SDCC ’12: Resident Evil, Looper, Total Recall and Elysium

Lenghty post ahead! I will be telling you guys about several San Diego Comic-Con 2012 panels including RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION, LOOPER, TOTAL RECALL and ELYSIUM!

Let’s get started with RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION!

The franchise that has the gift that keeps on giving, I must say, because Resident Evil: Retribution is the sixth film of the franchise and if you are a fan you’ll love the film and what Resident Evil has in store for you, determining from the 3D trailer that had most images right in your face. While I have never been a fan of the franchise, the panel was a lot of fun and it included Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Boris Kodjoe, Mika Nakashima, Oded Fehr and writer/director Paul W. S. Anderson.

Besides the trailer, a fight scene was shown that according to the director it should take place towards the end of the film. The fight sequence on the screen is around 9 minutes long, when asked by the moderator Ralph Garman how long it takes to film it, Paul W. S. Anderson said “weeks, weeks, weeks and months of training”. Oded and Michelle shared their excitement to come back in the franchise after their characters had been dead. Milla was very excited to talk about the film even though she couldn’t share much about the plot, but her and Paul shared that Retribution will be the beginning to an end in the franchise. Michelle praised Milla’s work as a female action star, being one of her inspirations back then when Milla played Leeloo in The Fifth Element and Anderson’s persistance about making action films with a lead female character. One of the most memorable moments of the panel was when a fan dressed up in a Buzz Lightyear costume asked Michelle if she would have sex with him and she shared an experience with a neighboor she had that looked exactly like him.

LOOPER – Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt 

Just to refresh your memory: LOOPER is a film that takes place in the future where people in the black market use time travel to dispose bodies since it’s pretty much impossible to do so in the future. For this tasks, men called loopers do the job in which they kill a person and bring their bodies back to a time period in which they aren’t alive. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays the character a looper named Joe, who one day has the assignment to kill his older self, played by Bruce Willis and lets him go. In attendance in Hall H were Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt and writer/director Rian Johnson.

A 4 minute clip was shown from the film, in which Joseph’s character (which was specifically written for him) explains how loopers work, we caught a glimpse of Jeff Daniels playing Joseph’s boss, a scene between Joseph and Bruce was also shown in which both confront and try to kill each other.Gordon-Levitt approached the role in a way that he didn’t want to mimic Bruce Willis, instead he tried to learn his mannerisms and his voice, often watching his movies and playing his voice on his iPod. Johnson said that besides wanting to work with Gordon-Levitt (who is his friend), he knew that he would be the one that could play a younger version of another actor. When asked by a fan how much did he prepare physically for the role, Gordon-Levitt replied “I didn’t work out for sh*t”. Emily Blunt shared that she wanted to be in the movie 30 pages in the script, mainly because it is a movie that is not derived from anything else.

TOTAL RECALL – Starring Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston

TOTAL RECALL is a remake, which shouldn’t be news to anyone. Directed by Len Wiseman, it follows the same story line: set in the future, a factory worker goes to a company named Rekall in which they make customers fantasies real by implanting new memories, however, once he tries to get the memories things go wrong and he finds out that the life that he has been living has been a lie. From the trailer alone, the film looks like it has a sleek touch, the world where Rekall takes place is very detailed, this is what sold most of the actors in the panel on doing the film. The panel included the director Len Wiseman and stars Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel and Bryan Cranston. When a fan asked Farrell about reprising a role previously held by Schwarzenegger, he said jokingly that he even thought about talking with an Austrian accent.

ELYSIUM – Starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster

Directed by Neill Blomkamp, the guy behind District 9, comes Elysium, a sci-fi film set in the year 2159 in which the wealthy live on a man-made space station called Elysium where there is no poverty or disease, meanwhile the rest of the world lives under horrible circumstances, a man named Max (Matt Damon) takes on a mission in hopes to bring equality to the polarized reality of the time. Joining director Blomkamp on stage were Matt Damon, Jodie Foster and producer Simon Kinberg.

Blomkamp cut special footage for Comic-Con, a clip probably around 7 minutes long, and while the movie is not finished and some images were in low resolution and the effects weren’t all there, the movie looks fantastic. The way both worlds per se, collide with each other, their very different realities and then there’s Max fighting to get better with the help of an exoskeleton. From the clip, the film looks like it will be action-packed, and like Blomkamp said, he wants to keep making films like Elysium, “ones that have interesting, unique environments and offer social commentary”. There are a lot of similarities between District 9 and Elysium, first that both of their main characters are trying to survive, and the other are the settings, while District 9 was shot in South Africa, Elysium was partly shot in Mexico City, both places giving the same vibe of poverty and pollution.

Which movie are you most looking forward to? Let me know in the comments or Tweet me!