In Pulse 2 picks up where the original left off. Humans have had to flee cities and live in remote areas, free of computers and wireless internet. Spirits haunt the cities sucking the will to live out of any humans they pass. The sequel will be released September 30, 2008.

Cinema Blend's insiders spilled that Wanted isn't just getting a sequel as graphic novel writer Mark Millar has been saying, but going one further with a completely unnecessary trilogy about the fraternity of assassins and their super-loom. James McAvoy is considered a lock, as is bullet-making monk Terrance Stamp. And Angelina Jolie might be back briefly (they'll need someone to carry the brunt of the marketing after all). Let's go ahead and assume that this'll be a flashback featuring Fox, or else Fox's sexy evil twin, since Angelina's character was clearly dead by the end of the first flick.

In other "please dear god why is this being movie being made" news, the word on the street is Sony is already gearing up for Hancock number two. Still, the rumor has it Will Smith didn't actually like the first film, and he won't be back for a second outing unless he gets some sort of creative control over the next flick. Well, at least he has enough taste to hate his own work.

[Cinema Blend]

The characters escape mother nature's wrath in an old testament style ark, seriously, like Noah. Shouldn't Emmerich know that if it didn't work for Evan Almighty it won't work anywhere else? This could easily be the worst thing I've ever heard.

The movie starts off in 2009 set in a "scientific lab" in India. Scientists discover that the storms on the sun are beginning to affect the Earth. They contact the White House but of course, no one hears the message.

Skip to 2010, and now everyone knows that the scientific mega-shit is about to hit the fan for Earth. The world's "top scientists" are meeting to figure out a way out of their imminent doom. Some countries start building massive dams, and the rest of the world busies itself by stowing away priceless artifacts in secret storage facilities.

FINALLY we get to 2012 the West is plagued with more earthquakes than it's seen before. Now we meet John Cusack's character, divorced limo driver Jackson Curtis, who has two kids and seems pretty unaware that the world is about to throw up around him. Soon the destruction starts and we learn that the government has created secret Noah's Ark-like ships to weather the apocalyptic storm. On the ships are rich people, government officials and people related to important people. Everyone else left on Earth can just die. Everything starts going to hell with more fires, tsunamis, dust storms and earthquakes. Yellowstone turns into a volcano. Curtis bands up with his kids and finds out the information about these reclusive and ridiculous arks and makes an attempt to put his family aboard one of them. [Latino Review]

In both versions of Mars, this sequence comes at a crucial point: Sam Tyler, trapped in 1972, has decided to help the cops solve a murder that he thinks may be related to the kidnapping of his girlfriend in the future. So he's giving a little talk about the psychology of the killer, and he decides to bring a woman police officer, Annie, into the mix.

Everything about the British version of this sequence is better. First of all, the sexism of the cops is way more believable — although in the American version, they do have a cop make a weird remark about Annie's boobs. It's way, way more clear that the female cop doesn't belong in this milieu, and in the British version she acts embarrassed, sheepish. In the American version, she's just sort of wooden and never really seems to doubt herself much at all. She's believable as a 1990s woman, but not a 1970s one.

And then there's the fact that in the American version, Sam Tyler does all of the talking — he's just brought Annie over to serve as a prop. (So he can grab her neck as if to strangle her, thus showing there's sexual tension between them.) He doesn't actually need her input, and she has nothing useful to say. (She only has a B.A. in psychology in the British version, not the American version.) It's creepy in both versions, but in the American version it's only creepy because Sam is a creep. The end.

So how does the American pilot (due to be totally reshot with a new cast except for the lead, and a new producer) compare with the British version otherwise? Well there's good news and bad news.

Okay, first the good news: The American version follows the story beats of the UK version, pretty much note for note. There's a guy kidnapping and killing women, and then Sam's (ex?) girlfriend, a fellow cop named Maia, goes after him and gets kidnapped. Sam is upset, and then he's hit by a car and finds himself in 1972. He finally decides to accept the reality of his surroundings and helps the 70s cops to find the same guy who apparently kidnapped Maia in the future.

Also, there's no funkay disco music in the actual episode — that was just for the promos.

Now for the bad news. There's not as much ambiguity about whether Sam is really in a coma. At the very end of the episode, we hear the bleeping and wheezing of Sam's life-support system, indicating to the slow viewers that he really is in a coma.

The relationship between Sam and Maia, his ex-girlfriend and current subordinate in the future, is way way more cheesy and pulpy in the American version. In the UK original, the tension between them is fairly subtle, but apparent enough to hit home. In the American rendition, it's a total sledge-hammer. When the cops go to pick up Colin Raimes, Sam orders Maia to hang back and protect the perimeter. "You can't protect me!" she bleats.

Later, it's Sam (not Maia, as in the British version) who insists that Colin Raimes is connected to the murders after Raimes has a perfect alibi. Instead of Maia being stubborn and insisting on investigating Raimes further, Sam orders her to look into it some more. "I have a feeling he's connected," Sam says. "It's nice to know you have feelings," Maia bleats. He gets all gruff with her and orders her to do his bidding.

And then there are the 1970s cops, who are just way less convincing. I love Colm Meaney, but he's not able to convey the asshole thuggishness of Philip Glennister's DCI Hunt. Meaney's version of Gene Hunt is a total pushover, a pansy. Yes, he roughs up Sam Tyler a bit here and there, but he's way too kindly. In one key scene, Hunt says Dora, a witness, is a "pain in the ass." (Just like in the British version.) But then he turns to Sam and says, "like you," in a sweet fatherly way. And later, Sam actually kicks Hunt's ass, which is just wrong. And there's none of the great stuff like the cops ruining evidence with their greasy food, or eating sandwiches and smoking in the morgue.

After they capture the serial killer, there's no debate over whether to destroy the psych report that could help him cop an insanity plea — it just never comes up in the American version. (Maybe they're saving it for episode two?)

One thing that was really elegant about the British version is that most of the characters just sort of ignore Sam's ravings, and assume he's just another weirdo. Only Annie actually listens and engages with Sam's belief that he's in a coma in the future. But in the American version, everybody seems to be aware of Sam's belief that he's from the future, and they all mock him for it. Which, you would think, might make it hard for them to take him seriously as a detective. The episode ends with the other cops still making fun of Sam's delusions that he's from the future. And the relationship between Sam and Gene has none of the complex mixture of male-bonding and mutual loathing that you see from early on in the UK version.

Speaking of which, there's absolutely no chemistry between Sam and his fellow cop Annie in this version — in fact, there's reverse chemistry, the kind that makes it impossible to believe they would even belong in the same room together. In fact, Sam has no chemistry with anyone in the American Mars — and I don't think replacing the entire cast except for Sam will fix the problem.

The creeptastic scene where Neil, Annie's ex-boyfriend, pretends to be a hypnotherapist who's reaching Sam in his coma makes no sense this time around. Instead of being Annie's ex-boyfriend, he's just a random psychotherapist friend of hers (who's mentioned in passing earlier) and he decides to introduce himself to Sam by trying this random-ass "treatment" and reach Sam in his own logic. It literally makes no sense and just feels weird.

In an interview with Mania.com Craig Mazin explained his frustration with being forced to cram so many different movie spoofs and motifs into the two Scary Movie films he worked on. So when he worked on Superhero Movie, he chose one coherent storyline to follow (with moments of outside movie spoofs). Mazin pointed to Airplane! as his inspiration because even though it seemed like there were many movies spoofed in that comedy classic, it was actually a specific parody of the film Zero Hour. He also proclaims his love for Star Wars and Joseph Campbell, and his disgust for Zan of the Wonder Twins.

So if he keeps up with this formula Sci-Fi movie could follow one particular science fiction story and spoof it from beginning to end. Any thoughts on what that movie should be? (If it has to be anything at all.) [Film-Releases]

Superbia is a comic about Woodshire Village, a suburban "residential community" for superheroes, with "easy commutes to all major crime scenes. And when the heroes are away, the spouses will play." (Yes, that's an actual quote.) But the stay-at-home spouses won't just be fooling around — they'll also be solving suburban crimes and ensuring the safety of their little enclave. The comic's written by Lisa Klink (Star Trek: Voyager) and Jordan Gorfinkel (formerly with DC Comics). The first Sci Fi/Virgin comic-book collaboration, The Stranded, is already being developed as a TV series, so Superbia may not be far behind. [VFXWorld]

In the sequel, Mia Farrow and Danny Glover would pair off, and so would Alma (the cute dry-cleaning girl) and Mos Def. But poor demented Jack Black is left alone... until he finds a cute dog and becomes attached to it. And then everybody decides to mount a socialist revolution and take over the city hall of Passaic, NJ. They open a restaurant that gives away free food, they refuse to support the Iraq war, and they create more jobs for everyone.

Everything's fine for a while, until Danny Glover gets a brain tumor that turns him into a raving racist. He freaks out at Jack Black and drives him away, claiming that Polish people tricked African Americans into taking the lowest paid jobs. "It's terrible, frenzied, racism," says Gondry. Things get worse and worse, until a race war is starting. "Segregation is reinstalled."

Mos Def leads the African American community, and Jack Black leads the Polish community. (This is actually where my suspension of disbelief fails.) And Alma leads the Latino community. Everybody gets into a horrible fight.

But then the cute little dog dies, and somehow this convinces everybody to stop their race war. And then everybody realizes that Danny Glover just had a benign brain tumor, which made him turn racist. So everything goes back to normal.

It would definitely be the most demented Gondry film yet. I would probably pay $10 just to see Jack Black playing a zany manic white supremacist. But I might have a lot of elbow room in the theater. At the very least, it sounds more interesting than Cloverfield 2. [MTV Movies]

In the movie version, just like on TV, Ralph Hinkley is a high-school history teacher chosen by aliens to defend humanity and wear a super-suit. But he loses the suit's instructions and flies around crashing into things. The movie also includes cranky FBI agent Bill Maxwell, a major supporting cast member in the TV version. The movie adds a villain, Harvey Lundy, who's another schoolteacher chosen by evil aliens to help them strip-mine the planet. Lundy and Hinkley wind up having a super-powered duel to the death. The movie also adds a love interest for Hinkley.

I rented the DVDs of the TV show a couple of years ago, and wound up bringing them back early, because the watching-water-boil storylines were so hard to sit through. But adding a supervillain, backed by his own set of aliens with their own agenda, gives the movie at least some potential to rise from awful to watchable. Maybe. [MovieWeb]