Giant Freakin Robot

Gavin Hood’s (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s science fiction classic, Ender’s Game, is still a long way off. We won’t lay eyes on the film until November 1, just in time to usher in end-of-the-year blockbuster season. But just because we’re months out, and have most of a summer’s worth of big movies to wade through, doesn’t mean it’s too soon to start the hype machine. In that spirit, take a look at this latest picture from Ender’s Game.

This photograph, which comes from the film’s Facebook page, has a definite Sears Portrait Studio vibe. Composition wise, stars Harrison Ford and Asa Butterfield are posed much like a family portrait. They also look miserable, like most people having their pictures taken. Butterfield—who plays the titular Andrew “Ender” Wiggan, a young but strategically gifted military mind—has a vacant look on his face, staring off into the distance.

This summer there are movies we’re excited about, movies we expect to love, and movies we expect to hate. Marc Forster’s World War Z, however, presents an interesting case. The zombie actioner is big in both scope and scale, but more than anything, it’s been really difficult to get a read on. Sometimes it looks like it could be great; other times not so much. And you can’t help but wonder about the extensive rewrites and reshoots the production endured. Did they only serve to strengthen the film, or was it a desperate attempt to cobble together something out of nothing?

The fact that it retained a prime June 21 release date seems to indicate that the studio has some faith in the film. But these three new TV spots go back to the earlier point. From these short videos, World War Z doesn’t look great, it doesn’t look awful, it’s just kind of there. They’re all similar, full of things you’ve seen before, and don’t offer much in the way of insight.

It was the sort of slip-up every TV production dreads. After keeping the finale’s secrets under tight wraps for the months leading up to last Saturday’s airing of “The Name of the Doctor,” a major SNAFU resulted in pre-ordered copies of the Doctor Who: Season 7.5 Blu-rays shipping out two weeks early. Suddenly the spoilers were out in the wild, and in a world where the internet exists, that could have been disastrous.

The powers that be at the BBC and BBC America took to social media to implore Who fans not to spoil the surprise, and they promised to release a special behind-the-scenes video if fans stayed mum. Thankfully, the fans kept their lips buttoned and, while one of the finale’s big twists had been rumored for weeks, for the most part you could go into the finale spoiler-free unless you actively chose not to. True to the BBC’s word, you can check out a short video above, with Matt Smith and David Tennant talking about playing the Doctor, and what it’s been like working together on the 50th anniversary special.

I love Timecop, I really, really do. Put Jean-Claude Van Damme in anything, and I’ll watch it. That said, I can’t claim that Peter Hyam’s 1994 time travel joint is great cinema. And you have to wonder, if Universal is talking about remaking, or rebooting, or whatever they’re calling it this time, Timecop, are they getting down towards the bottom of the barrel?

Granted, Timecop did make more than $100,000,000 at the box office, and it is Van Damme’s second highest grossing movie to date, behind Kung Fu Panda 2. I’m not going to ask if this is a good idea, or even if this is necessary. No, my only question, Universal, is how the fuck are you going to remake Timecop without Van Damme? Come on. No one else in the world combines a wooden delivery, sweet feathered hair, and splits-doing ability quite like the Muscles from Brussels. Sure, he wasn’t involved in the short-lived TV show or the unfortunate sequel, but still…

For those of you not familiar with this particular bit of science fiction cinema, Timecop is precisely what the title implies, the story of time-travelling law enforcement officers. Set in the futuristic world of 2004, officers of the Time Enforcement Commission leap around in time, stopping those who would use time travel for nefarious purposes and screw with the space-time continuum. It’s a noble pursuit.