James Franco and Danny McBride star as Princes who must quest through medieval England to rescue a princess, with the help of Natalie Portman’s warrior. Like the Princess Bride, but with foul language, dirty jokes, drugs and sex. We want to make fun of the accents but Portman brings credit where Franco and McBride let things down like a teenage boy on prom night.

Amanda Seyfried is the girl with the red hood who is supported by Gary Oldman as a famous werewolf hunter and Shiloh Fernandez playing the role of Peter the orphaned woodcutter that Seyfried’s character falls for.

This picture has Catherine Hardwicke directing and bringing her legions of Twi-Fans is seek of dark love during their wait for Breaking Dawn and we suspect it won’t do too badly at the box office.

Test pilot,Hal Gordon (Ryan Reynolds) is granted a mystical green ring that bestows him with otherworldly powers, as well as membership into an intergalactic squadron tasked with keeping peace within the universe.

UK release date is 17th June 2011

We’re in London’s county hall tonight, what do you think of it?

This place reminds me a bit of being in Paris for the theatrical tour for Expendables. We were there promoting the release. I was waiting with Sly for the cars to leave and we were standing in the lobby in the Ritz. He looked over at me and goes “Hey Dolph, we’re gonna have to change hotels… sh*t I’ve got a bigger walk in than this at home!”

Have you seen this as a comeback year?

Well yeah I guess it’s turned out that way. I hadn’t planned on it exactly. Maybe if I’d planned just a bit better I wouldn’t be sitting here, I’d be the governor of California instead.   But it’s definitely been a fun year for me. I went back to Sweden, to my birthplace, and I hosted the Eurovision song contest. I did lots of bad singing and dancing and people seemed to enjoy it. I think they finally seemed to stop hating me for being in bad Hollywood movies all these years. They’ve kind of started liking me in Sweden so yeah I guess that and The Expendables seem to have made it all better.

What was it like hosting Eurovision?

It was kind of tough because you know because you’re in live venues with like 10,000 people watching and you go out there and find a teleprompter waiting for you. Of course the hard part is you’ve got to memorise all the contestants’ names. It was like a total nightmare! It’s like Jesus; after you say one word you’re stuck. It’s all live as well so you really can’t mess up; it was a lot of pressure actually and harder work than most of the things I’ve done before. In the first show I did a rendition of an Elvis song “A little less conversation”. I showed off some moves and even played some drums, I think it came over pretty good, but it’s all on YouTube now so you can judge for yourself. I was more nervous than I ever got working on movie though, big time.

Did it make working with Stallone feel like a picnic?

Well not really no. Because nobody was there yelling at me too hard on Eurovision. All the time I have to put up with Sly heckling me. “Hey Dolph, what’s wrong, my grandmother could do better than that! Who the hell hired this guy, he sucks!”

Did all the abuse Sly gave you make you want to go back to the safety of Sweden?

Well you know I’ve had some offers but for now at least my work is in Hollywood for a little while longer. Unless I start getting really fired from movies then I might have to go home and host a bad tv show or something like that.

Let’s talk about the Expendables, when you got the phonecall from Sly was it fair to say it was something you weren’t expecting?

No, it wasn’t something I saw coming. I mean I’d heard about this script that Sly was writing. I saw him at the opening of Rocky Balboa and it was funny because I knew that that he was doing well, he was kind of on the comeback trail. He accosted me and was like “Hey Dolph, I’ve got this script here. Maybe you should check out this character here. Whatd’ya think?”. I opened the script and read a few pages. Stallone has a special style of writing it’s very entertaining to read. People don’t realise but in real life he’s a really funny guy. So it was a really good script and then I noticed the character he wanted me to look at was like a homicidal drunk. I just though… hey, I can do this you know! I’ve been perfecting that style since like 1971.

Was your character Gunner fully there in the first draft of the script?

Yeah he was there at the time. It helped as well that I had a few meetings with Stallone and we had such a good relationship, because you got a feeling like his character, mine and Mickey Rourke’s had this whole history together. We did change things though. In an initial draft of the script there was a graphic scene where you saw my character taking drugs and I was glad we took that out because it was a little too much.

*Spoiler Alret* Did your character survive in the original draft?

Actually in the original he did die and I was ready to go man. In the original I had a line while I was lying there dying and   I said “I want a Viking funeral!” and Sly’s character was saying “What with the burning ship and everything? But you’re not even a Viking!” and I reply “Doesn’t Matter”. But that all got cut out.

How has your relationship with Stallone changed over the years from Rocky IV to this?

Well we haven’t always seen each other much. We’ve run into each other and had a few drinks over the years. I suppose it’s deepened a little bit because when we made Rocky four I was such a kid, I really didn’t know anything. He was my boss and everything and he was actually a little bit scary. But on this picture we kind of got to know each other a bit more and we were maybe a little closer. I’ve directed a couple of small movies  and we maybe felt a little bit closer now than we did back then.

Did he take you under his wing a bit though when you worked on Rocky IV?

He did I guess. We trained for five months together twice a day. Weights in the morning for two hours and then sparring in the afternoon for two hours; we did that six days a week for five whole months. So I guess you do get to know each other pretty well.

How did you get started in acting?

Well there was a singer in the 80s called Grace Jones , she was a very striking lady from Jamaica. I did some security work at her concert in Australia and she saw this young innocent Swedish blonde kid and she thought “Mmmm, okay I like him! He’s somebody I can corrupt”. I ended up becoming what I’d guess you’d call her toy boy for a few years. She was in a Bond movie called View to a Kill with Sir Roger Moore. I was on the set hanging out with Grace and she was doing a scene with Chris Walken who was playing the bad guy. Somebody was missing and the director pointed at me and said, “Hey you, do you want to be in the movie?” . I told him I wasn’t so sure I did, but he said “Sure you do, it’s easy all you’ve got to do is pick up this gun then hit the mark and point it at Christopher Walken”. I thought, well okay I guess I can do that.  I did it and afterwards the director said “You know what, that was actually pretty good maybe you should think about giving movies a try”.

What do you think when you watch that scene now?

I remember that Christopher Walken was a very good actor. I’d studied a little bit of acting but that was it. I remember I was rehearsing with the actor who played the Russian KGB general. He was a really good stage actor. So we rehearse with Chris and all he does is mumble a bit. We’re both thinking “This is Chris Walken!? This guy is frickin useless!” . Then suddenly when the camera starts rolling he unleashes this tirade and you can see this other actor almost literally staggers back thinking what the hell. He just forgot all his lines, he really didn’t know what to do, it was beautiful to see it really became very real.

At what point did you really decide to give commit to being an actor?

Well I started doing acting in New York and what happened was I’d studied sports like Karate and done an engineering degree; but I didn’t find any emotion in those things. I think when I started studying acting and doing the emotional scenes a lot of emotional stuff from when I was a kid started to just sort of come out. I got to vent some of those emotions through my acting. I didn’t know exactly what it was at the time but it felt pretty good. So I thought I’d really give it a try and that was when I gave up my scholarship to MIT.

What happened next?

Well then I got into the commercial part of filmmaking. When you’re in a big movie and it makes money then you find people start to want to hire you for other movies.

We’re you trying to avoid being typecast as a bad guy after Rocky IV?

Well I didn’t really know what I was doing. I just took the jobs and tried to meet as many girls as I could. My manager was a bit of a crook and I ended up firing him. He was good at introducing me to girls but terrible at business.

Your next role was in He-Man, what was that experience like?

It was cold because my costume was about the size of a watchband. There was no CGI at the time, so they put me up on a crane and drove me through the streets in the middle of winter. I was freezing to death. The whole move was shot at night, it was 54 nights in a row which was an all time Hollywood record at the time. It was great fun but strange to do the good guy. I’d played a Russian bad guy then I got to play He-Man who was like this American hero. So there were some mental gymnastics for me there. I had to try to lose my Swedish accent, which was kind of heavy at the time.

Actually I went back to Sweden at the time and they asked me to introduce the film in Swedish and I said can’t I do it in English. I spoke in English and the whole of Sweden said “What an asehole! We hate this guy! He’s forgotten he’s Swedish. Not only is he big, blonde and stupid, but he can’t even speak Swedish anymore”. It took me about 25 years to reverse that opinion. It just happened like a few years ago really.

Were you a fan of He-Man before you made the movie? Did you know what you were getting yourself into?

Well I’d seen the weird looking toy I guess. Nowadays everybody is playing a toy I guess, just look at how huge the Transformers movies were. In the 80s if you looked at a movie poster and you read Steven Spielberg presents Transformers, people would have laughed. Now it seems cool but in those days it was kind of weird to do something based on children’s toys. I guess I just did it and obviously tried to meet as many girls as I could. I just put on my costume and froze my damn ass off every day.

Did the costume help with meeting girls?

Well, yeah it did a little bit. It was weird going into the costume department; It was like “Okay, here’s your cloth and yeah you’re done. Oh wait, put this belt on…

You were also ahead of your time playing Frank Castle in the punisher movie.

Yeah I did, although they took the skull away from my outfit for that. I don’t know why. I had dark hair for that. I’m actually thinking about bringing that back. Not for more Expendables but maybe for another movie. Maybe get a big scar too and make myself look like an evil Russian killer again.

What was the action like on that film?

It was great the stunt co-ordinator also did a bit fo work with us on The Expendables actually. I remember they flew in these two fighters’ from a head Dojo in Japan. They were young guys and this was like 1988. They didn’t seem to realise that this was just a movie. Like if you’re punching a guy in the face you don’t actually have to do it for real. That’s not necessary. I had fight scenes with both of them and one guy who got killed with a spear thought his death wasn’t blood enough. He wanted to die in a more gruesome way.

What was it like working with Brandon Lee in Big Showdown in Little Tokyo?

It was a pleasure working with him. I didn’t realise when I first met him that his dad was Bruce Lee, I just thought he was another young actor. Then I found out and it was like Holy sh*t! This is Bruce Lee’s son. He was very talented; he was a good martial artist and a good actor. He would have been a huge star that kid had he lived. It was just really sad what happened. His mom was actually Swedish, so he was half Swedish, which just gave us another reason to get along so well.

Where do you stand on the contrast between old school action films and the newer style of shaky hand camera technique?

I think it’s changing all the time. I think the Expendables is a bit of both. I think it does tend to work when you move the cameras a bit on action and sort of move with the characters to give it a sense of motion. But I don’t like if it’s cut too fast though. What’s cool in the Expendables is that you kind of see some of the actors do their own stunts. Stallone really runs down the peer and he does fight Steve Austin. It’s good if you’re wide enough that you can see actors doing it for real. I think what started with movies like The Matrix and then The Bourne Identity, that because they’re using a lot of doubles they have to either go in really tight so you’re only seeing part of the action, or they cut very quickly. I think it’s moving away from that a little bit now. But I prefer it the old way.

An Expendables sequel seems inevitable, what would you like to see from the next instalment of the franchise, particularly for your character?

For the Expendables sequel, Stallone is a clever guy and I hope Gunner Jensen is in it a little more. But I hope that he keeps some of the tragedy about the character.  it was quite good to have him be off centre and searching for things a little bit, because the rest of the guys are so together. My character and Mickey Rourke’s  were both clearly a bit lost. I think it suits me as well to play those types of characters. I didn’t really expect that but it really works, in fact I’m going to try and incorporate that more into my other characters from now on. But for Expendables we’ll see what it does.

Has he given any hints about what might be in store for the second Expendables film?

Actually he came up to me on our flight to Japan for the Expendables premiere out there and said “Hey Dolph, don’t you know like a lot of mathematics and stuff like that? “ I told him yeah I did or least I used to. Then he said “So um, what if Gunner’s like a chemical engineer. They guys can get stuck some place and Gunner’s starts writing all these formulas. One of the guys can be like “Hey what’s he doing?” Then some says “Don’t you know, he’s a genius?”. The other guys would all be shocked like, “He can’t be, he’s a moron!” That might be really funny, but you never know, we’ll see.

Speaking of sequels are you excited to be shooting your first 3D movie with the new Universal Soldiers film?

Well, I haven’t actually signed up for the movie yet. I don’t think they can afford me now! Not after Expendables.

What do you think about films like JCVD where actors poke fun by playing themselves?

Well I prefer the opposite; I think as an actor it’s much better to keep the mystery and protect your private life, rather than to delve into it in public like you’re on a reality show. Look at someone like Jack Nicolson, he hasn’t done a talk show since like 1973 but he’s mysterious so people want to see his movies. You can use your own angst but speak through another character. That’s what I think you call acting. Although JCVD was a good movie, I thought the director was very clever.

What’s it like working with Jean Claude Van Damme “the muscles form Brussels”?

You mean the Belgian Waffle…? No seriously he’s great and I actually hope I get to work with him again.

If you and JCVD ever went toe to toe in a real fight who do you think would win?

Well… who do YOU think? Fool!

Yeah, let’s say you Dolph…

You’ve been involved in some pretty interesting cult classics over the years, like sci-fi movie “I come in peace”.

People have mentioned that one to me a lot lately, maybe I should look into doing a 3D sequel. That was a actually a pretty interesting movie. It’s about a drug dealer from outer space who comes down to earth to steal the substances form people’s brains. He kills people and when they’re down on the ground but still kind of alive he gets this big spike and sticks it right in their head to suck the stuff out.

Out of all your movies you guys have ever made your death count is actually the highest from the entire Expendables cast. How does that make you feel?

It makes me think maybe I should get a raise! I mean Arnold come on, I’ve even out killed him.

You do your own stunts, what kind of things do you enjoy the most?

They’re all challenging in their own ways. It all looks so easy in the movies but on set its tough work. They ask you to throw yourself on the ground and after a few takes you feel like asking, don’t we have anything softer I could land on? Fighting is a bit easier for me though and I really enjoyed the car chase in the Expendables. The way they shoot those scenes now is so high tech. You get in a car and you haven’t rehearsed and think “Oh sh*t, what’s going to happen now” Then you look behind you and it’s a big green screen. Then they start playing what’s happening behind you. Then the car starts revving up and people are falling out into piles of pillows. There’s another car suddenly cutting right across you. They’ve done it a hundred times and it’s totally safe, but you still start feeling like you’re going to crash. It’s kind of fun, it’s like being in a computer game but its all real cars and stuff.

You did a lot of physical work with Sly in Rocky IV and now the Expendables, did you ever hurt him?

I think that’s why he brought me back in this movie, to punish me for the beating I gave him on that film. He was like I’ve enjoyed shooting you so much in this film I want to bring you back in Expendables 2, just so I can shoot you again. I don’t know how I survived this movie I really took such a beating. I think I did hurt him a lot on Rocky though. I was just a kid and I did whatever he said. He said hit me here, I hit him there. Then he ended up in a hospital.

With this live stream you can enjoy all the excitement and some exclusive interviews LIVE from the Red Carpet!

At 5pm wave your wand at the screen and say “Alo-Hamora” to open the live link.

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The astounding global success of The Hangover has burdened director Todd Phillips with a huge weight of expectation. People simply expect to be laughing long, hard and often at his films. Due Date offers some good quality laughs, but not as frequently as some may have hoped. It’s a little darker and more sullen in tone than the zany silliness of The Hangover.

Much of the success of The Hangover has been attributed to the bearded insanity of funnyman Zack Galifianakis and Due Date also relies heavily upon his nuanced awkwardness for laughs. The key to good ‘buddy movies’ is that not only do we have to feel sorry for the normal guy stuck with some irritating loser, we also have to feel sorry for the loser. It’s a fine art to be obnoxious and sympathetic at the same time but Zack Galifianakis manages it fairly well. He has the sort of pathetic vulnerability that makes it impossible to loath his moronic oafishness.

In sharp contrast, Robert Downey Jr has emerged from the shadow of a bad boy reputation to establish himself as one of Hollywood’s most charismatic and effortlessly cool leading men. Sublime star turns in Iron Man, Tropic Thunder and Sherlock Holmes have helped him become the household name he has always deserved to be. If Due Date is a big hit it will be largely thanks to his A-list allure for audiences.

It’s an oversimplification to say that Peter (Downey Jr) simply plays the straight man to Galifianakis acting weird. There’s a furious and slightly unhinged quality to Peter. He’s essentially a good guy, but he’s not above punching a child or rage induced animal cruelty. A less likeable actor could have easily left the character feeling like a hysterical bully.

Due Date’s plot and characters draws obvious comparisons with classic road movie “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”, but it’s grungy gross-out humour doesn’t have quite the same warmth to it. It’s certainly interesting watching our mismatched duo lurch their way through a series of escalating fiascos, but it’s not always joyous.

If you’re a fan of The Hangover this should keep you happy till the sequel comes out next year. If you don’t quite get the Hangover hype then you won’t get this either.

Reviewed by Russell Nelson

The Birds (The Prequel) from NYSUfilms on Vimeo.