Barry Pepper Joins 'Scorch Trials'; Henry Cavill is 'Stratton'; Jay Chou Boards 'Now You See Me 2'

 Having recently crossed the $300M mark and surpassing Divergent as the most lucrative YA film of the year (until Mockingjay later this month), The Maze Runner is gearing up for the sequel, Scorch Trials. Joining the cast now are Barry Pepper and Lili Taylor, respectively playing "Vince, a survivalist who is one of the last remaining soldiers of a legendary unit called the Right Arm, and "Mary Cooper, a doctor helping Thomas and his fellow Gladers." Wes Ball returns to direct for release on September 18th 2015. Sheesh, they aren't wasting any time, are they?

Henry Cavill apparently can't live on playing Superman alone, and he's set up his own production shingle to take on more interesting projects. He's set to star in Stratton, based on the action novel series by author Duncan Falconer that follows John Stratton, "an operative of the SBS who works with the Intelligence Detachment in Northern Ireland." [Deadline]

Jay Chou will make his return to Hollywood for the first time since The Green Hornet, joining the growing cast of Now You See Me 2. Daniel Radcliffe and Lizzy Caplan are also part of the returning ensemble that includes Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher, Michael Caine, Mark Ruffalo, and Michael Caine. Directed by Jon M. Chu, the story takes place one year after the first film as the Four Horsemen contend with a new foe who wants them to pull off their most dangerous heist yet. [Deadline]

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Jeremy Renner Takes on the CIA in First 'Kill the Messenger' Trailer

As issues of national security, whistleblowing, and the freedom of information are more prevalent than ever thanks to the continued chatter of one Edward Snowden, a movie like Kill the Messenger couldn't be more timely. And while we've seen many movies dealing with this subject of late, such as last year's underwhelming The Fifth Estate, this one has the benefit of Jeremy Renner in the lead role as a man who went head-to-head with the CIA and lost everything.

Renner plays real-life journalist Gary Webb in the first Kill the Messenger trailer, which looks like a cracking good political thriller. Webb was a writer for the San Jose Mercury News whose series of "Dark Alliance" articles exposed the CIA's connection to Nicaraguan drug smugglers. For those reports he was smeared in the media, ruining his personal and professional life with tragic consequences. Renner is surrounded by a great cast including Rosemarie DeWitt, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Barry Pepper, Paz Vega, Michael K. Williams, Michael Sheen, Oliver Platt, and Ray Liotta.

Directed by Homeland's Michael Cuesta, Kill the Messenger opens October 10th.

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Review: 'The Lone Ranger', Starring Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer

Disney doesn't put the Pirates of the Caribbean think tank on just any ol' thing. When the combination of Johnny Depp, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Gore Verbinski get together it’s with the intention of crafting another $1B franchise, and that's exactly what the hopes for The Lone Ranger are. And hey, maybe Disney will get what they want, because there's very little difference to be found between either. Depp does good quirk, Verbinski does big action, the jokes are plentiful but not necessarily funny, the running time is 40 minutes too long, and despite being an origin story on the iconic Western hero you'll still be asking "Who was that masked man?" when all is said and done.

The chief problem makes itself known immediately, as the film opens in 1933 San Francisco, a precocious young boy dressed as the titular ranger makes his way through a traveling circus, coming upon an old Native American exhibit. The Indian mannequin turns out to be very much alive, an aged Tonto (Depp) as it turns out, and who takes the opportunity to recount his very first meetings with The Lone Ranger and their earliest adventures. Bouncing back and forth to this older Tonto does to the film's pacing what a broken hoof would do to the Ranger's horse, Silver. Already saddling us with a bloated 2 1/2 runtime, the non-linear approach makes it feel like 3 1/2, without adding anything of worth.

Not that it would have mattered much because the meat of the story...well, there isn't much meat to it and what little is there is painfully dull. Justin Haythe is credited with the script but it's really 'Pirates' scribes Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott whose fingerprints are all over it, and storytelling really isn't their bag. Depp was able to cover up the emptiness of their writing when Jack Sparrow was still a totally unique character, but his Tonto is so familiar that it's not going to hide anything. In his leading man bid, Armie Hammer is naive lawman John Reid, who returns to his southwest hometown where his brother Dan (a ruggedly charismatic James Badge Dale) is the baddest Texas Ranger in town. After he's killed by the heart-munching Butch Cavendish (a filthy and gross William Fichtner), John teams up with the eccentric and clearly insane Tonto to get justice. But what does justice mean for someone like John? His brother had a "shoot first" approach to the legal process, and Tonto certainly has his own ideas, but John's journey will have him changing his thoughts on due process in a major way.

You can feel the strains of franchise building in the relationship between The Lone Ranger and Tonto. It's the latter who we learn the most about, delving into his past in a way that has never been done before. It's mildly interesting to discover why he wears a dead bird on his head, which he constantly is feeding for some goofy reason, and why he's such a proponent for vigilante justice. But the further they go back, the more Tonto looks like a psycho rather than a guy with an off brand sense of humor. The distinction matters, and there are far too many moments where Tonto is more disturbing than funny. He still gets better treatment than the Ranger, who we learn almost nothing about other than that he once had a thing for his dead brother's widow (Ruth Wilson), and she still has one for him.  Wait, isn't this movie called The Lone Ranger? Shouldn't it maybe be about him? Just a little? Mostly we get the Ranger and Tonto jumping from one sticky situation to another, with lots of stuff happening but little of it engaging. There's some good comedic mileage out of Tonto's utter lack of respect for the Ranger, who he feels should have died and his brother Dan resurrected.

Hammer plays the straight man beautifully opposite Depp, most of the film walking a line between professorial pantywaist and the dashing hero we know he'll turn out to be. Depp's deadpan interpretation of Tonto sounds like it was ripped from old episodes of Daniel Boone, and those who openly complained about his being cast in the role (Depp claims Native American heritage that hasn't been proven) will probably find reason to take issue. Fortunately there are better portrayals that emerge later in the film, at least for a few minutes before white man greed interferes with their simple way of life. Women are basically a non-factor in this masculine Old West world, with Wilson having little to do but be a potential target for the Ranger's enemies. Most egregiously, Helena Bonham Carter is completely wasted as a brothel owner who gives new meaning to the phrase "killer legs".

Tonally a nightmare, broad comedy clashes with a subplot involving the white man's slaughter of the Native American population. There's a great deal of violence, more gruesome than one would expect from a Disney film, and sometimes it's played up for laughs when other times we're expected to find it sobering. A lot of this can be forgiven because everything looks so damn good, easily the best work Verbinski has done, and it's clear he took his experience directing the brilliant animated western Rango and put it to good use. Everything looks authentic and gorgeous, from the saddlebags to the tumbleweeds, captured beautifully with an incredible level of attention. Verbinski pushed the budget well past its limit, and it shows in two amazing bookend train sequences. The opening scene promises adventure on a massive scale that we never truly get. The final one, a dizzying dual-track battle set to The Lone Ranger's iconic William Tell Overture, ends the film on an exquisitely energetic note.

What it boils down to is that this is meant to be the first chapter in a bigger story, and unfortunately it was written like one. Overlong and needlessly convoluted, The Lone Ranger lacks the adventure needed to make the 1930s radio and TV hero a modern day action star.

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