When Igor opens, Malaria has become a rich, high-tech land run by evil mad scientists and their enslaved Igors. But there's one little problem: an Igor (voiced by John Cusack) has broken protocol and built his own cute/scary monster who would rather do musical theater than wreak destruction. After his mad scientist master is killed in an explosion, Igor realizes that it's his chance to take over the scientist's lab and enter his own creation in his nation's annual Evil Science Fair.

Igor has already invented an immortal, super-intelligent bunny (voiced wonderfully by Steve Buscemi) named Scamper and an idiotic brain in a jar named Brain. These creatures serve as his MST3K-esque buddies, and help him create his best invention: Life, or at least a reanimated bunch of body parts ala Frankenstein. The creature they bring to life is an enormous, weirdly-proportioned woman named Eva (several kids in the audience where I watched Igor seemed confused that their favorite character from Wall-E had suddenly shown up in the body of an Emily the Strange ripoff monster). Of course, Eva is supposed to be evil, but for some reason the "evil bone" Igor has implanted in her hand doesn't work and all she wants to do is play with blind orphans, pick flowers, and become a musical theater actress starring in Annie.

The premise of the movie, that there is a working class of "Igors" who toil for a ruling class of "evil scientists," is funny and provides a few delightful moments of "mwhahaha." But this central idea quickly falls away when Igor takes over the lab, and the role of head honcho. It then becomes a race to the Evil Science Contest, with the reigning evil mad scientist Schadenfreude (Eddie Izzard) trying to steal Igor's idea so that he can win. Eventually, it becomes a silly tug-of-war between the two men — one homely and brilliant, the other slick and conniving — for the affections of the Annie-obsessed Eva.

Both want to use her to win the contest, but Igor's intentions are marginally kinder because he actually nurses a growing affection for the humongous creature who constantly spouts actress piffle about "centering herself" and "doing yoga" and writing things in her "body memory notebook." The film completely fails once it's taken this strange turn into making fun of Hollywood culture with Eva, as well as the weird amalgam of showbiz and science that is the Evil Mad Science contest. There is just something profoundly wrong and unfunny about using a mad science story to tell a story about Hollywood, which is in turn trying to tell us something about weapons of mass destruction.

It's not that the film becomes too complicated for kids, or too horrifying for them as some critics have said. It's just that it becomes a poorly-constructed mess.

Possibly the only saving grace of the movie comes when we enter the homestretch and finally get to watch the Evil Mad Science contest. There's a brief moment of genuine humor when King Malbert gets interviewed by an invisible guy on a talk show (the invisible guy is voiced amusingly by Arsenio Hall, who really deserves better than this and everything that's happened to his career since the 1990s). And the contest itself, where a now-evil Eva sings "Tomorrow" while beating the shit out of half a dozen giant robots, is pure, demented genius. It made me wish the filmmakers had had the guts (or maybe the studio support) to make the movie they obviously wanted to: An evil, steampunk Annie filled with monsters.

Instead, they gave us this Hollywood-liberal allegory about a nation whose "product" is high-tech intimidation. I won't give away the ending, but suffice to say that Malaria gets its comeuppance for menacing the world, and for lying about everything, and for saying that people who look different are "ugly." But the allegedly happy ending feels smug and fake, as if somebody had decided to redo Team America: World Police but without any irony or self-awareness.

Igor could have gone a lot of ways. It could have been about how anyone can master science, even a downtrodden Igor. Or it could have been about how being an ugly monster doesn't matter as long as you're smart, hopeful, and have friends. It could even have been about how polluting, war-mongering kingdoms are run by slick liars. Instead, it tries to be about all of that — and delivers a message as muddy as the world it tries to illuminate.

Ok I couldn't help but notice the curves on these characters, were any of them inspired by you?

Well, maybe they made Heidi a little more curvaceous. I thought, wow do I need that extra stuff? I think it made her funnier to make her bigger. But she's graceful, like a graceful hippopotamus from Fantasia.

So they did model some of her look after you? I saw your look more in the evil Jaclyn.

The part of Heidi they did. The woman with the big lips, I think they did sort of had me in mind I think.

Why did you decide to go after the role of Jaclyn? She's such a baddie. Or did you audition for the role of Heidi first?

I did the voice of Heidi over the phone. I did my whole audition with Sam the director he actually called me from Paris and said, "Hey Jennifer I was wondering if I could hear some of your voices." And that was it some he didn't like and some he did. I did this one for Heidi, she's a Swedish sounding character and he liked it. And he said, "you know what Jennifer you know what I think that's it, you're alright." And that was it, I got the part. Usually, when you're an actress, you have to audition 20 times. I think Heidi was easier to do. She was less complicated than Jaclyn.

What do you think kids are going to get out of this film?

I think it's one of the best animated films I'd seen in a really long time. I thought the messages were pretty great. You don't have to believe what everyone tells you, you have to find out for yourself. I love that it has the theme: don't step on people to get ahead. You have a choice to either be kind or evil, everyone has a choice to be good or bad, it's up to you. There are so many great little messages tucked in this movie. I thought that if I had a kid, I would want them to see this movie.

What was your favorite scene doing that you got to dig into when you were recording?

I guess my favorite moment was when they asked me to come up with a bunch of mean things to say. They asked me to be mean to the character Eva. It was really fun to think of all the dumb things my character could say. But the cutest scene that I witnessed was the little scene where Eva gives the gifts to the guys. I thought that was so sweet. And I thought the love story between Igor and Eva was so charming and cute. I've always been a big girl going out with small guys. I've always had these short boyfriends and I just love that, this little tiny guy with a giant girl. Molly Shannon [voice of Eva] did a great job with her, both of those characters were so likable.

There is some seriously dark stuff in this cartoon. Steve Buscemi's rabbit character is brought back to life by Igor but keeps trying to kill himself.

I loved Steve Buscemi's character. You're right, it's very dark. I love it. You feel like so many of these movies, you start out and think, that's so interesting but then it never ends up in the film. Because they go interview a bunch of executives or they test it and say, "oh someone's offended." But they put that all in this movie. It ends up being a terrible movie if you try and please everyone. I thought it was pretty untouched.

Were there any lines that you improvised that didn't make it?

In other movies, sometimes I was improvising and I was trying to be mean and someone says to you, "Jennifer you can't say something that mean." And you say, "But my character is mean. I'm supposed to be mean." Then they ask me to tone it down so I don't offend somebody. But here I improvised a bunch of things to say to Molly's character and they actually used them. There was one line, though, that I wanted to say [that didn't make it]. My character's evil boyfriend says something and I responded that, that was as stupid as a big bag of diarrhea, and they didn't use that. They didn't really want any of my bathroom humor.

Do you think a lot of the characters look like the actors that voice them?

I thought those guys did an incredible job with matching people voices with what the characters ended up looking like. The animators in the Sparks company in Paris, that I got to go visit, those guys are mind blowing. I think that's why I got so emotional when I was watching the movie. When stuff is that three dimensional you feel like you're living in the movie. When I was growing up, cartoons didn't look like that. I would be any of those characters for Halloween, I would love to have any of those Halloween costumes. I would wear one because they are so interesting.

Watchmen:

G4 was on the set of the Watchmen movie, and posted a video showing a few more details of the sets, and a look at director Zack Snyder's storyboards. More importantly, they managed to film Jackie Earle Haley being made up as the unmasked version of Rorschach, and interview him in his Rorschach makeup. [G4 via Cinemablend]

And here's an eye-wrenchingly horrendous copy of the footage shown at Comic-Con. As we described previously, you can see a nice view of Rorschach's mask changing shape, a more graphic version of Dr. Manhattan blowing up Vietnamese villagers, Rorschach in the Comedian's lair, and Nite Owl at home. [Comic Book Resources]

Terminator: Salvation:

We reported a while ago that Linda Hamilton might be back in one, or all three, of the new Terminator movies as John Connor's mom Sarah. But apparently Hamilton still hasn't been approached. And sources say the Hamilton cameo would probably just consist of John and Kyle Reese looking at a photo of Hamilton, and the production may not even ask for Hamilton's permission to use her image until the editing stage. [Arnold Fans via CinemaBlend]

Dragonball:

Here are some new high-res images from the Dragonball movie. I like Chow Yun-Fat's T-shirt. [IGN]

Iron Man 2:

Rumor has it a member of the Avengers will turn up in Iron Man 2. But it won't be the Hulk. [Ace Showbiz]

Star Wars: Clone Wars:

Here's a new TV spot and a new featurette for the greatest Star Wars movie coming out this week.

Igor:

Here are a bunch of new stills from Igor, the mad-scientist animated movie that comes out in September. It has such a great cast, but these images from the film are so ugly it hurts to look at them. Maybe after an hour or so, you'd get used to how this film looks? [IGN]

Doctor Who:

Catherine Tate says she'll "probably" not be in the Doctor Who special airing this Christmas. (It's already filmed, so it's pretty definite that she's not in it, actually.) But maybe that means she will be in one of the 2009 specials? As she says, "anything can happen." [Blogtor Who]

Heroes:

NBC released a press release describing the two-hour premiere of Heroes season three:

EPISODE 3.01 “THE SECOND COMING” – Sept. 22

“VOLUME 3: VILLAINS” MAKES A TWO-HOUR SPECIAL DEBUT WITH REVELATIONS THAT WILL REDEFINE FAMILIAR CHARACTERS AND SHAKE THE SERIES TO ITS CORE — The first chapter of “Volume 3: Villains” kicks off moments after shots rang out, as the shocking identity of Nathan’s (Adrian Pasdar) assassin and the reasons why the Texas press conference had to be cut short are revealed — immediately throwing Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) and Matt (Greg Grunberg) into unexpected, uncharted territory. With his powers partially restored, Sylar (Zachary Quinto) decides a visit to Claire (Hayden Panettiere) could give him a boost. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson Lee) are charged with safeguarding a family secret that could split the planet apart, and discover that the path to a grim future starts with shady speedster, Daphne (guest star Brea Grant). In New York City, thanks to Maya (Dania Ramirez), Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) makes a startling breakthrough that could change the world — or just destroy his. And who is Tracy Strauss? Ali Larter, Cristine Rose and Jack Coleman star. Noah Gray-Cabey, Ashley Crow, Randall Bentley, Jimmy Jean-Louis, George Takei, Malcolm McDowell, Carlon Jeffery, Jamie Hector, Bruce Boxleitner, Francis Capra and Blake Shields guest star.

EPISODE 3.02 “THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT” – Sept. 22

A DOZEN VILLAINS WITH UNIMAGINABLE POWER ARE UNLEASHED AFTER THE COMPANY IS ATTACKED — SYLAR VS. ELLE (KRISTEN BELL) — ANGELA PETRELLI (CRISTINE ROSE) TAKES CONTROL AND REVEALS A JAW-DROPPING SECRET — WRITTEN BY CREATOR TIM KRING AND DIRECTED BY EXECUTIVE PRODUCER GREG BEEMAN — In the shocking second chapter of “Volume 3: Villains,” Angela (Cristine Rose) clashes with her much-changed son, Peter (Milo Ventimiglia), over how best to avert a seemingly inevitable worldwide catastrophe. First, Sylar (Zachary Quinto) declares war on the Company by attacking their main facility, and finds even more than he bargained for on Level 5. During a devastating battle with Elle (guest star Kristen Bell), a dozen savage criminals — all with terrible abilities — escape. Meanwhile, Claire (Hayden Panettiere) discovers something new and unexpected about her abilities. Determined to reclaim his family’s terrible secret, Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson Lee) track Daphne (guest star Brea Grant) to Paris. After a fateful night, Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) is thrilled to find his research, his life and his relationship with Maya (Dania Ramirez) evolving in leaps and bounds. Stuck in unfamiliar territory, Matt (Greg Grunberg) finds a guide (guest star Ntare Mwine) to help him. Ali Larter, Adrian Pasdar and Jack Coleman star. Ashley Crow, Jessalyn Gilsig, Malcolm McDowell, Stephen Tobolowsky, Bruce Boxleitner, Francis Capra, Blake Shields, William Katt, Ken Lally, David H. Lawrence XVII, Andre Royo and Kiko Ellsworth guest star.

So it looks like the reporter chasing Tracy aka Niki/Jessica, played by the Greatest American Hero, William Katt, shows up in the second hour of the two-hour premiere. And that Aboriginal storyteller we're all bracing ourselves to be annoyed by is Matt's guide in the desert. And here's another new Heroes promo pic, this time showing HRG. [Heroes Spoilers and Heroes Spoilers]

Also, Elle (Kristen Bell) is a big part of the evil future we travel to this time around. (There's always an evil future.) And apparently when we find out who Future Elle hooks up with, we'll squee. There will be squeeing. (I just had a weird thought. We reported the other day that HRG gets a new life partner. Could it be? But no, because Elle is only in five episodes this season. Plus, I think HRG's new life partner is in the evil present, not the evil future.) Also, Mama Petrelli reveals something that changes the dynamic of many of the characters. (Could it be that Sylar is her third son, as some have speculated?) [E! Online]

So you know how we mentioned that Sylar moves into the Bennett family's old house and has a little kid of his own? Turns out Sylar uses his ability to paint the future, and discovers that he'll have a normal life at some point. And the name of this spawn of Sylar? Noah. Same as HRG. Whoah. And Sylar actor Zachary Quinto says that "certain people" have power over Sylar this season, and they give him orders that put him in situations that "force him to employ a kind of restraint that you haven't seen him necessarily need to employ." [Comic Book Resources]

Fringe:

Here are a couple of new TV spots and a Fox News segment on Fringe, J.J. Abrams' new really-not-the-X-Files show. There's some cool new footage in there, along with stuff you've probably already seen. I like the main characters all saying "I never should have..." in one of the TV spots. [Fox News via Fringe Television]

Sarah Connor Chronicles:

There will not be any human-robot sex involving Summer Glau's Cameron any time soon on the Terminator TV show. [TV Guide]

Smallville:

The sixth episode of Smallville season eight is called "Prey" and includes the Martian Manhunter. [Kryptonsite]

Also, Impulse (Smallville's version of the Flash) won't be among the Justice Leaguers in the season premiere, but there's a lot of League in this season, so there's a chance he'll show up at some point. [TV Guide]

Wonder Woman:

The new direct-to-DVD Wonder Woman movie retells Wonder Woman's origin in the present day, including the whole Paradise Island test sequence. It includes all the classic supporting cast, including Steve Trevor (Nathan Fillion), Etta Candy, Hades, Ares, fellow Amazon Artemis, and of course Wondy's mom Hippolyta. [Comic Book Resources]

There's been plenty of animated scifi before this summer, of course — Fox and Blue Sky put out the bog-awful Robots a few years ago, and Disney/Pixar did The Incredibles. There's been underground-y weird animated scifi like Heavy Metal since the 70s, and plenty of animated science fiction/comics stuff on TV. And while we've been dragging our feet in the U.S., the Japanese have been putting science fiction anime on the big screen for decades.

But this will be remembered as the summer science fiction animation broke out, mostly thanks to Wall-E and Clone Wars. It's not just that both films will probably end up having been box-office successes. They're also so different from each other, in style and storylines, that you won't be able to think of science fiction animation as being restricted to a kind of space-operatic goofiness or superhero pastiche ever again. Whether you love either of those films, they're both a proof of concept for two different ways of approaching big-screen CG-animated science fiction.

(Despite having the cartoony chubby humans, Wall-E is actually more photorealistic than Clone Wars, thanks to the awesome pseudo-cinematography of Roger Deakins, complete with lens flare and textures. Clone Wars, meanwhile, deliberately sets out to avoid being photorealistic and winds up with a weird puppet style of animation that may grow on me. Or not. )

At first, I thought the science fiction animated boom would be self-limiting, because of a string of wretched films in the pipeline, like Space Chimps, Fly, and (I have a feeling) the forthcoming Planet 51. These films sport a cheesy not-quite-Pixar style and paper-thin plots. Unlike Pixar films, which are aimed at kids but speak to adults on a whole different level, the Chimps/Fly movies are barely cogent enough for a really slow child.

But Pixar comes to the rescue once again, with the animated Newt, about the last two blue-footed newts in the world, who hate each other but must interbreed in order to save their species. I'm also quite optimistic about Monsters Vs. Aliens, which is based on a great comic book and has put out some really cool images and a great trailer so far. It has a 50-foot woman and a mad scientist with the head of a cockroach, plus a sort of Mars Attacks sensibility.

I'm sort of intrigued by Igor, mostly thanks to the incredible cast listing, including Eddie Izzard, John Cleese and John Cusack. It also has a cute premise: the hunch-back who wants to a mad scientist instead of an "Igor." The latest poster looks sort of clunky and awful, but the trailer is cute and funny. A brain in a jar tries to hypnotize Igor, and when that doesn't work, it just hits him with a spatula. Pure win!

We're also in for a big-screen anime explosion, with American studios involved. Studio Imagi is working on animated Astro Boy and Gatchaman movies, among others. There's also a Heavy Metal remake/homage in the pipeline.

I feel as though these sorts of kid-friendly animated movies have been dominated by fantasy and funny animals for as long as the CG variety has been around. (There's no science behind talking toys in Toy Story or talking cars in Cars.) But now the pendulum is swinging toward scifi premises, maybe as more creators who grew up on scifi in the 1950s and 1960s take charge.

I have two happy observations about the rise of CG animated scifi kiddie movies:

1) Science fiction is the new fairy tale, and that's an awesomely good thing. Who could watch Wall-E without starting to think of him as a young commoner who gets swept up into a castle by a princess, only to discover his own nobility? Etc. etc. The Igor trailer even includes the "Once upon a time" caption. I could totally see Clone Wars' Ahsoka turning into a fairy tale heroine (although she's probably destined for a bad end.) It would be great if generations of kids grew up thinking of robots and scientists the way earlier Disney watchers thought about princesses and flying elephants.

2) On the flipside, even as these animated scifi movies become fairy-tale-ish, they're also more serious and thoughtful than most "grown-up" science fiction movies. Of the summer's big blockbuster films, how many were as smart and debate-provoking as Wall-E? Off the top of my head, I'd say Iron Man and Dark Knight, and that's it. Okay, so Clone Wars is not going to be smart or thought-provoking, I'm pretty sure. But movies like Newt, Igor and Monsters Vs. Aliens at least have the potential to throw in some clever concepts and make you think about issues like extinction, the class system, and the rights of monsters. So I'm cautiously excited about the new scifi animated boom — and I think it's going to be around for a while.

Besides the two Johns, the movie's vocal talent includes Eddie Izzard and Christian Slater. MGM put out a new synopsis, after having issued a synopsis a month ago and then withdrawn it again:

In a land of mad scientists and diabolical inventions, what do you do when you’re born with a hunch on your back? You become an Igor. A hilarious twist on the classic monster movie, “Igor” tells the story of one Igor who’s sick of being a lowly lab assistant with a Yes Master’s degree and dreams of becoming a scientist. When his cruel master kicks the bucket a week before the annual Evil Science Fair, Igor finally gets his chance.

With the help of two of his experimental creations - Brain, a brain in a jar who’s a little light on brains, and Scamper, a cynical bunny brought back from being road kill, Igor embarks on building the most evil invention of all time, a huge, ferocious monster. Unfortunately, instead of turning out evil, the monster turns out as Eva, a giant aspiring actress who wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Just when the load on his back can’t get any heavier, Igor and his band of monstrous misfits uncover an evil plot that threatens their world. Now, they must fight to save it and prove that heroes come in all shapes and sizes.

And in case you haven't seen it, here's the trailer:

And the complete new poster, in ginormous resolution, is at the link. [Cinematical]

[Yahoo]