Duncan Jones to direct a ROGUE TROOPER movie

Duncan Jones has announced that he is directing a movie based on cult British comic Rogue Trooper. He made the announcement in a slightly oblique fashion via Twitter.

Rogue Trooper was created in 1981 by Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons, originally appearing in issues of 2000AD alongside characters like Judge Dredd. The series is set on the planet Nu-Earth, originally a paradise-like colony of Earth that was torn apart in a brutal, generations-lasting civil war between the Norts and Southers. This was has made the planet almost uninhabitable, with a toxic atmosphere forcing the people to live in domed shelters.

As promised... pic.twitter.com/6y3pzn2Cn1

— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) July 15, 2018

The original and most iconic storyline follows Rogue, the sole surviving of a bungled offensive. Rogue is a Genetic Infantryman (G.I.) who has been engineered to survive in the toxic environment, resulting in blue skin and an enhanced immune system. He is assisted by AI chips with notable personalities built into his helmet, gun and backpack. Rogue discovers his unit was sold out to the enemy by a "traitor general" and he sets out to expose and punish this individual in a storyline that lasted four years. Since the conclusion of that story, Rogue has appeared in numerous further adventures in both comics and video games.

British director Duncan Jones is the director of Moon (2009), Source Code (2011), WarCraft (2016) and Mute (2018), and is a director of some skill, although Mute was disappointing. It's unclear how far into development this project is, but we hope to hear more soon.

Mute

Mute is the story of an Amish-raised (but not devout) man who can't speak and who can't use technology who has to find his girlfriend when she vanishes into the crazy brashness of mid-21st Century Berlin, which requires him to make a journey through the seedy underbelly of a city riven by crime.

Mute is also the story of two ex-US soldiers, both adversely affected by their tours of duty in the Afghanistan (in a war now in its fifth decade with no sign of ending), who team up in the Berlin underworld, one for the money and one in the hope of making a better life for himself and his daughter, but can't help falling prey to their worst instincts.

There are two potentially interesting stories here around which you could build effective movies. Director Duncan Jones appears to, at one point or another, decided to mash them together into one film which is at tremendous mistake. Mute is a movie that is somewhat less than the some of its parts.

It's impossible to dismiss the feeling that Duncan Jones's career hasn't gone quite the way it should. He started out with the excellent Moon (which occurs in the same universe as Mute, although this is in no way relevant to the plot), before moving onto the entertaining Source Code. His third movie was the insaneo-budgeted WarCraft which was, although by no means a complete disaster, not the break-out, effects-driven hit he needed either. He's now gone back to his (relatively) low-budget roots with Mute, a film which he's been planning to make for over a decade, at one point conceiving it as a Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels-style Mockney comedy-thriller before deciding (somewhat randomly) to turn it into a Blade Runner homage and introducing a love story, a mute lead and a missing persons, noir thriller plot.

To say these two plots are a tonal mismatch is an understatement. Alexander Skarsgard plays our non-speaking protagonist Leo with a lot of intensity, putting to use the years of brooding he finely honed on True Blood. He makes for an interesting lead you can't help but root for, even if you're not quite sure how he puts together the clues needed to follow his missing girlfriend's trail (or pay his rent or take part in modern society at all) since he refuses to use the internet or own a mobile phone. However, every time his dogged pursuit through Berlin's neon-lit underbelly threatens to become compelling, we cut away to Cactus Bill (Paul Rudd) and Duck Teddington (Justin Theroux), the American vets whose experiences in Afghanistan have left one a borderline psycho with a Bowie knife obsession and the other one, apparently, with an unhealthy interest in very young girls (which kind of kills any enjoyment you could otherwise get from Theroux's otherwise game performance). Bill and Ted's adventures could have perhaps been more watchable - with less paedophilic overtones and more dark comedy - in a Tarantino kind of way, but the writing doesn't quite snap into life enough to make them interesting protagonists. And even when their storyline does become more intriguing, the camera suddenly cuts away to Leo, who is now doing something completely incongruous from where we left him (like hanging out with a depraved, sex robot-owning Dominic Monaghan or trading punches with Noel Clarke: Mute at least provides gainful employment for actors who were moderately big about ten years ago and have faded from view since then).

It's a bizarre film filled with bizarre characters that doesn't really hang together very well. There's some nice visual effects moments and some entertaining musical homages (Jones's father David gets a few musical shout-outs, and Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box" gets a music box cover version because why not), as well a grin-inducing moment when a bunch of what are blatantly cyborgs from classic 1993 cyberpunk game Syndicate (which had a level set in Berlin) show up. Jones's direction is also very effective on a scene-by-scene basis.

Mute (**½) is not without merit and has some outstanding performances, particularly by Paul Rudd who badly needed a role to show him being something other than an amiably goofy nice guy and steals every scene he's in as an unhinged psycho. But overall this is a film that feels like the script needed another two or three passes and a tonal rewrite before it was ready for the screen. Every time the movie does something that makes you really like it, it delivers another moment that makes you groan with embarrassment. But as a failure, it's still an interesting one. Mute is on global release via Netflix right now.

Trailer for Duncan Jones' MUTE released

Netflix have released the trailer for Duncan Jones' new cyberpunk movie Mute.

Set in a near-future Berlin, the film sees a mute bartender named Leo (Alexander Skarsgard) searching for his girlfriend Naadirah (Seyneb Saleh), who has gone missing. He embarks on a journey through the city's shady underworld in search of two American surgeons (Justin Theroux, Paul Rudd) whose names keep coming up in relation to the mystery.

Intriguingly, the film is set in the same world as Jones' first movie, the cult hit Moon, and Sam Rockwell will return as Sam Bell from that movie, although not (it's expected) in a major role.

If successful, Jones has a script for a third movie in the "Mooniverse" ready to go.

The film will be released on Netflix on 23 February.

WarCraft

The orc homeworld of Draenor is dying, so the powerful mage Gul'dan opens a dark portal to the verdant world of Azeroth. Durotan, warchief of the Frost Wolf clan, realises that Gul'dan himself may have destroyed Draenor with his dark magic and vows not to let him do the same to this new world. To this end Durotan proposes an alliance with the native human kingdom of Stormwind. King Llane is doubtful, but his greatest warrior and general Anduin Lothar is more willing to consider the proposal. But prejudice and the machinations of a traitor threaten the peace before it can even be given a chance.

Blizzard Entertainment released their first WarCraft video game back in 1994. There have been twelve games released in total for the series (comprising three real-time strategy games, the online multiplay phenomenon World of WarCraft and various expansions), which is estimated to have sold well over 70 million copies, making it one of the biggest-selling video game series of all time. It's actually a bit surprising that it's taken this long for the franchise to move to Hollywood.

Sam Raimi worked on the project for a while before departing, unhappy that Blizzard would have a creative veto on the project. The next choice for director was a bit unusual: Duncan Jones, the director of the well-received Moon and Source Code. Both were good films, but both were also very small in scale compared to a massive, CG-infused fantasy epic.

Jones turned out to be very good choice, as WarCraft is, unexpectedly, a perfectly fine piece of pulp entertainment and easily the best movie based on a video game to date (not, it has to be said, a high bar to climb).

WarCraft works because it goes back to the start of the story and adapts the events of the first game in the series, Orcs and Humans. This is a canny move because it avoids the epic exposition required to jump straight into the World of WarCraft storyline and because Orcs and Humans actually had a very slight narrative, covering big events in a very broad brush. This gives the movie enormous room to invent new storylines and characters whilst still telling the same tale.

This also means that the movie unfolds on a surprisingly small scale. Yes, there are some massive tracking shots of thousands of orcs, but there is only one big battle at the end of the movie and it's a fairly restrained fight between a few thousand men and orcs rather than a Pelennor Fields-style colossal mass-engagement. Instead the film focuses mainly on the parallel stories of Anduin Lothar and Durotan as they try to bring about peace between their races in the face of scepticism on both sides. Travis Fimmel brings his off-beat charisma from Vikings to play the role of Lothar with relish, whilst Toby Kebbell doesn't let the fact that his face is buried under CGI to prevent him from delivering a perfectly good mocap performance as Durotan, whose nobility and honour shines through. Special mention must be given to Paula Patton as Garona Halforcen. She has some really terrible makeup which stands out like a sore thumb compared to the CG orcs all around her, but she delivers a fine performance that overcomes such problems. Most of the actors, in fact, deliver above and beyond the call of duty with the possible exception of Ben Schnetzer, whose performance as Khadgar never really rises above the ordinary.

There's plenty of well-handled action sequences and a surprisingly indifferent attitude towards magic. Most fantasy movies portray magic as some difficult and awe-inspiring force, but WarCraft treats it as another facet of the world, which some people can manipulate and those who can't are still used to it being around. It's a refreshing change from a lot of fantasy films and one that is well-handled.

The film is absolutely bathed in CGI, which risks being alienating, but instead it's quite well-handled with some excellent shots. Jones is clever enough to never overwhelm the screen with polygons, instead making sure that every action beat is clear and easy to follow. It's all a tremendous relief for those expecting a Michael Bay-style disaster of jarring images and impenetrable visuals.

It's certainly not a perfect movie, however. Occasionally the lack of exposition (again, something that is initially refreshing) leaves the viewer unclear on the significance of what is transpiring, and the identity of the traitor to Stormwind isn't exactly a massive surprise. More problematic is that the film is very clearly set up as the first in a series, and a number of storylines end less on cliffhangers and more in mid-flow. The movie has done well on the international stage, but whether it's enough to warrant a sequel is unclear, especially since a movie based on WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness would require a significantly higher budget to handle its more diverse forms of warfare (which include sea and air-based battles), larger cast of characters and more detailed storyline. The rapid pace, thanks to a brisk two-hour running time, also means that some scenes abruptly end rather than being explored in more depth.

WarCraft (***½), dubbed WarCraft: The Beginning in the UK for some overly optimistic reason, is a fine slice of B-movie fun that rises up to be more than the sum of its parts. It falls very much into that Pacific Rim category of being a movie self-aware of its own silliness (contrary to some reviews, there's a very fine seam of dry humour running through the picture) and not letting its action scenes and budget overwhelm the characters and story. Well worth a look. It is available now in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).

WARCRAFT film moves dates to avoid STAR WARS

The WarCraft movie has moved its release date. Originally slated for release on 18 December 2015, Blizzard and Universal have decided to move the date due to Disney and Lucasfilm committed to the same day for Star Wars: Episode VII.

As related earlier this month, the WarCraft movie will be an origin story, featuring the first conflict between the Alliance under Anduin Lothar and the Orc Horde commanded by Durotan, as related in the first two strategy games in the series. Duncan Jones, the director of Moon and Source Code, will be helming the picture. Rumours that Jones's dad will be cameoing as the king of the goblins cannot be substantiated at this time. Mainly because I made them up.

WARCRAFT movie will not be based on WORLD OF WARCRAFT

Director Duncan Jones has revealed some information about the upcoming WarCraft movie at the recent BlizzCon event in California. The most notable is that the movie will not be based on World of WarCraft, but will instead reach back to the origins of the WarCraft franchise.

Concept art for the WarCraft movie. Clockwise from top-left: Draenor, Dalaran, Stormwind and Ironforge.

The film will pit humans and orcs against one another. The human faction will be led by Anduin Lothar, whilst Durotan (father of Thrall) will command the orcs. Those savvy with WarCraft lore will recognise these names from the 1995 game WarCraft II, in which they played important roles. According to Jones, the movie will present the POV of both the orcs and humans rather than suggesting that one is good and the other evil.

Draenor, Dalaran, Ironforge and Stormwind are the locations for which Jones showed off concept art. Bill Westenhofer, the head of effects, is a regular World of WarCraft player and says that he often logs into the game to drawn on actual locations and environments for inspiration. There is also an urge to do as much as possible in-camera rather than using CGI: the preference at the moment is to use prosthetics for the orcs, for example.

The WarCraft film is currently in active pre-production and will start shooting in Vancouver in early 2014. The film will be released on 18 December 2015, when it will face off against Star Wars: Episode VII.

Blizzard have also confirmed that they are working on new versions of WarCraft: Orcs and Humans, WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness and WarCraft II's expansion pack, Beyond the Dark Portal, which will be compatible with modern PCs.