'Borderlands 2' looking good for a late summer release

There is nothing like waking up to good news in the morning, it kind of sets the mood for the entire day, so I think today might be a pretty good day.

I woke  up to find one of the games I'm most looking forward to in 2012 has a release date, and a nice shiny new trailer to go along with it.

That game is Borderlands 2, the follow-up to the role-playing/first-person shooter hybrid with a wicked sense of humor and enough gun variants to sink a battleship.

Borderlands wasn't the prettiest looking thing, and the story was pretty weak, but it really made up for its weaknesses with the weapon variety and overall game play.

Borderlands 2  looks to find a happy medium by keeping what worked and improving how the game looks and making the story deeper. Borderlands 2 does look a little better, sharper and more vibrant, but from the trailer you can't get a grasp on whether the story is really any better.

What I can see, is that the good people at Gearbox Software didn't stray from what made the game so fun in the first place, and come September 18th, 2012, I can't wait to find myself on Pandora once again.

Check out the Borderlands 2 launch date trailer:

'Ghost Rider' lacks fire, spirit, and interest

Release: February 17th, 2012    

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Idris Elba, Violante Placido, Fergus Riordan

Directors: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor

Rated: Pg-13     Run Time: 1 Hr. 35 Min.

With a skull consumed in the fire of vengeance, the ability to suck a sinner's soul, and reduce the damned to ash with the swing of his chains Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage), and more importantly Ghost Rider return in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

The sequel to the 2007 original finds Blaze hiding out in Eastern Europe, trying to isolate himself from the world because of his curse.

Blaze's isolation doesn't last long when he is sought out by a man named Moreau (Idris Elba) looking to help a mother and son. The young boy is being pursued by the devil, and Moreau wants the help of Blaze and Ghost Rider.

For the his help Moreau offers to rid Blaze of the curse that's he's been living with since he made the deal with the devil to save his father's life.

Unfortunately it becomes very clear within the first few minutes that Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is possibly just as cursed as our main character.

And about halfway through, you know that this film is cursed.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance suffers from several major problems that include bad storytelling, bad acting, and some poor shot decisions that do nothing to help the film in the slightest.

Out of all the problems that play out on screen hardest thing to watch is Cage. Cage is basically chewing the scenery every time he's on screen, and the biggest example of this is when he changes into the rider.

Cage can lose  his cool with the best of them, but here it's so bad that it comes off as a joke.

The change is not something that should be laughed at, but it is so bad that you can't do anything besides laugh. As for most of the other major players in this poorly executed adventure their performances were across the board bad, but they may have been helped down the wrong path with a poor script.

There is one performances that I did like out of the entire film and that came from Elba, who is very charismatic and pretty much steals the show when Ghost Rider  isn't on screen.

It is Elba's performance is good, but if anything can be considered great (and that's asking a lot), it 

would have to be the design of Ghost Rider. Ghost Rider is the small bit of hope in what is a pretty hopeless movie.

But even where the movie goes right, it doesn't go right for long.

This film needs more of The Ghost  Rider, and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance simply does not deliver enough our title character. This fact alone really makes for a very disappointing film.

Add to that the bloated performance from Cage, and Ghost Rider becomes sorely missed.

Recently, it's been hard to make a truly bad comic book film, but Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance just might be one of the worst comic book films I've seen. There is a lot of content to work with, and it feels that this film squanders all the potential the comic offers.

I understand that Johnny Blaze and Ghost Rider might not be the first characters people think of when they think Marvel Comics, but one can see the potential success when they consider that Iron Man was  just as much a secondary character before the successful movies.

It's easy to see what can  be done with a series that's been handled well.

The Ghost Rider series has been handled terribly, and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is the culmination of lack luster work and bad decisions. It's a wonder how you could go so wrong with a character that can suck the soul of the sinner, turn the dammed to ash, all the while his skull is ablaze with the fires of vengeance, but in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance that's just what happens.

Grade: D-

Killing vamps with 'Honest Abe'

So this might not be a biopic, but Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter might just be the most interesting story ever told involving our 16th president.

The teaser trailer, which was released recently, has stirred my anticipation of this film greatly. I tend to like films that play with history, and alter things that are so ingrained in the common knowledge, and I'd say this film will succeed on these fronts if nowhere else.

The film is being produced by Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands) and directed by Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted), both of which are perfect for this type of odd dark thriller.

Don't know too much about the man playing Lincoln, a Benjamin Walker (Flags of Our Fathers), but it will be interesting to see what he can do with the role.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter looks like a really fun movie, and I will be interested to see it when it hits theaters June 22nd, but for now take a look at the teaser and let me know what you think.

'Safe House' is entertaining while being too obvious

Release: February 10^th, 2012

Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Denzel Washington, Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson

Director: Daniel Espinosa

Rated: R     Run Time: 1 Hr. 54 Min.

Being young and trying to get ahead in your line of work can always be hard to achieve, but for rookie C.I.A. agent Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) moving up the ladder might be a little more difficult.

Managing a safe house in Cape Town, South Africa, Weston is essentially stuck in a dead end job, until he gets his first “house guest” who is none other than the traitor Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington).

This man is more than meets the eye, and it’s quickly established that not only do the C.I.A. want him, but others in the intelligence community do too.

The safe house is raided, the interrogation team that arrived with Frost is put down, and the rookie is on the run with the one person the C.I.A considers the most dangerous men in the world.

Like many action films steeped in espionage that have come before it Safe House has more going on than what is seen, but the twists and turns of this film are not its strong point.

Unfortunately you can see the twists coming from a mile away and the turns are pretty soft, but what this Safe House does right is definitely worth the price of admission.

The action and suspense is really on target, and the car chase as Weston and Frost try to get away from those invading the safe house is particular high point in the film. The chase is intense quick cut editing fun that will leave you on the edge of your seat.

That intensity and quick cut editing is not only present in the chase, but also in the gritty fight scenes, and shootouts that seem to pop up everywhere. Every scene that calls for this kind of editing is consistently good, and never fell flat once.

Never falling flat can describe the acting of our two leads as well, but even if we are following  Reynolds character, when Washington is on screen the show is all his.
As Frost, Washington has a cold and calculating intensity that is motivated by a number of things that develop over time.

Frost never loses his appeal, which is interesting, because the character doesn't develop very much as the film goes on. In many cases, little character development is a problem, but here it’s perfect. I tend to believe; based on the films I’ve seen Washington in, that this role is one of his best.

When talking about the best for Safe House, I don’t think a love interest would be something I would have considered for the film. Reynolds’ character does have a girlfriend (played by Nora Arnezeder), but she is so barely there that she is for the most part cut out of the film a little less than halfway through.

Her performance isn’t bad, but if there really isn't something more solid there, then why have it at all. The love interest in Safe House is more of a distraction than anything and is one of the more sizable missteps of the film.

Safe House is a simple film that makes the biggest misstep by trying come off as complicated. Usually that would be a major problem except for the fact that much of what plays out in the film is really entertaining. You might see it come from a mile away, but the journey to the obvious is action-packed, intense and fun.

Grade:  B+