s go!

The Last Witch Hunter (2015) – BMeTric: 25.0 (February 24, 2016)

LastWitchHunter_BMeT

(Ooooooo pretty stuff. Obviously generated after the fact, this is a very nice plot. First, you can seem to make out different release dates in the initial fast increase, but you can definitely see the VOD/DVD release near the end of January beginning of February. Beautiful stuff. A BMeTric of 25 feels right, right there on the cusp of being a BMT shoe in.)

RogerEbert.com – 3 stars – Many films try and fail to pull off the kind of densely over-plotted action-fantasy that director Breck Eisner (“The Crazies,” “Sahara“) nails in “The Last Witch Hunter.” The secrets to Eisner’s success are confidence and patience, both of which compensate for the film’s script whenever it becomes embarrassingly thin (especially during its rushed finale).

(I’m glad to know that a densely-plotted film with a (paradoxically) embarrassingly thin script can still make it in this world. It does kind of hit an idea that Patrick and I have stood by since the beginning of BMT, though: plot is just plot is just plot. As long as the film looks good, is acted well, and the script is well written then pretty much anything can be forgiven about how ridiculous the plot of a film is. So maybe we’ll like this.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsuG2JUgs_8

(“Do you know what I’m afraid of?… nothing” Just perfectly sums up how much garbage this looks to me. Just bad writing that somehow Vinny D has to try and sell. The entire plot is so trite and overplayed. Haven’t we seen this is Blade? Underworld? I, Frankenstein? Men in Black? Even Juptier Ascending, which we just watched! Maybe we won’t like this after all.)

Director(s) – Breck Eisner – (Known For: The Crazies. BMT: Sahara; The Last Witch Hunter. Notes: He’s the son of Michael Eisner, the much criticized Disney executive who kinda fucked up the company in the late mid-late 90s. Wow.)

Writer(s) – Cory Goodman (written by) – (BMT: The Last Witch Hunter; Priest. Notes: Apparently co-wrote Apollo 18 but didn’t get credit for it… or didn’t want credit for it.)

Matt Sazama (written by) – (BMT: Dracula Untold; The Last Witch Hunter; Notes: Writing partners with Burk Sharpless. I like that this exists. Also says that plot data is not available without IMDBPro, except they don’t block the IMDBPro from google bots. Dumbos. It’s apparently ‘Described as a futuristic “Jungle Book.”‘ Hahahahahaha.)

Burk Sharpless (written by) – (Known For: ; BMT: Dracula Untold; The Last Witch Hunter; Notes: Son of John Sharpless a history professor at U of Wisconsin. Fun.)

(Murderers row right there).

Actors – Vin Diesel – (Known For: Pitch Black; The Fast and the Furious; Riddick; Saving Private Ryan; The Iron Giant; Guardians of the Galaxy; Find Me Guilty; Boiler Room; XxX; Furious 7; Fast Five; Fast & Furious 6. BMT: Fast & Furious; The Chronicles of Riddick; Babylon A.D.; The Pacifier; A Man Apart; Knockaround Guys; The Last Witch Hunter. Notes: Nominated for Worst Actor, The Chronicles of Riddick (2004). Bullshit. Actually discovered as a writer-director. Willing to bet he’ll return to that role as some point.)

Also stars Michael Caine, Elijah Wood and Rose Leslie

Budget/Gross: $70 million / $19 million ($57 million) – (Editor’s Note: Ultimately $27 million / $140 million worldwide)

(Hard to say where this will land. Hasn’t been out too long, but did terribly opening weekend. Ended up as the 54th worst opening by a supersaturated film (3000+ theaters). Just ahead of… wait for it… Abduction staring Taylor Lautner. The company you keep. Editor’s Note: The $27 million domestic is bad, but if you squint then doubling the budget overall might be construed as a modest …. push. But probably not, no incentive to make a sequel at least.)

Rotten Tomatoes: 14% (11/74), Critics Consensus: Grim, plodding, and an overall ill fit for Vin Diesel’s particular charms, The Last Witch Hunter will bore and/or confuse all but the least demanding action-fantasy fans.

(I think Patrick and I are becoming experts at decrypting even the most boring and/or confusing films that Hollywood has to offer. After watching Jupiter Ascending nothing can phase me. This will probably be as clear as a mountain lake in comparison.)

Poster – The Cheap Witch Hunter (C+)

last_witch_hunter_ver10

(Even though I think the poster is too dark, at least it’s consistent. Don’t like the car headlights. Too bright. Looks a little cheap too. Otherwise hits the right marks. Symmetry. Simplicity. Editor’s Note: I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is a terrible poster.)

Tagline(s) – Live forever. Hunt forever. (B)

(I can only give it so much positive. I like the symmetry. I like the brevity. It just doesn’t do it for me in terms of providing insight into the film. Not clever enough either. Just good.)

Notes – The screenplay for this film was featured in the 2010 Blacklist; a list of the “most liked” unmade scripts of the year. (Take this with a grain of salt. A lot of stuff ends up on the blacklist. Case in point? The Last Witch Hunter earned seven votes from executives contributing to the list. Another film that earned seven votes? The aforementioned Abduction).

Vin Diesel had been a Dungeons and Dragons player for many years. The main character in this movie was partly based on his old D&D character (Melkor) who was a Witch Hunter. He used one of the 3rd party D&D books to create the character class as he loved being a Ranger type but also like to use a few spells too. (N-n-n-n-n-n-erd alert. Get out of here nerd with your nerd books).

Plans to film The Last Witch Hunter (2015) were announced in 2012 and initially Timur Bekmambetov was to direct the film based on a script written by Cory Goodman. Bekmambetov was later replaced by Breck Eisner and Goodman’s script was re-written by Dante Harper before Melisa Wallack was brought on work on the film’s script. (Neither of those writers ended up with a credit on the film).

Hitman: Agent 47 Recap

Jamie

Through our time doing BMT, Patrick and I have done several in-theater BMT’s. They have ranged from packed-houses (Grown Ups 2) to empty theaters (Pompeii). From the crowd loving it (us not included) to a number of people walking out. Through all that, I’m not sure I’ve quite experienced something like Hitman: Agent 47. In most every movie, no matter the genre, there are generally jokes. Sometimes the theater laughs uproariously, sometime they don’t, but almost always people laugh (cause they’re jokes and characters are saying them). Hitman: Agent 47’s script was so bad (and continued to get worse throughout the film) that the number of jokes increased to unbelievable levels. And yet, nothing was funny. Nothing was a real joke. And no one laughed. Still the characters continued to say phrases that sounded like jokes (but I assure you, they were not) at an ever increasing clip. Presumably this was to fill the void left by the black hole that was the rest of the film. It was very confusing and combined with a plot that was paper-thin and yet incomprehensible, made for a near abstract art experience where these character walked around doing things and saying things and yet did nothing and said nothing. It’s hard to describe what it was like. If only we had a go-to phrase for something like this…. oh yes! It was dog poo in my face.

Love the new format and since we could get any MonoSklog from the film seeing as it was in theaters (and no one actually said anything of significance) I’m going to go for a nice new game that I thought up while reading Transporter Refueled reviews. It’s where I try to think of a punny one-liner about the film for my RT review caption so people know how clever I am (e.g. “The Transporter Refueled should be put up on blocks.” – New York Daily News. Guffaw). For the first Hitman I would say: “Let’s address the Olyphant in the room: this film is firing blanks.” For Hitman: Agent 47 I would start my review with “Bach hits all the wrong notes with this Hitman adaptation that misses the mark.” Ooof, those puns are killer. Both play on the name of someone involved with the film and yet has nothing to do with the film and then strikes fast with a second pun about the film itself. The punsters on RT should watch out. I’m coming for yah. Double puns are the new single puns.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone, this week was Hitman: Agent 47 (too easy, Shitman). More like 4 out of 7 people walked out of Jamie’s showing (true story, not even making up those numbers). Welp, it seemed like the UK audience liked it a bit more as there were probably 12 other people sitting in stony silence enduring this complete pile of garbage with me. Is it? Wait for it …. dog poo right in my face? yes it was! Right in my face (and wallet). I’m going to change things up a bit at this point (for fun), so here is a Brief Two Point BMT Recap (BTPBMTR):

  • The movie was incomprehensible, the acting was terrible, and the dialogue was horrible. Triple threat. I’m going to refer to such adaptations as “aggressively adapted”. If fans of the Hitman series think the Olyphant version was incompetent with regards to the video game, then this can only be described as intentionally antagonistic.
  • Add unpleasant to the bunch. This movie could be called Human Bodies Falling Several Stories Onto Banisters. Or maybe People Getting Killed By A Horrible Person In Terrible Ways. Or in a meta way A Movie Where You Hate Everyone. In other words: Instant BMT Classic (IBMTC).

See, short and sweet. Now, in the vein of Patrick’s Rules I wanted to look at some of the things from the Hitman news / advertising campaign that should have made Jamie and I very suspicious that this movie was BMT bound. I will call you BMT:CSI:SVU (the special victims are me and Jamie):

So all the way back nearly a year ago we should have immediately penciled this guy right on into the BMT calendar. The trailer companion (and reception, whoa nelly, the response by fans was vitriolic, I remember) was just a final confirmation. Ahhhh, a little BMT Forensics (BMTF) going on. This is all building to the application of statistical techniques to sniff out bad movies, and then ultimately the BMT Awards which will be like the BCS: a computer generated set of the worst movies of the year that everyone hates. I literally cannot wait.

Cheerios ,

The Sklogs

Hitman Recap

[Editor’s Note: This “recap” was originally found within the Into the Storm recap as a part of preparation for Hitman: Agent 47. Jamie did not provide an official recap. While short, in order to complete the official record of BMT for historical posterity this short section is included here]

Patrick

I wanted to mention that in preparation for BMT Live! (Hitman: Agent 47) I also watched Hitman (the original). Some brief thoughts: It is completely incomprehensible and riddled with inane dialogue. The entire movie is told as a flashback, Olyphant clearly doesn’t want to be there, and it has the classic: Hey, filming in Prague is cheap let’s set the movie in … rural Russia? It at least touches on what made the video game famous (Agent 47’s ability to get in, kill, and get out without being detected), although he is obviously less stealth while being framed and chased by other agents. In other words: I am now fully prepared for Agent 47. Are there any two movie combo with a worse combined RT score? I smell some data analysis coming.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Hitman: Agent 47 Preview

So from the title of this email you may wonder, “hey Jamie, why are you doing Hitman: Agent 47? Isn’t the cycle mapl.de.map? Seeing as I keep up with the latest bad movie news in depth, doesn’t that movie take place in Germany and Singapore? Last time I checked those weren’t states. Also, knowing the cycle as well as I do, this is certainly not a horror/thriller. What’s going on? BMT is the rock around which I base my life and this change is concerning.” All valid points average BMT email reader. We are in fact taking a week break from the cycle to do a super special in theaters edition of BMT. The release of one of the worst reviewed films of the year required action and seeing as it was nearly simultaneously released in the US and UK, me and Patrick thought it was a no-brainer to go ahead and catch Hitman: Agent 47 on the big screen. So without further ado: Let’s go!

Hitman: Agent 47 (2015) – BMeTric: 38.6 (November 14, 2016)

hitmanagent47_bmet

hitmanagent47_rv

(A very classic and nice graphic for a recently released film. We got a sweet theatrical/VOD regime separation, and this is also quite a high BMeTric. Reaffirms or BMT Live! choice from oh so long ago. Commentary generated on November 14, 2016)

RogerEbert.com – 1 star – “Hitman: Agent 47” is aggressively awful, the kind of film that rubs its lackadaisical screenwriting, dull filmmaking and boring characters in your face, almost daring you to ask the theater operator for your money back. It is a film that feels made out of contractual obligation instead of artistic venture, or even a remote desire to entertain.

(This sounds like our jam. Lackadaisical screenwriting? Yes, please. Dull filmmaking? We expect nothing less (more?), boring characters? I want them to be paper thin. Also, wasn’t this made out of contractual obligation? I just assumed cause there were literally ZERO people asking for this film to be made.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alQlJDRnQkE

(That plays more like a music video than a movie with an actual plot. Don’t like Rupert Friend as 47 right off the bat. Also at least two helicopters in the film (one that blows up and another than crashes into a building) so that’s a plus. Though Into the Storm promised a helicopter crashing into buildings and that turned out to be cut from the film. Just another reason not to like that film.)

Director(s) – Aleksander Bach – (BMT: Hitman: Agent 47. Notes: Feature debut. Mostly has worked in music videos and commercials till now. Back-to-back winner of the Cannes Young Director Award for Orange I Love You and Stars in 2008 and 2009, respectively.)

Writer(s) – Skip Woods (screenplay, story) – (Known For: The A-Team. BMT: X-Men Origins – Wolverine; Swordfish; Hitman; Sabotage; Thursday; Hitman: Agent 47; A Good Day To Die Hard. Notes: Legendary BMT writer. Hitman and Hitman: Agent 47 will be the fifth and sixth BMT films we’ve watched from him. Somehow never nominated for a Razzie. Impossible! (said in a French accent).)

Michael Finch (screenplay) – (Known For: Predators. BMT: The November Man; Hitman: Agent 47. Notes: We shall see him again. He is the writer for the upcoming sequel Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters 2. Wait… what?! Who the fuck was scrambling for that?!)

Actors – Rupert Friend – (Known For: The Young Victoria; Pride and Prejudice; Starred Up; Chéri; The Zero Theorem; The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. BMT: The Last Legion; Outlaw; Hitman: Agent 47; The Libertine. Notes: Probably best known right now for his work on Homeland.)

Hannah Ware – (Known For: Shame; Oldboy; BMT: Cop Out; Hitman: Agent 47; Notes: Also best known for her work on tv with starring roles in Boss and Betrayal.)

also stars Zachary Quinto.

Budget/Gross: $35 million / $15 million ($25 million Worldwide)

(Still out in theaters so it will probably recoup its base budget with worldwide gross. Still will go down as a big bomb given it has the 24th worst opening ever for a film released in 3000+ theaters. Just behind this week’s release No Escape! Haha, not even the worst 3000+ opening of August 2015.)

#36 for the Hitman / Assassin genre

hitman_36

(Generated on November 14, 2016; Nearby 2016 BMT smash hit Mechanic Resurrection. I can’t quite see any specific trends, but perhaps the 90’s boom was helped along by Pulp Fiction in 1994? Really unclear beyond that it has become a major genre in the 00’s and beyond. Little bit of waves, a little decrease in monetary yield in the past 5 years. We’ll see if there is a collapse a bit.)

#22 for the Video Game Adaptation genre

videogameadaptation_22

(NOTE: Generated on November 14, 2016. Analysis partially borrowed from Warcraft; The genre is surprisingly consistently produced considering literally no video game adaptation has ever reached even the modest benchmark of 50% on rotten tomatoes. The best ever reviewed? Final Fantasy Spirits Within (I saw that in theaters, go me) at 44%. The best on metacritic was Mortal Kombat by the way. It really is quite dire, over 15 years that RT record has stood. #22 for this genre is impressively poor, near Super Mario Bros!!!!)

Rotten Tomatoes: 8% (7/82), Critics Consensus: Hitman: Agent 47 fails to clear the low bar set by its predecessor, forsaking thrilling action in favor of a sleekly hollow mélange of dull violence and product placement.

(Still gathering votes on RT, but seems safely below 10% which is quite the accomplishment. Hitman’s bar is quite low indeed, but I think the consensus forgets that the first one also forsook thrilling action for sleekly hollow melange. So that’s nothing new. And yes, forsook is a word.)

Poster – Sklogman: Agent 4Life (F)

hitman_agent_forty_seven_ver4

(I can’t remember the last time I’ve hated a poster more than this. Unaccompanied Minors probably. Way, way, way too much white. The cutout of 47 is unnecessary and distracting. Can barely tell he’s holding a gun. And no tagline! Boo, boo, boo.)

Tagline(s) – None! (F-)

(I hate you already you garbage movie made for trash people! Unacceptable. I do not accept this.)

Keyword(s) – Based on a Video Game; Top Ten by BMeTric: 82.7 Street Fighter (1994); 81.4 Alone in the Dark (2005); 79.3 House of the Dead (2003); 78.9 In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007); 78.9 Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997); 78.4 BloodRayne (2005); 77.4 Super Mario Bros. (1993); 70.1 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009); 64.0 DOA: Dead or Alive (2006); 62.6 Wing Commander (1999);

(Obviously incredible. We will watch all of these films without a doubt. If anyone needs a bad movie to watch for whatever reason spin around, point your finger at this list, and watch with horror and joy.)

Notes – Paul Walker was previously attached to play the lead role in this film before his sudden death in late November, 2013. (Oh, sad)

Hitman Preview

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This entire preview was generated on November 14, 2016. I apologize for any mind-bending anachronisms that may inadvertently occur while reading this]

Hitman (2007) – BMeTric: 20.6 (November 14, 2016)

hitman_bmet

hitman_rv

(Classic regression to the mean, solid 2011 inflection. If you recall that comes about for popular movies. And look at the number of votes! Very impressive Hitman. Bravo. It is kind of crazy how flat the entire BMeTric plot is, but I kind of comes from being only borderline bad from an IMDb rating perspective)

Leonard Maltin – 2 stars –  Every bit as visually flashy and dramatically sketchy as you would expect a video-game-inspired action-adventure to be. Still, some genuinely rousing run-and-gun sequences – enhanced with rapid-fire editing, slo-mo flourishes, and very loud music – generate interest as prolifically lethal buut increasingly self-doubting Agent 47 (Olyphant), a bald-pated, bar-code-tattooed assassin, dashes about Russia after being betrayed by his employers.

(Alright, I think that Leonard might have been attempting to win a bet here concerning exactly how many hyphens he could put into a single review. An even dozen. Congrats. Either way, seems like a solidly drab romp through Russia, exciting.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJhNzHyq-IE

(While I kind of dig the quiet and contemplative style with the music, it doesn’t really get me jazzed up for the movie, and it certainly, I think, misleads about the eventual product shown in theaters. If a movie that relfected that trailer was produced I’m not sure people would have been pissed. And people were piiiiiiiiiissed.)

Directors – Xavier Gens – (Known For: Frontière(s); BMT: The ABCs of Death; The Divide; Hitman; Notes: French director. Rumor has it that the studio did not like the extreme level of violence presented in his original cut of the film and effectively fired him. They hired outside help to edit the film and conduct reshoots while Gens was out of the country. Interesting stuff. I’m skeptical because an unrated version exists which is by all accounts just as bad as the theatrical cut, but maybe that was still heavily edited. Got to wait for that director’s cut.)

Writers – Skip Woods (written by) – (Known For: The A-Team; BMT: A Good Day to Die Hard (BMT); Hitman: Agent 47 (BMT); Sabotage (BMT); Hitman; Swordfish (BMT); X-Men Origins: Wolverine (BMT); Thursday; Notes: Wow Skip Woods, just wow. How he’s avoided a Razzie nom among all of that trash is beyond me. In addition to writing he also owns a tactical weapons consultancy firm which inspired him to become an action movie writer in the first place.)

Actors – Timothy Olyphant – (Known For: Snowden; This Is Where I Leave You; The Girl Next Door; Scream 2; Die Hard 4.0; Go; Rango; The Crazies; A Perfect Getaway; Rock Star; Stop-Loss; The Broken Hearts Club: BMT: Dreamcatcher; Head Over Heels; Elektra Luxx; Mother’s Day; I Am Number Four; A Man Apart; Catch and Release; Hitman; The First Wives Club; Gone in Sixty Seconds; Notes: Probably most well known for Deadwood. He is apparently a keen tennis player and huge LA sports fan.)

Dougray Scott – (Known For: Mission: Impossible II; London Town; My Week with Marilyn; Deep Impact; EverAfter; Enigma; Dark Water; Last Passenger; Ripley’s Game; Twin Town; Princess Caraboo; New Town Killers; BMT: The Vatican Tapes; Taken 3; The Truth About Love; Hitman; Notes: Maybe most well known for famously turning down the role as Wolverine due to conflicts with Mission: Impossible II. Some fans maintain his build made more sense at the time, but I would doubt anyone would argue that now.)

Also Stars Olga Kurylenko

Budget/Gross – $24 million / Domestic: $39,687,694 (Worldwide: $99,965,792)

(Solid hit, enough to warrent a sequel at least. Way more than I would expect, although with a setting in Russia and a French director I imagine the European cut was probably pretty solid.)

[See Hitman Agent 47 Preview for additional box office notes]

Rotten Tomatoes – 14% (14/101): Hitman features the unfortunate combination of excessive violence, incoherent plot, and inane dialogue.

(Check. Check. Check. Alright Jamie, pack it in, this one will do. Sounds perfect to me, not sure why any of that is a problem …)

Poster – Sklogman (B+)

hitman_ver2_xlg

(I like it. Jamie would probably say all the black hurts it by making it bland, but I think it is appropriate for the video game it is adapting. There was a better poster actually, but this is the one I remember from when it came out.)

Tagline(s) – None! (F)

(Boo no tagline. I’ll make one up: You’ll never see him coming. Boom. Not the best maybe, but at least it is something. Better than nothing.)

Keyword(s) – hitman; Top Ten by BMeTric: 78.5 The Avengers (1998); 70.1 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009); 66.2 Kangaroo Jack (2003); 62.9 Abduction (I) (2011); 60.3 Vampire in Brooklyn (1995); 58.9 The Crow: City of Angels (1996); 58.0 Tekken (2010); 57.4 Daredevil (2003); 52.8 Jupiter Ascending (2015); 52.8 Alex Cross (2012);

(That is a sick list bro. Bro … sick list. I would also gladly watch the other … except for Tekken. That is not a real movie. Look it up, not a real movie. For reals.)

Notes – While Dougray Scott often pulls a cigarette out, he never actually manages to light one. (fun fact)

During the restaurant sequence, the scene in which Nika (Olga Kurylenko) talks about owning a squirrel/chipmunk when she was young was actually true for the actress, and the scene was improvised during filming. (ugh, terrible. I hate that. Not a fun fact. A decidedly un-fun fact)

The scene where Agent 47 sits atop the roof, sniper in hand and red lettering behind him is taken directly from artwork from the game, as is the scene between 47 and Yuri in the bathtub, including the rubber duck. (I remember that scene from literally the only time I played that game, weird)

When Agent 47 jumps through the hotel window into the kid’s room, they’re playing Hitman: Blood Money (2006) for the PlayStation 2. (They’re playing through “Death of a Showman”, the training level.) (HORRIBLE, I’M OUT!)