ICARUS / THE KILLING MACHINE (Dolph Lundgren, 2009)

[dolphage]

Good news that the action looks kickass, the environments and wardrobe are super classy and there are some beautiful shots in the teaser.

Bad news; it is such a HUGE mistake to shoot it with the "90´s television, shakey, handheld camera" style when you have this kind of sterile, cool slickness on screen. This film was designed to be all dolly, crane and steadicam! It would have been so nice to see that smoothness of camera movement when the sets are so clinically clean looking.

I´m still excited though. As soon as the action kicks of it´s not a big problem to use the "90´s television shakey, handheld, camera" style of shooting. It´s quite common.

And the action DOES look pretty cool.

And as mentioned before it WILL go through a lot of polishing. Wich is great, but it won´t undo how it was shoot.

[Jox]

It's an early teaser indeed, I'm also a 35mm purist but I think the HD will look fine and Windon relentlessly framing 2.35 should give the film more scope and 'gloss'. I think the editing of this teaser could just have been tighter.

EDIT: RE:camera moves
given the super tight schedule they were on it would have been a nightmare to shoot on Dolly, not mentioning crane and steadicam is not used more than a few of days on those budgets... but I hear ya and I agree he could make a slick movie this way... someone give him $10 million and at least 50-60 shooting days!

[Jack Caine]

Damn, I love how slick and action-packed that trailer looks, even for a bloody teaser. One thing I'd actually like in this film is if Dolph has a sniper rifle in one of his action scenes and goes all Silent Trigger on somebody's ass. *cheers*

[Dawn]

As I said on Facebook. I want to see this now! Oh and I love the handgun vs rifle. The only thing better is a scene where multiple handguns are pulled out of pockets, inside coats, etc.

[Nathan]

http://www.quietearth.us/articles/2009/ ... for-ICARUS

http://www.firstshowing.net/2009/04/11/ ... ns-icarus/

[dolphage]

EDIT: RE:camera moves
given the super tight schedule they were on it would have been a nightmare to shoot on Dolly, not mentioning crane and steadicam is not used more than a few of days on those budgets... but I hear ya and I agree he could make a slick movie this way... someone give him $10 million and at least 50-60 shooting days!

Of course. As I said I AM excited about it and I think it will be awesome, but it´s just that when you see the terrific overall look that they´ve been able to create it would have been SO AMAZING if they could have shot it in a fitting way.

And I also want to point out that actively SHAKING the camera isn´t called for just because you don´t have a big budget. It´s a choice that has been made. It´s the notion that it feels organic and "real" and all that (plus it´s an easily acheived effect).

I don´t want to sound negative, I really can´t wait for this movie to come out.

[DW]

Looks real sharp. Dolph sorta playing dual roles - family man with a secret life as a contract killer. Excellent.

[Jox]

From today's Joblo Action Round-Up:
http://www.joblo.com/arrow/index.php?id=16439

We've been following the new pics and the behind the scenes footage from the Dolph Lundgren directorial / star effort ICARUS for awhile now, and today... today we have the payoff, as the brand spankin' new trailer has hit the Net, and boy is it sweeeet!

Lundgren fans everywhere are about to bust a load after watching the trailer below...

F*ckin' A Dolph, you kick that ass, yo! The new trailer rocks plenty of arsenal, fists, and fighting like you would expect from the man who once beat the snot out of Sly Stallone. Enough to hold us over until THE EXPENDABLES? Oh, I think so... enjoy!

[Warchild]

Why does the movie looks like someone recorded with their video camera and not an hollywood state of the art cameras??

The movie looks great, but the shotgun and gun fights don't look loud enough or bad ass, do they still have to work on sound effects and make the movie look more colourfull like The Russian Specialist.

[Jox]

do they still have to work on sound effects and make the movie look more colourfull

Absolutely.

Sound effects and color correction come last in the post-production process and remember that filming wrapped barely two weeks ago (so I'm sure they don't even have a first assembly rough cut yet)!

[Nathan]

Jox, I don't really know how to describe this but I'll try my best. With Missionary Man Dolph went for a dark, gritty, washed-out colour palette..de-saturation. And there was obviously some effect going on in The Mechanik and in Command Performance it's a more high contrast, MTV look. If you actually understand what I'm talking about so far.. do you know what kind of "look" Dolph will go for with Icarus?

[Tom]

I think Dolph's going for quite a noir look. Colours will be dark, muted. I like the basic palette so far, and the atmosphere, so after some correction it should look good. It just lacks the depth and personality that 35mm film offers you. I always kind of envisioned the Icarus look as something like the opening to Casino Royale. The black and white portion of it, only in colour. That sort of lighting and atmosphere though. It kind of looks and feels similar in parts of the trailer too, noticeably in the final shot of Dolph in the car. And parts with Dolph taking out the Triads.

A big point where the film might fall though, is post. Insight haven't proven great just yet, so hopefully Dolph is able to push for a decent cut, and a decent job in sound (compare the decent job on The Mechanik, to the pretty poor sound job on Missionary Man for example). We just need to hope they spend enough time on making this good. So far, the other two Insight films I've seen, have been poor, in terms of the post side of things. Which given they both (Kill Switch and Driven To Kill) share the Icarus editor, and more than likely sound crew, is worrying. But post can absolutely kill a movie, and if it aint much kop to start with, you're in trouble. Direct Contact was very rushed in post by the look of it. I just hope the editing is very tight, like Defender and Mechanik and of course both had excellent sound jobs too.

In terms of the cast, it's more of a proffesional group than say MM had, so it should be better than that, and obviously Dolph is gonna be reliable. Bo Svenson is a quality addition. That's not as much of a worry.

[Nathan]

I just noticed in the Samantha Ferris video, Dolph is strapping a bomb to a wall by the looks of it so hopefully we'll have a kick ass explosion. Looking at the trailer in greater depth it's actually amazing what Dolph can do with a tight budget and tight schedule, he really gets better and better at it. Although I think CP will be his best directorial effort so far.

[Krom]

Good teaser, but inferior to CP.

[MikeR]

Good teaser, but inferior to CP.

Agree entirely. Does anyone (by which I mean Jox ) know if there will be a second trailer?

M.