BrentSimons Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It's not too hard to find some super-sympathetic villains right now. You can travel the Internet waves and check out Dr. Horrible, or head to toon town and watch The Monarch and the other Guild of Calamitous Intent members in Venture Brothers. You can see dudes sending in applications to the evil organizations, bad guys storm the wrong building, and even crappy reassignments that suck one's loathing hatred out of their job. These incarnations are great, addictive pieces of fun.

Could the same be said of Ben Stiller's forays into the fold? (*cough* Mystery Men) Not really. But would it help with Robert Downey Jr. and Tina Fey? Entertainment Weekly posts that both actors are looking into joining Stiller's animated villain film, Master Mind. (Christopher blogged about it here, last year.) The premise is simple. A villain accidentally kills the guy he's arching, and loses his will to live.

Having these two voices certainly sweetens the pot, but as we've learned after many years of disappointment -- amazing casts don't necessarily make even decent movies. It all comes down to the script (written by Alan Schoolcraft and Brent Simons), and Stiller's involvement. We'll have to wait and see.

Note: EW says that Cameron Hood and Kyle Jefferson are still on to direct, but Moviehole talked to a Dreamworks source who said that they left the project months ago. IMDb, meanwhile, says it's Gary Trousdale.

At the end of an article announcing Master Mind, The Hollywood Reporter slipped in some news that screenwriters Alan Schoolcraft and Brent Simons are busy working on a sequel to Small Soldiers for DreamWorks. This is a bit of a surprise since the original film wasn't quite the 'big movie' the studio's had hoped it would be. There isn't much revealed with this news, but let us hope that Joe Dante is brought to direct. He showed us with Gremlins 2: The New Batch that he can make a sequel even better than the original by giving it just the right amount of self-parody and satire. He also seems like he could use the work.

As a huge fan of Dante's work, I think it is a tragedy how little movies he's been able to put out, especially recently. Still, I was a huge doubter of Small Soldiers, maybe because of how dumb it looked filtered through the Burger King ads, and didn't even finally see the movie until about two years ago. Of course, I loved it, and I regretted not seeing it in the theater. But now my low expectations extend to the sequel, because if Dante isn't allowed to do it, the result will probably be as dumb as I had thought the original was going to be. I am already a bit worried about the unproven screenwriting duo, though I have to remember that Gremlins 2 had a different writer than Gremlins and it worked out brilliantly.

Others that I'd want to return for the sequel are Jay Mohr and David Cross and all the actors who provided their voices for The Commando Elite (hurry, some of the Dirty Dozen guys are getting up there) and The Gorgonites. The rest of the cast, especially Kirsten Dunst, are not required. Dante is supposedly currently working on The Man With Kaleidoscope Eyes, a film about his old boss, Roger Corman, and the making of the 1967 film The Trip. But since he isn't going to be involved with Gremlins 3 (such a shame, if it happens that way), he can follow up Kaleidoscope with Small Soldiers 2.

After the brilliant Pixar film The Incredibles, I don't think it is necessary to make an animated superhero satire. And after the disappointing Mystery Men, I don't think it is a good idea to let Ben Stiller make another superhero satire. But DreamWorks Animation is going ahead and making a superhero satire, titled Master Mind, and it has Stiller producing the movie, as well as possibly voicing the main character. The plot of the movie focuses on a supervillain who loses his enjoyment in life after he kills his superhero rival. If it isn't enough that such a storyline has been used either directly or implied in countless comics and some straight superhero films, the satire will need to go much further. Since the superhero's name is Uberman, though, I don't expect a whole lot of brilliant ideas for smart comedy.

My other concern with the film is how it will play to children. Uberman is killed in the first few minutes of the film, which could be harmful for kids to see. And then the rest of the movie apparently deals with a depressed criminal. Sure, there have been tons of cartoons through the years that centered on the villain, and this movie will certainly have the supervillain finding redemption, but it still sounds a little heavy -- mostly because of the murderous characteristics -- for children to deal with. I mean, there weren't a whole lot of deaths in animation when I was growing up, save for Bambi's mother (not that I honestly would have cared since I was watching horror films in first grade). The movie will be directed by first-timers Cameron Hood and Kyle Jefferson, both seasoned vets of the DreamWorks Animation team, and was written by Alan Schoolcraft and Brent Simons. According to Stiller, who was making a joke on the long process of making an animated feature, it will come out in 15-20 years.