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As voiced by Dwayne "the artist formerly known as The Rock" Johnson, astronaut Chuck Baker is the paragon of all-American achievement -- that is, until he conquers a far off world with an unexpected population, one inexplicably steeped in our '50s-era culture and terrified by the prospect of an alien invader in human form. More unfortunately for us, Chuck has landed smack-dab in the middle of Planet 51, a short-sighted assembly of sci-fi references and scatalogical humor that should nonetheless placate undemanding tots and, by extension, their undiscerning parents for ninety minutes or so.

Despite all the jokes about Roland Emmerich's love for blowing up cities, how the hell Lloyd Dobbler will save the world, and of course, the infamous line "Download my blog," 2012 earned $225 million worldwide in its opening weekend.

I dislike adding "porn" or "-sploitation" to descriptive phrases (torture porn, poorsploitation, etc. etc.), but if anything could be called an exploitation of our natural fear of an upcoming worldwide crisis, it would be 2012. Eerie shots of crowds praying en masse and major landmarks crumbling are juxtaposed with smaller stories, like the family struggling to stay together, a personal crisis set off by an ethical conundrum, and, of course, the prophet-kook in the woods who's happy to see his greatest suspicions verified.

Orson Welles's radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds sent Americans running for their bomb shelters in 1938, and once everyone realized it was just a radio show (and recovered from their terror), a new type of horror was born: the fear of massive worldwide destruction.

Every US generation thinks it's going to be the last. If it's not the Cold War, it's the Middle East, and if it's not aliens, it's the ice caps. But it's also a reality; it's mind-boggling to turn on the news and see footage of a tsunami that's killed about 230,000 people and injured and displaced so many more.

Dear Sony,

As I am sure you are aware, you own the film rights to any adaptation of Metal Gear Solid, the outstanding brainchild of video game auteur Hideo Kojima. I have no doubt that since the property became a gaming icon after Konami brought it to the Playstation in 1998 many have tried to get a film adaptation off the ground. I'm sure you've heard pitch after pitch, and maybe even solicited some of your own, so I appreciate that no ground has been made on turning the beloved series - arguably the most cinematic game of all time - toward the big screen.

Yet I fear that with a big budget adaptation of Prince of Persia on the horizon, you might start getting antsy about making a big budget video game movie of your own; and if that's the case, please do not take up Paul W.S. Anderson on his desire to be the man who brings Solid Snake to movie theaters around the world. For the love of all that is sacred to gamers, please, please, please do not allow that to happen. I could rattle off a handful of different directors better equipped to bring the sweeping world of espionage, intrigue, double-twists, and giant robots than the man who simultaneously rendered two beloved franchises irrelevant with Alien vs. Predator.

Now I'm not opposed to making Metal Gear Solid into a movie. Though Kojima's storylines for MGS have become more twisted and entangled than a snake orgy at this point, I have no doubt that a competent screenwriter could make an excellent script out of the series' latest episodes. But it's going to take a director with real vision to transform Solid Snake from a game icon into the film God he deserves, and Anderson just doesn't have the minerals to do that.

The most common retort one gets when talking negatively of a film clearly intended to be consumed with a tub of popcorn and a brain switch in the off position is "Why can't you just enjoy the movie?" And I get that. I am the kind of viewer who can absolutely just sit back and let sights and sounds wash over them. But what some fail to understand is that even with the brain turned off, even with disbelief firmly suspended, some movies stink so ferociously that the stench wafts off of the screen, snapping even the most resistant critic to full alertness like a slap in the face by a glove spiked with smelling salts.

2012 is not immune to analysis simply because it is an openly absurd movie. Sure, it's about the end of the world taking place three years from now. Sure, it features some astounding special effects. Sure, it is in every way, shape, and form a popcorn tub movie. And sure, you know from the trailer alone whether or not you're game for yet another disaster porn movie from The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day director Roland Emmerich. But what the willing don't inherently know, and this is the most crucial piece of information one can be equipped with before hand, is that 2012 is 158 minutes long.

Granted, one would expect the end of the world to take more than 90 minutes, but the biggest failing of 2012 is that it barely has enough story to span half an hour, yet alone two more beyond that. Sign up for all the California-sinking, supervolcano-erupting mayhem you want, but what you're signing up for comes packaged with banal, one-dimensional characters who are only ever allowed to spew groan-inducing dialogue like so many fireballs from a, well, supervolcano. And considering the spectacle is unfortunately a fraction of the length, the audience is given more than enough time to wonder how so much mediocrity came to be from such talented people.

When was the last time you recall seeing an actual bicycle messenger? Unless you live in a densely populated, car-hating metropolis, chances are rather slim that you ever see someone on a bike with a package under their arm, ducking and diving all manner of obstacles before screeching to a halt in front of a skyscraper and racing inside to drop off said package just in the nick of time. Which is why it is simultaneously bizarre and fascinating to me that David Koepp would pick the high-stakes world of two-wheeled courier services as the frame for his next directorial project.

What's even more fascinating is the scale Premium Rush, which I am 99% positive is the name of a Capri Sun flavor I used to drink in the '90s, is set up to be. Sony is bankrolling the production, which Variety says they see as "a big-budget actioner, much like the films Koepp is known for penning, and will feature the kind of elaborate chases associated with a William Friedkin pic." The Friedkin emulation I can understand, as The French Connection still remains a benchmark chase film, but the big budget Koepp titles they're referencing include Spider-Man, Jurassic Park, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

The war for your wallet may be shifting from DVD stores to your living room. Just yesterday, our own Jessica Barnes described the price war between Walmart, Target and Amazon as the three retailers have temporarily slashed their profits and passed the savings on to you. Now comes word that Sony will pre-empt retailers by making their animated hit Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs available exclusively to owners of selected Sony television sets and networked Blu-ray players more than a month before it's released on DVD. Sony, however, expects you to slash your savings and pass the profits on to them, charging $24.95 for a rental.

That's a big chunk of change for a pay-per-view movie, dramatically higher than cable and satellite systems charge for pay-per-view flicks in their window of availability before DVD and Blu-ray release. Details from a business standpoint are provided in The New York Times -- the higher price is meant to avoid angering Walmart, the largest and thus most powerful DVD retailer in the country, and the move is part of Sony's strategy to leverage its ownership of both hardware (TVs, Blu-ray players) and software (movies, television) production. I'm sure Sony shareholders will be pleased.

What about the consumer? In his Home Theater blog for ZDNET, Sean Portnoy wonders: "In this economy, is being able to rent this successful movie a few weeks ahead of the masses really worth an extra $20? In fact, if you're using Netflix or renting at $1 per night through Redbox, the pricing difference is even starker." Sony tried this last year with Will Smith and Hancock, but economic times are even more difficult now. Will you pay $25 for Meatballs?

The Internet loves casting rumors, but the gears of speculation are always at their highest when the topic is a superhero. Or, more accurately, who a superhero is going to be fighting in his/her's next trip to the big screen; and with Spider-Man 4 snowballing into production, the rumors have once again begun swirling around who Spidey is going to be web-punching this time around. First reports that Dylan Baker would finally be transforming into The Lizard seemed to confirm Sam Raimi's return to making a single-villain picture, but now a new name has been tossed into the ring.

Mania.com is reporting that their sources have cited Rachel McAdams as in talks with the film's producers to take on the role of Felicia Hardy, also known as Black Cat. If you're unfamiliar with the character, she is a sometimes good, sometimes bad cat burglar who, in addition to being a possible love interest of the web-crawler's, tries to use her less-than-legal prowess to break her father out of jail. It would be an interesting spin to have villainess for part four, but it's unclear at this point as to whether or not the film's Black Cat will ultimately be friend or foe.

A bigger shake-up to the film's line-up could come by way of the second bit of Mania's news, which stakes that the producers are also currently out casting a male villain. Assuming Raimi hasn't already broken with his desire to keep the baddies solo, this would mean that Dr. Curt Connors is not fulfilling his destiny as The Lizard after all, despite Dylan Baker confirming he'd be returning in the role. It's all very fluid and salty at this point, but if Mania's sources are indeed correct, Spider-Man 4 has either multiplied its villains once again or kept The Lizard caged until a later date.

At a press junket earlier this summer for 2012, Roland Emmerich told reporters he's not doing any more blow-'em-up flicks. "I would not know how to top this... It's just one of these things, you know. I had a hard time deciding to do another disaster movie, but... you cannot make a disaster movie if there's not something --- an idea in this disaster which elevates it to something more than a disaster. And so it was this idea, you know, that there will be a global flood and it's a retelling of Noah's Arc."

Later he added, "It's not my last film, it's my last disaster film. And that's because I wouldn't know what else to do. It's just, you know what, I really didn't want to do this movie at first... But when I decided that the idea was too good to not do it for the reason I had done before, I said, okay, if I do it, I will do it in such a spectacular manner that nobody can top it for a long time. I have that pride in my work."

Watching the trailer for 2012 I couldn't help but get the feeling that Roland Emmerich was trying to tell me something. There was a lot of camera shaking and screaming and really big objects rolling over, but I think it was seeing the entire state of California lift into the air like the climax of Titanic before sinking into the depths of the Pacific ocean: Roland Emmerich hates civilization. Sure, 2012 is bound to be full of roaring musical cues that signal the triumphant survival of a tiny, tiny percentage of people on Earth, but I think it's pretty clear that his movie is going to literally rip our world apart at the seams.

But apparently that's not all that big of a deal, because Emmerich has revealed to Entertainment Weekly that a sequel to 2012 is already being plotted. Yes, a sequel to the end of the world; kind of redefines the whole 'end' part of his film's synopsis. Tentatively titled 2013, he tells EW that the follow up to his story won't be a film, but rather a television show:

"It is about the resettling of Earth. That is very, very fascinating. (2012 writer/producer) Harald Kloser and I came up with the idea and we have the luxury of having a producer on the film who is a big TV producer, Mark Gordon. We said to Mark, 'Why don't you do a TV show that picks up where the movie leaves off and call it 2013?' I think it will focus on a group of people who survived but not on the boats ... maybe they were on a piece of land that was spared or one that became an island in the process of the crust moving. There are so many possibilities of what they could do and I'd be excited to watch it."

Sony's thriller The Tourist just keeps sending its talent packing. Originally set to be a vehicle for Tom Cruise and Charlize Theron, it shifted gears last month and was re-cast with Angelina Jolie and Sam Worthington. But once again, The Tourist finds itself without travel arrangements for a male lead as Variety reports that Worthington is out due to "creative disagreements" and Johnny Depp is in.

Depp is still in talks to play the hapless American tourist, and with the way this film is going, one can't assume it's finalized. But if it is, it might just be the casting coup of 2010. A Depp-Jolie pair-up has been something dreamed about by a lot of producers and studios over the years. Once upon a time, rumor even had them attached to play Cathy and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. People want to see them having onscreen sex. It'd be the hottest thing since ... well, Brad Pitt and Jolie having sex onscreen. (And off. Hey, I'm just being honest. There was a reason everyone wanted to see their offspring.)

The Tourist is also on the hunt for a director. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck was circling the project, but departed alongside Worthington over those whispery creative differences. Reportedly, a lot of directors are interested, including Alfonso Cuaron. While shake-ups can be be a sign of a bad film, I'd like to think that a thriller that winds up with Jolie, Depp, and Cuaron came together exactly as it was meant to.