New Comic Con images: ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ ‘Man of Steel’

The news was coming out of San Diego Comic Con faster than a speeding bullet tonight.

The Warner Bros. panel, according to online reports, included footage of Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel,” the latest Warners/DC reboot of Superman.

The company also released a new teaser poster showing Henry Cavill as Supes:

The Marvel Films panel had some interesting news, including some titles: “Thor: The Dark World” for November 2013; “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” for April 2014 and “Guardians of the Galaxy” for August 2014.

Those follow the previously announced “Iron Man 3” for May 2013.

The “Winter Soldier” portion of the next Cap title would lead fans to expect that Bucky, Cap’s sidekick who “died” in the first movie, will be back. That’s because in the comics, after an absence of several decades, Bucky returned as the Winter Soldier, an assassin trained and maintained in youthful form by the Soviets.

“Guardians of the Galaxy” is an even more interesting turn of events that has, so far this evening, split fan opinion online.

The movie has been predicted for a few weeks now since Thanos, Marvel’s cosmic villain, showed up at the end of “The Avengers.” The Guardians, who have been around in one form or another since the 1960s, are longtime enemies of Thanos.

As another superhero team for Marvel movie-making besides the Avengers, they make as much sense as anything and are a more likely group in some ways than the Inhumans (fan fave characters who might have too many ties to the Fantastic Four for Marvel’s film arm to have the rights to) or the Defenders (which has included, over the years, such off-limits characters as the Silver Surfer and already-familiar ones like the Hulk).

Yet “Guardians” feels like a risk because it is cosmic in scope – a concept that was tested in “The Avengers” but still feels pretty disconnected from the “reality” established in Marvel’s movies so far – and because the characters are an unusual bunch, including Rocket Raccoon.

It’ll be interesting to see who Marvel chooses to helm “Guardians” and what direction the movie takes.

 

New ‘Fantastic Four’ on the way; what we want to see

Timed in part to generate buzz on the floor of San Diego Comic Con, 20th Century Fox has announced that Josh Trank, who brought a new approach to the superhero origin movie with “Chronicle,” will direct the studio’s reboot of the “Fantastic Four” movie series.

Well, everyone is guessing it’s a reboot. But it’s unlikely that Jessica Alba and Chris Evans will be taking a third turn as the Storm siblings.

I wasn’t bitterly, bitterly disappointed with the 2005 “Fantastic Four” movie and its 2007 sequel, “Rise of the Silver Surfer.” I was just bitterly disappointed. Only one bitterly there.

That’s because the FF are second only to – and maybe equal to – The Avengers as the favorite Marvel Comics of my childhood.

Getting everything about the FF right for a “Fantastic Four” movie won’t be an easy task, especially with so many fans suspecting that the new flick is just Fox’s way of keeping a handle on the characters so the title won’t revert to Marvel and the characters and their storylines won’t become part of Marvel’s born-and-bred movie universe.

But Trank generated some good will with “Chronicle,” and he might be up to this task.

Here’s what he needs to do:

Get the tone of the Fantastic Four right: That just about says it all. The book has always been one of Marvel’s offbeat properties. Most of the characters are related to each other or lifelong friends with all the frictions that entails. That means very different relationships than those among “The Avengers” in Joss Whedon’s blockbuster.

Reed Richards is a genius but not an ass. Not most of the time. The brains of the group is a difficult character, probably the most difficult of the foursome. He’s incredibly smart but remote. Imagine Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark without the quips.

Sue Storm has to have something to do. She’s the Invisible Woman! She can … become invisible! (Okay, and also throw force fields and stuff). Sue’s powers must have seemed a lot more special in the early 1960s. Since she’s married to Reed and the sister of Human Torch Johnny Storm, she’s the glue that holds the family together. But she has to do more than look blonde and say, “Johnny! Reed!”

Look at the recent movies for an example of how to handle the Human Torch. Seriously? Yes. One of the few things that the “Fantastic Four” movies got right was Johnny Storm’s irreverent hot shot. He’s a prankster and full of himself. There’s a reason one of his best friends in the comics is that wiseacre Spider-Man.

Ben Grimm. Ben Grimm. Ben Grimm. The Thing is the heart and soul of the Fantastic Four. He’s a rollicking character, a guy who will “clobber” any creature and hurtle toward a threat as huge as Galactus. But Ben is also the most tender-hearted. He’s been dealt a terrible hand in life. Yet he gets right in there and jokes and brawls and fights the bad guys. And a note to Trank: Ben Grimm needs to be taller than the other members of the team. Maybe he doesn’t have to be as big as the Hulk was in “The Avengers,” but he needs to be bigger than he was in the recent movies.

Big scope. BIIIIIIG scope. The Fantastic Four comic was huge in scope, with Earth-threatening menaces like Galactus, fantastic Reed Richards inventions the size of a house and adventures that spanned space and time. I hope they don’t try to do the movie on the cheap.

While I’d like to see the FF in the Marvel movie universe, Trank and Fox might be able to do a lot with the beloved characters in a self-contained movie. If they respect the characters, the concept and the classic storylines, that is.

You shoulda been a superhero: Some inspired ‘Batman’ casting choices

It’s a guessing game – a match game of sorts – that comic book fans have been playing for decades. Who should play their favorite superheroes and villains in a movie?

With Marvel Comics movies, the casting game is going on, officially and unofficially, in Hollywood and in Everytown, all the time these days. With a couple of Marvel movies in the works, including “Iron Man 3” and “The Wolverine,” and a couple more in the offing – “Guardians of the Galaxy,” maybe? – somebody’s being cast as a Marvel character every few days.

With “The Dark Knight Rises” coming out soon and Warners and DC Comics planning a reboot for the Batman character, I got to thinking about ideal or almost-happened casting for Batman movies in the past. Only one of these falls into that “almost happened” category, though. The rest are just random thoughts that popped into my head over the past couple of decades.

Michael J. Fox as Robin. Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. Remember the controversy when Michael Keaton was cast as Batman” in Tim Burton’s 1989 movie? Keaton was primarily a comic actor with a receding hairline and not enough chin. But he did a great job.

I know from reading an early draft of the script – more about that another day – that Robin was originally meant to be a character in the movie. So, given the late-1980s period, why not cast 80s star Michael J. Fox as Dick Grayson/Robin? Fox had the right stature, both physically and Hollywood-wise, for the part. He’s quite capable of pulling off a dramatic scene and he might have brought a Burt Ward-style energy to the movie.

Marlon Wayans as Robin. Early in the history of the Tim Burton “Batman” movies, there was talk of a street-wise, “urban” actor being cast as Dick Grayson. There’s a Dick Grayson character in that early script and Wayans, who was 17 when Burton’s movie was released, was set to play the part. Wayans even said in 2009 that he got paid for the role but Burton didn’t include the character. As we all know, Dick Grayson didn’t show up until the third “Batman” movie and by that point was played by future “NCIS” TV star Chris O’Donnell. I wish we’d gotten the chance to see Wayans in the role.

Ray Liotta as the Joker. Liotta is familiar to most of us from “Goodfellas” and other films, but take a look at him above from the 1986 Jonathan Demme movie “Something Wild.” Jeff Daniels plays a mild-mannered guy who falls in with a wild woman played by Melanie Griffith. It’s all fun and games until the woman’s homicidal ex-boyfriend shows up, played by guess who? I remember sitting in the theater in 1986 seeing Liotta’s crazy and scary expressions and thinking, “Damn, this guy would make a good Joker.” He sure would have been more physically intimidating than Jack Nicholson.

Willem DaFoe as the Joker. I liked DaFoe as Norman Osborn in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” movie. I wasn’t crazy about the Goblin outfit, but that’s another story. Anyway. Osborn wasn’t DaFoe’s first opportunity to play a bad guy. Here’s how he looked in Walter Hill’s 1984 action musical “Streets of Fire” as the murderous leader of a biker gang. Look at that face and tell me he wouldn’t be ideal as the Joker.

Armie Hammer as Batman. Or Superman. Everyone knows that DC and Warner Bros. are struggling to get their superhero film franchises off the ground – other than the very standoffish “Dark Knight” movies. They’re planning to reboot the Batman character almost immediately and want to jump-start a “Justice League” movie. (Of course, they’re only about $1.5 billion behind the box office take for “The Avengers.”)

But as fans know, Warners almost got a “Justice League” movie off the ground in 2008. A script was completed, casting had begun and apparently some costume tests were done. I’d like to pause right now to wonder how it’s possible that none of those costume photos have ever been leaked to the web. Anyway. Armie Hammer, later known for “The Social Network,” was cast at Batman before the movie got derailed. Hammer, who’s like seven feet tall, would have worked very well as a young Bruce Wayne. Or a young Clark Kent, for that matter. With Henry Cavill coming next year in “Man of Steel,” it’ll be interesting to see if he figures into future “Justice League” movie plans, if Hollywood will circle back to Hammer or find some virtual unknown for the role. That tactic worked very well with Christopher Reeve.

Secrets of ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’

Granted, “The Amazing Spider-Man” isn’t loaded with Easter eggs and teasers for the greater Marvel cinematic universe like “Iron Man” and every related Marvel movie since 2008. After all, “Spider-Man” was made by Columbia/Sony and is outside the Marvel movie universe. It’s not building to an “Avengers”-style team-up.

But director Marc Webb and the other makers of “ASM” have thrown a few strands of a larger Spider-Man story – as well as some Easter eggs – into the movie.

There she goes: Did anyone else wince at the scene when Peter, getting ready to fight the Lizard, apologizes to Gwen and tells her he’s about to throw her out a window? He does so, zapping her with a web and lowering her lightly to the ground below. He’s trying to get her out of harm’s way.

The scene was very reminiscent of the famous “Gwen Stacy dies” issues of “The Amazing Spider-Man” comic 121-122, in which the Green Goblin throws Gwen to her death, only to have Spidey catch her with webbing. But Gwen is dead anyway. I think the debate in fandom raged for years about whether the fall or the sudden stop at the end – thanks to Spidey’s webbing – was what killed her.

There’s no way that Webb didn’t realize the significance of throwing Gwen out of a building and catching her with webbing. Had to be an Easter egg – and foreshadowing.

Tip of the hat: I’ll have to look for this Easter egg when I see the movie again, but I’m told there’s a photo of “Community” actor Donald Glover in Peter’s room in “The Amazing Spider-Man.” This is neat because, when the reboot was announced, someone suggested that Glover could play the part. The casting didn’t gain any traction, but now that Spidey in the Ultimate world is African-American, why not do a little universe-blending?

Meet the parents: Much more so than in previous “Spider-Man” movies, “The Amazing Spider-Man” teases about Richard and Mary Parker, Peter’s parents. They’re seen in a flashback at the beginning of the movie and some of the marketing for the film teased “the untold story” of Spidey’s origin. I don’t think the movie really lived up to this hype, but Webb and the screenwriters definitely created some aura of mystery about the Parkers and their connection to Oscorp.

After decades in which they were relatively overlooked in the comics – and their deaths were taken for granted as a mechanism to put Peter in his aunt and uncle’s care – Marvel decided to elaborate on the background of the characters, retconing them as agents of Nick Fury’s SHIELD spy organization. If “Amazing Spider-Man” generates sequels, it’ll be interesting to see how the makers explore the past of the characters – especially since SHIELD is part of the separate Marvel movie universe and theoretically not open to the “Spider-Man” movies.

Who’s the guy? I mentioned this in my earlier review, but the movie’s end credits are interrupted by a scene of Rhys Ifans’ Curt Connors, incarcerated and being visited by a shadowy figure. I assumed this was Norman Osborn, the future Green Goblin.

But a number of sites have since theorized that the character was other Spidey villains as diverse as Electro (flashes of lighting? check) and Mysterio (abrupt appearance and disappearance? check).

Maybe we’ll find out in a sequel.

‘Spider-Man’ maybe not amazing, but good

There’s apparently a pretty crass motive behind the fact that “The Amazing Spider-Man” is playing in theaters around the world this week, and I know that you would be as shocked as I am to learn that money has something to do with it.

Only about a decade ago, of course, Sony/Columbia Pictures started releasing Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” movies and the first two entries in the three-film series are pretty good. Since that time, however, Marvel Comics has gone into the movie business itself – you might have heard about that – and, as Hollywood tells it, Sony decided to hang onto the rights to stay in the Spider-Man movie business so the rights to the character didn’t revert to Marvel.

This means, for the time being, no Spidey in “Avengers” movies.

It also means, because the producers decided against letting Raimi continue his series, that Spidey got a reboot in the hands of director Marc Webb (heh).

Webb’s movie, “The Amazing Spider-Man,” would be closer to amazing indeed if so much of it didn’t feel like the reboot that it is.

That’s because Webb seems to have a pretty good handle on the movie and strikes the right tone. But a big chunk of the movie seems just too familiar, as Webb presents a slightly altered version of Spidey’s origin again.

Can we all agree that we don’t need to see future superhero movies spend quite so much time on the origin of its hero? Especially if we’re seeing a reboot?

Spoilers ahead, by the way.

Anyway, Andrew Garfield stars as Peter Parker, NYC high school student who’s something of a high-school outcast but nowhere near as much of a hapless nerd as Tobey Maguire’s “puny Parker.” He stands up for a kid bullied by meatheaded classmate Flash Thompson and catches the eye of beautiful Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) even before he gets super-powers.

In the new outing, Peter is driven by the mystery of what happened to his parents, Richard and Mary Parker, who left him in the care of his Uncle Ben and Aunt May when he was a child. Peter finds his father’s Oscorp briefcase, which leads him to contact scientist Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), a scientist colleague of his father.

After that injection of mystery, the rest of Parker’s story unfolds fairly normally. Peter gets bitten by a very special spider and gains its powers. His Uncle Ben gets killed (in a manner that seems much more random and less effective than in the comic and Raimi’s movie, frankly) and Peter decides to become a vigilante, hunting his uncle’s killer.

In the meantime, Peter and Gwen fall in love – kind of quickly, really – and Peter helps Connors single-handedly pursues his dream of manipulating genetics.

Of course, things don’t work out for Connors and he turns into the Lizard, a development that was teased throughout the Raimi films as actor Dylan Baker popped up, in a one-armed lab coat, only to never see the conclusion of his story reached.

There are some really good elements in Webb’s version of the story … and some that don’t work out all that well. Here are a few:

The mystery of Richard and Mary Parker: To make this reboot seem a little different, Webb and the screenwriters sow through the movie seeds of a the mystery of what happened to Peter’s parents. It’s implied that something untoward happened to them. But it’s just a tease so far.

Spidey the smart-ass. Here’s one thing that works really well. In the comics, Spidey is a jokester. He quips and hurls insults about as often as he spins webs. The movie does a good job with this aspect of Peter’s personality.

The Stacys are perfect. Emma Stone is perfectly cast as Gwen Stacy, Peter’s first big love in the comics. The Raimi films reversed things by giving us redhead Mary Jane before Gwen. Aside from being adorable, Stone is quite good as Gwen. And comic and actor Dennis Leary is very good as her father, NYPD Capt. George Stacy. True to the comics, Capt. Stacy eventually learns Peter’s secret.

The bad guy is … eh. Movies always run a risk when they make the bad guy a sympathetic character. Raimi danced on the edge of disaster but triumphed with the often-sympathetic Dr. Octopus in “Spider-Man 2.” But there’s not much to Curt Connors here and what there is is sympathetic or even pathetic. He really feels like a minor Spider-Man rogue.

The little things are good. Besides Spidey’s penchant for wise-cracking, one of the nicest touches in the film was bully Flash Thompson’s end-of-the-movie admiration of Spider-Man. In the comics, Flash was Spidey’s biggest fan at the same time he hated his secret alter ego.

The stinger doesn’t work. In Marvel’s owned-and-operated movies, beginning with “Iron Man,” there’s a credits or after-credits stinger, or extra scene, teasing developments in upcoming movies. Those scenes worked perfectly. In “The Amazing Spider-Man” – here are those spoilers I warned you about – the mid-credits scene shows Connors, incarcerated, being confronted by a shadowy figure. I think we’re supposed to assume it was the mentioned-but-unseen Norman Osborn, but the payoff fell flat with a mention of the “secret” about Peter’s parents. Uh, really? You’ve just spent two hours telling us there’s a secret about Peter’s parents, then you tell us, in the surprise secret scene, that there’s a secret about Peter’s parents? I guess the scene is there in case we were out at the  concession stand during that part, huh?

There’s nothing in “The Amazing Spider-Man” that can top the average Marvel movie or Raimi’s first two tries at the character. But there’s nothing offensive either. It’s worth seeing if your expectations are low or manageable.

 

Classic movie: ‘Jaws’

What better movie to watch around the Fourth of July than “Jaws?”

Much of the movie’s plot – which, for a film made in 1975, feels fresh today – revolves around one panicked town’s reaction to the possibility a rogue shark will ruin tourism on the Fourth of July holiday.

And there’s no better summer movie than “Jaws,” Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Peter Benchley’s best-selling novel.

Lots has been said about the impact of the movie and how it shaped our perceptions of summer movies, box office numbers and the very meaning of the word blockbuster. No more about those topics needs to be said here.

So some observations about the movie in general:

Two for one: I love how Spielberg mixes two movie genres – the horror film and the high seas adventure – so effectively. I’m not sure such an effective blending occurred again until James Cameron’s “Aliens” took the horror movie feel of the original “Alien” and combined it with a down-and-dirty war movie.

Revenge of the nerds: At the end, the schlubby scientist Hooper and the afraid-to-go-into-the-water police chief Brody survive. The two guys with glasses. The two guys with the backstories that can’t compete with Quint, the shark hunter.

The shark still looks good: Spielberg had so much trouble with his mechanical shark that he hid it, refraining from showing it through much of the movie, so he legend goes. But the shark – Bruce as he was called on the set – looks really pretty good. And the sparing use of the shark ratchets up the suspense. Really, would numerous scenes of the shark cruising along on top of the water have been as cool and suspenseful as the bobbing plastic barrels? Nope.

Robert Shaw should have starred in all the movies. Shaw, the scruffy and steely-eyed shark hunter Quint, made a series of pretty good movies but none could compete with “Jaws.” He died of a heart attack at age 51 in 1978, only three years after “Jaws” was released. How much fun would it have been to have Shaw around, making movies, for the past few decades?

Spielberg and company improved on the book: Benchley’s novel is a great summer read but the movie improves greatly on the plot and characters. The best example? Spielberg eschews the illicit affair between scientist Hooper and the police chief’s wife. What a totally false note said affair was.

It’s the very model of the modern blockbuster. Everything about the movie was duplicated and repeated, either solely or in combination, in summer hits for the next three decades. The spot-on editing (here by Verna Fields). The John Williams score. And, yes, the string of inferior sequels.

‘The Avengers’ hits $600 million … and 27th place????

Although I only contributed the cost of a couple of tickets – so far – I was pleased to hear that Joss Whedon’s “The Avengers” passed the $600 million box office milestone this week.

That puts “The Avengers” in third place, behind James Cameron’s “Titanic” and “Avatar,” in terms of total box office haul.

“Titanic” has topped a cool billion, so I’m not sure “Avengers” will be able to reach that peak.

Each time a new box office threshold is crossed, of course, some history-minded person considers the increase, over the decades, of ticket prices.

Boxofficemojo.com’s list of movie box office – as adjusted for inflation – is pretty illuminating and also a little disheartening for movie lovers.

Considering that ticket prices were less than a quarter in 1939, how amazing is it that “Gone With the Wind” sold enough tickets (in its original release and subsequent re-releases) to still top the charts, with a an-adjusted-for-inflation take of $1.6 billion? That’s a paltry $198 million in unadjusted numbers.

On the Boxofficemojo list, “The Avengers” and its $600 million haul come in at 27th place.

Here are the top ticket sellers of all time via Boxofficemojo:

1	Gone with the Wind	MGM	$1,600,193,400	$198,676,459	1939^
2	Star Wars	Fox	$1,410,707,200	$460,998,007	1977^
3	The Sound of Music	Fox	$1,127,929,800	$158,671,368	1965
4	E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial	Uni.	$1,123,486,300	$435,110,554	1982^
5	Titanic	Par.	$1,074,383,500	$658,672,302	1997^
6	The Ten Commandments	Par.	$1,037,520,000	$65,500,000	1956
7	Jaws	Uni.	$1,014,384,200	$260,000,000	1975
8	Doctor Zhivago	MGM	$983,152,800	$111,721,910	1965
9	The Exorcist	WB	$875,945,400	$232,906,145	1973^
10	Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs	Dis.	$863,280,000	$184,925,486	1937^
11	101 Dalmatians	Dis.	$791,344,600	$144,880,014	1961^
12	The Empire Strikes Back	Fox	$777,590,600	$290,475,067	1980^
13	Ben-Hur	MGM	$776,160,000	$74,000,000	1959
14	Avatar	Fox	$770,261,700	$760,507,625	2009^
15	Return of the Jedi	Fox	$744,950,500	$309,306,177	1983^
16	Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace	Fox	$715,276,800	$474,544,677	1999^
17	The Sting	Uni.	$706,011,400	$156,000,000	1973
18	The Lion King	BV	$705,680,400	$422,783,777	1994^
19	Raiders of the Lost Ark	Par.	$698,083,500	$242,374,454	1981^
20	Jurassic Park	Uni.	$682,750,300	$357,067,947	1993^
21	The Graduate	AVCO	$677,755,200	$104,931,637	1967^
22	Fantasia	Dis.	$657,704,300	$76,408,097	1941^
23	The Godfather	Par.	$625,066,700	$134,966,411	1972^
24	Forrest Gump	Par.	$622,081,300	$329,694,499	1994
25	Mary Poppins	Dis.	$619,200,000	$102,272,727	1964^
26	Grease	Par.	$609,596,100	$188,755,690	1978^
27	Marvel’s The Avengers	BV	$600,377,080	2012	1978^
28	Thunderball	UA	$592,416,000	$63,595,658	1965
29	The Dark Knight	WB	$588,314,100	$533,345,358	2008
30	The Jungle Book	Dis.	$583,544,900	$141,843,612	1967^

‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’ – the book was better

I wanted to like the movie version of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” At least, I wanted to like it a lot more than I did.

Seth Grahame-Smith’s 2010 novel is one of my favorite books in the least couple of years. It is audacious and clever and plays it absolutely straight in telling the hidden history of our 16th president: Lincoln spent much of his life killing the monsters that took his mother away from him (and their comrades), gradually discovering that vampires are at the heart of the conflict tearing the nation apart and propelling it toward Civil War.

Grahame-Smith made vampires among the forces bolstering the Confederacy because of the ready-made sustenance slaves presented for the undead.

Laugh if you want at the outrageousness of Grahame-Smith’s story, but it worked. Lincoln was never treated as a ridiculous figure. And blaming vampires for some of the tragic turns of Lincoln’s life served the plot well.

So I had fairly high hopes for Timur Bekmambatov’s film, adapted by Grahame-Smith himself and starring Benjamin Walker as Lincoln.

My hopes persisted even after I saw footage that seemed to indicate the movie replaced the somber tone of the book’s story with over-the-top action scenes.

After seeing the movie today, I have to say the film gets some things right but goes dreadfully astray with others.

First, the good:

Lincoln’s character is spot on. Walker plays him with the absolute correct amount of gravitas and sorrow. Since much of the movie’s plot – like the book’s storyline – takes place before Lincoln gets to the White House, Walker is quite good as a young, athletic Lincoln, the rail-splitter who knew how to handle an axe.

The mysterious Henry. Dominic Cooper is good as Henry, Lincoln’s mentor in vampire-killing, who has some secrets of his own. In the book, there’s a real tension between the two as Lincoln wants to take revenge on the vampire who killed his mother and Henry strings him along, setting him up to meet and kill other vampires. There’s a bit of that tension in the movie (although not enough).

The tone. While the movie is infinitely flashier and more action-filled than the book, the sorrowful feel of the story – which matches the tragic events of Lincoln’s life – feels right.

The action. Although they were out of left field, two big action set pieces in the movie are quite fun. In one, Lincoln pursues his mother’s killer through a herd of wild horses. In the second, the heroes fight the bad guys on a moving train. There’s the perfect amount of collapsing train trestles and moments when people almost slip off the tops of rail cars.

What doesn’t work, with the biggest minus saved for last (spoilers when we get there):

The Black Best Friend. In the movie, Lincoln has a lifelong friend, William (Anthony Mackie), a free black man who joins in the fight against vampires. William has some very cool scenes and dishes out punishment to vampires about as well as Lincoln does. But the character, which didn’t exist in the book, feels shoehorned into the story.

So does the villain, Adam, played by Rufus Sewell. In the book, a conspiracy of Southerners, sympathizers and vampires make up Lincoln’s shadowy enemies. In the movie, most of the emphasis is placed on Adam, a 5,000-year-old vampire who’s part of the slaves-for-food plot but mostly seems like a character created to give Lincoln somebody to kill in the final reel.

The de-emphasized role of slavery. In the book, slavery and vampires go hand-in-hand. In the movie, the relationship – and the foul strengths vampirism brings to the Confederacy – feel like it’s fairly glossed over.

The final scene (spoilers!). In the movie, after Lincoln and Henry triumph over evil vampire Adam, Henry urges Lincoln to allow him to turn the president into a vampire so the two can fight evil together through eternity. Lincoln dismisses the idea and goes off to Ford’s Theatre and his destiny. Flash forward to present-day when Henry appears to foil a presidential assassination attempt.

That’s it?

How about this for an ending, right out of the book: After the war is won, vampire John Wilkes Booth shoots Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre. Henry tracks Booth and kills him. Henry returns to Lincoln’s side. Flash forward a century. Two distinctive men watch as Martin Luther King Jr. gives his “I have a dream” speech, the Lincoln Memorial nearby. The men are Henry and Lincoln.

Henry observes, “Some men are just too interesting to die.”

The finale of the book was so much better, so much stronger, that changing it, taking Lincoln out of it, very nearly ruined the movie for me.

If you haven’t read “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” you might like the movie’s enjoyably wild action scenes and its heartfelt portrayal of our most tragic president.

If you’ve read the book, the movie will leave you wondering what happened.

RIP Victor Spinetti

A moment of silence is in order for Victor Spinetti, a wonderful character actor who died Tuesday in London at age 82.

Spinetti was in a couple dozen movies and won a Tony Award for his stage work, but the longtime British character actor was best known for his work in three movies featuring The Beatles.

He played the TV director driven to distraction by the boys from Liverpool in “A Hard Day’s Night.”

And he was the crazed scientist in “Help!”

Spinetti also appeared in “Magical Mystery Tour.”

He was partnered with fellow Brit Roy Kinnear in the Beatles films and also, in the 1980s, a music video for the Genesis spin-off band Mike and the Mechanics song “All I Need is a Miracle.”

Spinetti’s obits recall his recounting why he so often appeared in Beatles films. Spinetti said that George Harrison told him that if didn’t appear in their films, his “mum” wouldn’t go see them.

 

 

Unsung actors: RIP Richard Lynch

Richard Lynch is another of those Hollywood actors whose name you might not recognize. But once you see his face, you think, “Yeah! I know that guy!”

With Lynch, who died this week at his home in Palm Springs, California, there was another reason he was so memorable.

Some of the obits for Lynch, who was 76, note his scarred face. Some attribute it to injuries he suffered in an accident in the 1960s.

Whatever the cause of Lynch’s unusual looks, he used those, his Draco Malfoy-blond hair and his distinctive voice – a mixture of distinctive and gravelly – to make an impression on a generation of movie and TV fans.

For me, Lynch was best known for playing a vampire reborn in modern-day in the 1979 TV thriller “Vampire.” I didn’t know until I read his obits that the TV movie, which was made on the cheap but had an impressive cast and some nice visuals, was a pilot for a TV series. It would have been cool to see Lynch menacing the show’s heroes each week.

Lynch was also familiar to geeks for his role as the villain in the low-budget sword-and-sorcery flick “The Sword and the Sorcerer,” released in 1982.

He had an impressive TV resume that included guest appearances on shows ranging from “The Streets of San Francisco” to “The Bionic Woman” to “Starsky and Hutch” to “Galactica 1980” to “The Fall Guy.”

More recently he starred in a lot of low-budget horror films and appeared in the Rob Zombie “Halloween” remake.

Richard Lynch might not get included in the “In Memoriam” video shown at next year’s Academy Awards. But he’s the kind of memorable character actor that the movie and TV industry is built on.