This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr dresses up in his Jedi robes and grabs his lightsaber, heading to the theater to see the 3D re-release of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. While there, he faces a sea of estrogen as ladies of all type swarm into the multiplex to see Channing Tatum’s abs multiflex. After using his lightsaber to break through the wall of pre-Valentine’s Day ladies, he faces more obstacles with twentysomething dudes heading out to see Safe House and obnoxious families to see Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. Fortunately for Kevin, he is able to dispatch everyone with his Rock-inspired “pec pop of love.” It was an early Valentine’s Day massacre.

It seems there’s a pervading opinion that children’s entertainment doesn’t have to be good. Any criticism of a work of art intended for the younger members of our society is almost immediately met with cries of “oh come on, it’s just for kids.” It’s a strange form of hypocrisy given that most parents almost always want the best for their kids, except, apparently, when it comes to films. Films seem to get a pass no matter how shitty they may be. But if your kid’s sick and needs a doctor, you want the best possible doctor to treat them. It’s an unfathomable double standard. There should be no shame in demanding better films for youngsters, and, unfortunately, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is not one of those better films. The film centers on Journey to the Center of the Earth lead Sean Anderson (Josh Hutcherson), who receives a coded message that he randomly decides must be from his long lost grandfather. Despite his hatred for his mother’s new guy, The Rock, the two team up to break the code, which says that Jules Verne’s writing about a place called The Mysterious Island was fact and not fiction. The island exists and so Sean and The Rock take off for the island of Palau to find the so-called mysterious island. They team up with helicopter pilot for hire Luiz Guzman and his pretty daughter (Vanessa Hudgens), who just happens to be about Sean’s age, crash land on the island and find Sean’s grandfather (Michael Caine), [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

After the somewhat bizarre casting of up-and-comer Liam Hemsworth in The Expendables 2, a sequel to a film that was seemingly created just to give aging action stars something to do, it should come as little surprise that Thor’s little brother is slowly being styled into more of an action man. But it’s still a bit of an eye-opener that the actor is now set to star alongside no less than The Rock himself. Sorry, “Dwayne Johnson.” Deadline Toledo reports that Hemsworth is about to close a deal, with Johnson currently negotiating for his role, in indie Empire State. Written by Adam Mazer (Breach, You Don’t Know Jack), the film was once titled The Sentry Keep, and is “based on the true story of a 1982 NYC armored car company robbery thought at the time to be the largest cash heist in U.S. history.” And while that sounds interesting enough, and while the casting of a pretty boy like Hemsworth and a bonafide action star like Johnson only further that interest, what’s most compelling about this story is who is directing it.

Channing Tatum is back as Duke, Ray Park is in as Snake Eyes, and Lee Byung-hung is reprising his role as Storm Shadow, but that’s about all the true connective tissue you’ll find between G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and its sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Plus, from the looks of the trailer, its Dwayne Johnson as Roadblock that will really be leading the team. Behind the scenes, Joe is being led by a new director in Jon Chu and new screenwriters in Zombieland scribes Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese. It’s truly a brand new team. But the trailer speaks for itself with pyrotechnics. Check it out for yourself:

I don’t know which movie sounds weirder, a Michael Bay directed dark comedy or a Michael Bay directed movie that only has a budget of $20 million, but Variety is saying his next film, Pain and Gain, is going to be both of those things rolled into one. The movie is based on an article published in Miami New Times back in 1999 about a pair of bodybuilders responsible for a series of kidnapping and extortion plots. The script was penned by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who describe it as having a tone similar to Fargo. So I guess you can throw that on the pile too: a Michael Bay directed movie that’s like Fargo.

We don’t often report on casting rumors so far in advance of production, but seeing as the very fun Fast Five hit DVD and Blu-ray today it seem fitting that we pass along this item about its inevitable follow-up. Well, two items actually. According to the fine folks at Twitch, Universal is hoping to move forward next year on filming two back-to-back installments of the Fast & Furious series to take place throughout Europe. It only makes sense as Fast Five was both the highest grossing and most entertaining of the bunch. The plan is for Justin Lin to return for part six and for Peter Jackson to take over directing duties on part seven. That’s not strictly true, but Jackson seems pretty comfortable being attached to one half of simultaneously filmed epics so I figured I’d suggest it now. It won’t happen, but how curious are you now to see a Jackson directed muscle car movie? The second piece of info uncovered by Twitch is that the franchise producers are hoping to lure Jason Statham into their fold for one or both of the films. Adding him to the mix seems like a no-brainer especially as the series heads to Europe. Statham is British after all, but more relevant to the matter at hand is his status as a follicle-challenged ass kicker who knows his way around a car. Can you even imagine the sweat and testosterone overload sure to occur when Statham, Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson go [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Bogart and Bacall, Tracy and Hepburn; some Hollywood pairings work so well that they’re iconic, linking the actors in people’s minds so intrinsically that they become just as recognizable as a duo as they are as individuals. It’s looking like a new pair of names could get added to that list; Sarandon and The Rock. That’s because Susan Sarandon is in negotiations to join the already-cast Dwayne Johnson in a new drama called Snitch. Ric Roman Waugh is re-writing a script by Justin Haythe and also directing the film, which is based off a Frontline documentary about a father who agrees to go undercover and take down a high-ranking drug lord in order to get his teenage son’s rather ridiculous 30-year drug sentence cut down to something less soul-crushing. If all goes well, Sarandon will be playing the role of an ambitious attorney who thinks a high profile drug bust could really help out her career. I imagine the stoic Johnson, risking it all for his son, and the sleazy Sarandon, looking to exploit people to boost up her career, will make for some pretty good banter. Hopefully at some point they’re forced to share a hotel bed together and they hang a sheet between them to act as an impenetrable grope-stopping wall. That’s always a classic. [Heat Vision]

Dwayne Johnson found out about Osama Bin Laden’s death before everyone else, and in this picture he posted on his twitter feed from G.I. Joe 2 makes it look like he was one of the ones hunting him. For the first day of shooting, Johnson finds himself heavily costumed and strapped down with weapons, standing in a desert that’s either in some exotic location or somewhere near Chatsworth. I’m not the foremost expert on the original characters, and I didn’t care that much about the costuming from the first film. So, fans, is this what Road Block should look like?

Anybody who saw Paramount’s original attempt at a G.I. Joe movie, 2009′s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, will tell you the same thing: the last thing anybody in the world needs is a sequel to G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. There wasn’t a bit of fun to be had in that train wreck of a movie. Not even an ounce of nostalgia to be squeezed from its throwback subject matter. Even the most diehard apologists I know that were childhood fans of the Hasbro toy line/cartoon series didn’t dare say a good word about that urban assault suit wearing, pathetic excuse for a summer blockbuster. Unfortunately, according to Hollywood (and to some extent the ticket buying public), we need a sequel to everything, so we’re going to get another G.I. Joe anyways. The good news is that new director Jon M. Chu seems to be pulling out all of the casting stops to erase the memory of that lackluster first effort and draw people back into the theater with the promise of some big time star power. Already he’s made a couple of solid jabs at that goal by hiring Wu Tang legend the RZA to play Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow’s mentor the Blind Master and one of the hot chicks from Friday Night Lights (okay, Adrianne Palicki) to play Lady Jaye. And in addition to that, he’s landed a couple of really solid body shots by getting Rome‘s Ray Stevenson to play Firefly and Fast Five‘s [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

While enduring the mild pain caused by Transformers: Dark of the Moon, I thought to myself, “Man, this Sam character is a real prick. What type of people actually like this person? This is the best savior we could get?” I then realized that I often find myself thinking this nowadays. We rarely get great, likable heroes or genuine badasses on film anymore. Most are either mopey, passive, or do morally questionable acts. I’m not referring to anti-heroes — although, I do include one on the list — but, rather, the unintentionally lame mainstream characters that aren’t the most compelling or charming. A few of these not-so-heroic characters aren’t due to bad acting. As you’ll notice, Leonardo DiCaprio made the list for Inception, where he gave a solid performance. While I wouldn’t say that most of the actors featured here impressed anyone, DiCaprio and a few others certainly did. Here are ten mainstream characters that exhibit very little heroics:

Most of the toy-to-film talk that goes on this week will probably be about the new Transformers movie tearing things up at the box office, but the guys over at that other 80s franchise G.I. Joe aren’t taking the matter lying down. In the midst of Bay-mania they have done a whole host of casting for their second film, and the guys they’ve got to join their elite team include a grappler, a rapper, and… some white dude. Star of the recent Fast Five, Dwayne Johnson, or The Rock if you will, has become quite the source of news over the past few months. First he knew about the death of Osama bin Laden before everyone else, and now he managed to scoop the world with the announcement of his own casting in G.I. Joe. On his website Johnson posted a mockup picture of himself beside the Joe Logo and added the caption, “It’s official: Call the Pentagon, get me my big ass gun – Rocks a JOE!” Johnson had been previously rumored as playing the character of Roadblock, the rhyme talking, gourmet cooking, Joe who carries around a gigantic gun, so these comments seem to help confirm that suspicion. Word has also leaked, this time from The Hollywood Reporter and not Dwayne Johnson, that famed rapper the RZA will also be joining the cast. RZA may be best known for his position in the legendary rap troupe The Wu-Tang Clan, but he’s also dipped his toe into acting by [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Anybody who was a fan of the G.I. Joe toy line or cartoon series from the 80s could easily tell you who Roadblock was. He was a big, bald, mustachioed, black dude who carried around gigantic guns and had a snazzy way of speaking in rhyme. He was basically the closest cartoon equivalent that you could get to Mr. T other than when Mr. T himself got his own cartoon where he coached a mystery solving gymnastics team. Let’s call him Mr. T Lite. As you can imagine he was a popular character, so when putting together a sequel to 2009’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra it makes sense that you would include him in the film. And if you need to find an actor to translate a cartoon character like Roadblock into live action, it makes sense that you would find a gigantic, fast-talking, ex-pro wrestler to get the job done; especially when that ex-pro wrestler is as big a personality and as talented an actor as Dwayne Johnson. And the fact that he just starred in the ludicrously successful Fast Five, which went a long way in reviving that once stale looking franchise, is just the icing on the cake. Yes, getting Dwayne Johnson to star in your G.I. Joe sequel as Roadblock makes all the sense in the world, so the fact that Paramount is courting him to join G.I. Joe: Cobra Strikes comes as no surprise. But what I’m still trying to figure out is [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

I, like many people, went out to see Fast Five and be dazzled by its complex plot and characterizations. Just kidding, I went to see shit get blown up, crashed, smashed, and shot. I was pretty excited to see two separated-at-birth meatheads, Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson, smash sweaty brows into each other. While the racing is always cool, I think this is the installment where the physical action really shines through. The gun fights and the fist fights were both more exciting than any of the driving. And while enjoying The Rock and Vin Diesel try to lay the smack down on each other, I got to thinking: why isn’t The Rock a bigger star? I mean, who cares about Vin Diesel? Just kidding. Vin Diesel is fine too. But really I was thinking about Dwayne Johnson. Do you smell what he’s cooking? I don’t think so, because he hasn’t been in nearly enough films. Right?

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s like watching CNN or the New York Times, but funnier and without all of the big words. It covers movie news every night in a way that no other movie news column set to run at 11p CST can. It was also far more punctual than President Obama’s speech tonight. So it’s got that going for it. Earlier this evening it was announced that Osama Bin Laden was killed by American forces. Great job to our fighting men and women. That guy was a real douche. Perhaps just as interesting, as Badass Digest points out, was the fact that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was aware of the news before anyone else. This is what happens when you kick ass in Fast Five and open with an $83 million dollar weekend.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr gets in his car and hits the road with a can of NOS energy drink and his shaved head. Too bad his car is a 2006 Dodge minivan with collapsible seats and a back-seat DVD player for the kids to use. He didn’t stand a chance in the street racing against Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. After recovering from the cold, hard truth that The Rock stole his look for Fast Five, Kevin goes stag to Prom and suffers through the direct-to-DVD theatrical release of Hoodwinked Too!: Hood vs. Evil.

There’s a lot of things that people are comfortable watching Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson do. They include punching people, quipping, driving fast cars, raising his eyebrow, being forced to take care of his children even though he’s huge and athletic; the list goes on and on. Something a lot of people probably never thought they would see Johnson do, however, is sing country music. Well, I guess the big man has caught Gwyneth Paltrow Fever, because a new project will see him do just that. Variety reports that Johnson is looking to both produce and star in a biopic of famed country music star Charley Pride. Pride was a success in the early to mid seventies, releasing more than three-dozen number one singles and selling more than 70 million records over the span of his career. He’s given some credit for his success opening the door to the country music world for people of color, even though there haven’t been many of our brown brothers who have chosen to walk through since. Does that guy from Hootie and the Blowfish count? What about Don Cheadle’s character in Boogie Nights? Either way, I’m sure it was hard for Pride to be accepted as one of the first, and I imagine that’s what a lot of this film will be about.

Let’s cut to the chase here shall we? Fast Five is a stupid, overly long, and poorly written movie with moronic dialogue, plot contrivances big enough to fit both of the bald giants above through, and a complete disregard for right, wrong, and the sanctity of human life. More on all of that in a minute, but the other half of this equation is that it also features some kick-ass, high energy, destructive-as-hell action scenes that rattle the walls of the theater and happily remind you that there are still filmmakers capable of crafting spectacular cinematic mayhem without relying on CGI to do all the heavy lifting. So you can see my dilemma…

Lets face it, there isn’t going to be anything inventive about the story being told in Universal’s Fast Five. Vin Diesel and Paul Walker are going to band together with some familiar faces — Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson and that one Asian guy — and do some nefarious things at high speeds. There will be a lesson in the end, something about how being bad is sometimes a way to learn how to be good. And that brotherhood is essential to the criminal’s likability. It’s all stuff we’ve seen before. But take note, friends, as this one also includes a decidedly burly, extremely bearded Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. And he’s out to beat some ass.

Unflinching in their drive to keep the Fast and Furious franchise on the road, Universal has unleashed the first trailer for the upcoming fifth film, the appropriately titled Fast Five. The film will reunite Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Ludacris, Jordana Brewster and Tyrese Gibson with director Justin Lin, the man responsible for the last two films. It will also add a heaping dose of large, burly Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the man sent to track down the team of fast-driving, sex-having, parkour-using thieves through the streets of Rio de Janeiro. According to this first trailer, the whole thing will be unquestionably ridiculous.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr loosens his belt and falls asleep on the couch after eating too much turkey. But with three days left in the weekend, there’s always the opportunity to brave the hoards of crazy holiday shoppers to see a movie. It’s time to look at a new Disney princess with Tangled, dance with the divas from Burlesque and go Faster with a piece of the Rock.