New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Michael Lynderey: It's quite interesting that Vanessa Hudgens' Beastly is now scheduled to open on July 30th, smack dab opposite her co-star Zac Efron's new movie, Charlie St. Cloud. I'm still on the fence about the box office prospects of that latter film, but Beastly never sounded on paper like anything that would take off with teen audiences, and now that I've seen the trailer, I'd say it also doesn't look like anything that will break out. This could very well be the Bandslam of this year, and I suspect both Efron and Hudgens may feel the wrath of another Disney starlet, Selena Gomez, whose Ramona & Me opens just a week before their two films, and is probably going to do very, very well.

Some release date changes are in order here.

David Mumpower: Dear Mary-Kate Olsen: please learn inflection. As for the rest of this, I realize that everyone over the age of 25 is desperately trying to understand how the 12-25 crew could swoon over Twilight, so copycats are everywhere. Even so, I just don't think that CBS Films is getting it. And not just with this film. Of course, the depressing thought here is that as much of a train wreck as this appears to be, it will outperform the marvelous Bandslam. God, I hate teenagers...and not just because of XBox Live.

Kim Hollis: I actually think that Vanessa Hudgens is pretty talented (she's wonderful in Sky High and Bandslam, and she's actually pretty wonderful in High School Musical as long as you let yourself get past the fact that it's a silly Disney Channel property). With that said, *no one* in Beastly seems like they care. CBS Films seems to be trying to release movies into theaters that would be better served as a "Movie of the Week." No one wants to shell out cash for that sort of thing.

Jonah Hex

Josh Spiegel: This movie has a really good cast, if a very weird one. You've got Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Lance Reddick, Michael Shannon, and Will Arnett. Really good cast. So why is it that all I think of when I see this preview is Wild Wild West meets The Punisher, as long as he looks like Harvey Two-Face? I'm skeptical about this one, but I'm willing to give it a chance should the reviews not say the movie sucks.

Kim Hollis: This looks like an out-and-out disaster. The guns are nifty, but other than that, just...yuck. Wild Wild West is a good comparison, or Ghost Rider, or any second rate superhero movie. I very much like Josh Brolin, but there is not much in this trailer that's enticing me to see it. Megan Fox and her lack of inflection sure don't help.

Curt David: I think this is a type of movie that is perfect for Megan Fox. (Josh, you seemed to have accidentally forgot to include her name under your list of actors that make the cast great). She may not be able to carry a movie entirely on her shoulders (Jennifer's Body), but she seems well-suited to play a character like this one in Jonah Hex.

Brett Beach: Yeas to all the Wild Wild West comparisons. I understand what John Malkovich and Megan Fox are doing here, but Josh Brolin? This is how he cashes in his critical ascension and Academy Award nomination? Lots of explosions (which as with WWW, don't seem to belong in that time period). Single entendres (which is what Fox is best at) seem to be dominant and I am going to hazard a guess that this gets an R because I don't see how some of the violence the trailer suggests is going to be PG-13-ified. All in all, it may not be an out-and-out disaster, but it will have to do for now.

Michael Lynderey: The trailer looks okay, but it'll be really hard to pass muster on this until reviews start coming out. But in all honestly, I believe this film will be trampled over by Toy Story 3, and could possibly finish with some near-offensive total number, like, say, $26 million (no, I don't mean for the weekend). I'd like to be wrong...

Jim Van Nest: I know nothing about the character or the story. I was anticipating this one because I happened to stumble (literally) onto the set in New Orleans last year and I was amazed at how they transformed a couple blocks of the French Quarter into an Old West version. We watched them film for quite a while. Had I known that THIS is what I was watching, I'd have gone back to Bourbon Street and had another drink instead. Watching Brolin, a fine actor, doing a bad Eastwood impression through Two-Faces scarred mug makes me want to cry. And Megan Fox should just skip all the movie stuff, move on to Playboy and then go away. Everything she's in, she makes worse. I think Kim's right...anything shy of an out-and-out disaster will be a miracle.

Scott Lumley: Summer eye candy garbage at its finest. Naturally, this is either gonna blow up huge or disappear quicker than Megan Fox's serious career. And judging by the eclectic cast, the cartoony look and the lack of Giant Robots, my money is on fail miserably.

Incidentally, the sequence involving the pair of gatling guns strapped to the horse and used apache helicopter style was pretty much the point I realized that Hollywood screwed up yet another comic book film.

Continued:       1       2       3