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Comic legend Stan Lee is suing his former business manager for elder abuse and fraud.

According to Deadline, the suit, lodged with the Los Angeles Superior Court against Jerardo Olivarez, is prompted by a number of factors which came into play following Lee's wife's death late last year. At that point he was targeted by "unscrupulous businessmen, sycophants and opportunists" which, according to Lee in the suit, included Olivarez.

The suit alleges only a few days after Joan Lee's death, Olivarez fired Lee's long-time banker and attorney and transferred $4.6 million out of Lee's bank account without permission. In addition, Olivarez allegedly convinced Lee to sign over power of attorney and appoint Uri Litvak, Olivarez' own lawyer, as Lee's new attorney.

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It's about time we got a serious attempt at adapting William Gibson's work to the small screen. With the success of Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon and Philip K Dick's The Man In The High Castle, streaming studios with an eye on originals can only...

The first company with a fingerprint scanner under the display was vivo with the X20 Plus UD, swiftly followed by the Huawei Mate RS Porsche Design. Oppo is expected to be the next Chinese manufacturer to jump on the bandwagon after receiving a patent for the technology from the State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO). The documents were coupled with plenty of images that reveal the scanner might be used not only for unlocking the device but also for authorizing payments. Images from the patent documents The patent images show the sequence of entering your...

Samsung is among the few makers yet to release notched displays, but the maker might be about to succumb to the peer pressure. A new set of listings revealed that the South Korean company has patented a design featuring a screen with a prominent cutout. It will house a proximity sensor, earpiece, and a selfie camera, while the screen stretches to all four sides, leaving minimal bezels. The back, though, is pictured with various camera setups, one of them suspiciously close to the one on the iPhone X. Looking at the images, it seems Samsung has patented all the designs just in...

ZTE can't buy Qualcomm chips anymore, following a decision by the US Department of Commerce. It punishes the Chinese company for violating the terms of a sanctions violation case, by banning all US companies from selling prohibited goods such as chipsets to ZTE. The ban will be in force for seven years. ZTE pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to violate US sanctions by illegally shipping US-made goods and technology to Iran. As part of the ensuing settlement, ZTE promised to fire four senior employees and discipline 35 others by either reducing their bonuses or reprimanding...

Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Wednesday’s episode of The Blacklist. Read at your own risk!

The Blacklist unveiled a long-awaited secret during Wednesday’s episode — and it’s certainly going to complicate things as the show races toward a conclusion with the character of Ian Garvey.

As the FBI headed to Paris to arrest Ian Garvey’s drug supplier, Liz Keen decided to stay behind in a bid to take down Garvey himself. Liz discovered that Garvey would drive an hour to Baltimore just to nurse a beer at a bar, after which he’d bid farewell to a mysterious woman named Lillian.

Why is she so important to him? According to Lillian, Ian has been protecting her from her real father: Raymond Reddington. Yup, she’s the long-lost Jennifer Reddington! What? You don’t remember who that is? It’s fine. EW turned to executive producer Jon Bokenkamp to get the scoop.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: This woman says she’s the daughter of Raymond Reddington. She certainly believes it’s true, but should we believe it’s the truth?
JON BOKENKAMP: It is most likely the truth. Viewers might remember that as far back as season 2, we had introduced a character whose name was Jennifer Reddington and who was MIA. Reddington was looking for her. The woman’s mother, Naomi Hyland, played by Mary-Louise Parker, was protecting her and wanted nothing to do with Reddington. Reddington had no access, no way to contact her and couldn’t find her. And so there is a character out there who we know to be Reddington’s daughter and this woman, it seems that her foot may fit the slipper.

So technically she would be Liz’s half-sister?
Yes, that’s right. We know that Raymond Reddington is the father of Jennifer Reddington and the father of Elizabeth Keen. We know that Jennifer’s mother is Naomi Hyland, who was Raymond Reddington’s wife. And we know that Elizabeth Keen’s mother was Katarina Rostova, the other woman and the notorious spy presumed dead.

Why has Ian Garvey been protecting Jennifer all these years?
One of the things that’s interesting about Ian Garvey’s character, and what’s gonna be worth tuning in for the next episode, is that we know Ian Garvey is a dirty cop. He’s a U.S. Marshal. The U.S. Marshals run the Witness Protection Program and he’s in bed with some fairly nefarious folks, including the Nash Cartel and their suppliers. And so the question I think is: What is his agenda? Ian Garvey found out in episode 8, or shortly thereafter, the identity of the bones in this duffle bag. So why has he not gone to the FBI? Why has he not gone to the press? Why hasn’t he leveraged Reddington in some incredibly powerful way? For some reason, he’s been sitting on this bag and is trying to unlock or understand something deeper. And that, I think, is the reason to stay tuned, because his relationship with Jennifer, his relationship with Tom Keen, who he murdered, his relationship with Liz, all of those are going to sort of snap into focus in the next episode.

How will Jennifer react to the news that Liz is her sister, but also that Red has basically found her?
Not only how is she gonna react to this, but what information does she have, if any? She could be incredibly dangerous. She knows potentially truths about who Raymond Reddington is. She knows why he stepped out of her life and yet she’s been completely disconnected for years. She’s sort of a grab bag of answers. How emotionally dangerous she might be, she certainly has a different perspective about Raymond Reddington than Elizabeth Keen does. She hates the man. She knows nothing about the fact that he’s working for the FBI, or does she? And yet, how is Liz gonna juggle that? To me, she’s a really interesting window into not only the last couple episodes of this season, but everything that comes after.

What will Liz and Jennifer’s dynamic be like?
Well, it certainly won’t be normal, I’m sure of that. I’m sure it will be incredibly dysfunctional and strangely dark and full of surprises. We’re not interested in telling the reunion story of the two sisters who are gonna get to know each other. It is gonna be one that is fraught with questions and answers, and it’s gonna weirdly answer a lot of questions that we’ve had for quite some time. I think Liz is seeing Jennifer a little bit less a sister and more as an asset or a chip to play.

Since Jennifer considers Ian her surrogate father, will that make the showdown between Red and Ian all the more complicated?
Remember, Red, as of episode 18, has no idea that Liz has found this woman, so there’s also that to consider. What does Liz say to anybody? Does she say something to Reddington? Does she go to the FBI? Does she keep this to herself? But then beyond the question of how does Liz play this new piece of information, this is a weird family drama, in a way. Ian Garvey and Jennifer obviously have a long and deep history. Liz and Reddington partnered up in an effort to find and to hunt down Ian Garvey, but they both have very different perspectives on this duffle bag. And Red made no bones about it that he had every intention of zipping it up and keeping it from Liz, and Liz told Reddington, “Great. I have no intention of doing that and I have every intention of finding and unlocking whatever this secret is.” So, they find themselves in a potentially awkward family dynamic.

The Blacklist airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.

James Comey might be speaking for everyone when he describes the surreality of today’s political news.

In an excerpt from the former FBI director’s highly publicized interview with George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America, Comey describes briefing then-President-elect Donald Trump on the infamous Steele Dossier (also known around the internet as “the pee tape”).

“I started to tell him about the allegation was that he’d been involved with prostitutes in a hotel in Moscow in 2013 during a visit for the Miss Universe pageant and that the Russians had filmed the episode. And he interrupted very defensively and started talking about, ‘Do I look like a guy who needs hookers?'” said Comey, who acknowledged that the allegations hadn’t been verified at the time of his firing.

“How weird was that briefing?” asked Stephanopoulos.

“Really weird. It was almost an out-of-body experience for me. I was floating above myself, looking down, saying, ‘You’re sitting here briefing the incoming president of the United States about prostitutes in Moscow.'”

Comey expressed his shock that President Trump thought there would be even a “1 percent chance” that Trump’s wife might believe the salacious allegations. “What kind of marriage, to what kind of man, does your wife think there’s only a 99 percent chance you didn’t do that?” he questioned.

When asked if he himself believed the story might be true, he said, “Honestly, I never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don’t know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013. It’s possible, but I don’t know.”

President Trump reacted in anger to Comey’s appearance on Twitter, calling him a “LEAKER & LIAR” and an “untruthful slimeball.” “It was my great honor to fire James Comey!” he wrote.

James Comey is a proven LEAKER & LIAR. Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH. He is a weak and…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2018

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….untruthful slime ball who was, as time has proven, a terrible Director of the FBI. His handling of the Crooked Hillary Clinton case, and the events surrounding it, will go down as one of the worst “botch jobs” of history. It was my great honor to fire James Comey!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2018

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The Republican party itself has started its own campaign against Comey ahead of the bombshell interview, tweeting out a Photoshopped version of Comey’s book “A Higher Loyalty.”

FIRST LOOK at Comey’s new book. Pre-order more insider info at https://t.co/ms7BQ1FS2T pic.twitter.com/QbpPitVcho

— GOP (@GOP) April 13, 2018

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The 20/20 James Comey special will air in full on ABC on Sunday at 10 p.m. ET. You can watch the excerpt now on the ABC News website.

SPOILER ALERT! Don’t read this until you’ve seen the latest episode of The Good Fight on CBS All Access.

In this week’s episode of The Good Fight, Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) and her fellow partners are asked by the Democratic National Committee to “audition” for the chance to make a case for the impeachment of Donald Trump. We asked creators Robert and Michelle King to explain how long they had been cooking up the idea and what would have happened if real life had beat them to the punch.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: The timing of this episode couldn’t be better. Did you worry that Robert Mueller would lose his job before this aired?
ROBERT KING: Definitely. We had a backup line for Margo Martindale to record into the dialogue if Robert Mueller were fired or if there was a significant revelation. It was something like, “Despite what has happened to Robert Mueller…” We also have a golden shower tape episode coming up in two weeks, and we’re worried the James Comey book is overheating that story. The news cycles are moving so fast; it’s odd to think you could be yesterday’s news even a week later.

Think back to when you were breaking episodes. Why did you decide to do this one, and why did we have to wait until the seventh episode to see it?
MICHELLE KING: We were always thinking of doing an episode where impeachment is argued over — mostly because that’s a subject on everyone’s mind, but we wanted to find a way for the episode to cut both ways; in other words, the substance of the episode would support all the arguments for impeachment, but there would be an undercurrent of self-criticism. We didn’t want the episode just to be preaching to the choir. That’s why the progressives in the room find themselves taking on a lot of the qualities they hate most in the president. We waited until the second half of the season because we thought this played better into Diane Lockhart’s character arc. She needed a time of wandering in the microdosing desert before she finds an outlet for her frenzy.

In the episode, Liz suggests they could level a bunch of unfounded yet very salacious allegations about Donald Trump, like that he raped a Miss Teen USA, or that he was involved in a threesome, or that he described a woman on The Apprentice as having a hairy bush. As you were writing this, did you worry the dialogue would pass muster? Do you even have to deal with a standards and practices person at CBS All Access?
ROBERT KING: Yes, we were very worried. We had plan Bs. And plan Cs. And even, we think, plan Ds. Luckily, most of CBS’ concerns were about how Liz’s character phrased her accusations. They had to be in the form of conjecture, not absolutes. There was also an objection to the suggestion that President Trump used the N-word during an Apprentice taping.

Did Christine Baranski need much direction to muster up the anger for those moments?
MICHELLE KING: No, not at all. Both Diane and Liz have pretty long and passionate speeches. We tend to not like speeches. We rarely have lines go on for more than two sentences before someone interrupts. So we think Christine and Audra were thrilled to get a chance to do something more theatrical. And, of course, the words were a great outlet for both actresses. Sometimes it’s great to have language be so crude and violent.

So Liz will be “Wonder Woman” in the impeachment case. Will we see this case go to fruition?
ROBERT KING: You will see further business with the case, but there are some more twists and turns. We want to try to keep the narrative consistent with all of our lived realities.

The Good Fight is currently streaming on CBS All Access.

At the end of this week’s installment of The Good Fight, creators Robert and Michelle King inserted an animated primer on the Constitution and how it allows Congress to remove a U.S. president since “Republicans, Democrats, and In-Betweeners…no one likes high crimes and misdemeanors.”

The two-minute short harks back to the old Schoolhouse Rock interstitials that aired during ABC’s Saturday morning programming block — something the Kings very much wanted to re-create when they called upon Jonathan Coulton to write and perform the jingle. Head Gear of Toronto did the animation.

“We asked him if he could do these series of songs for the times we live in,” Robert King tells EW. “Originally, we wanted to place the song right before the main titles, but it felt like Head Gear’s animation — which we loved — was more obviously partisan than the episode, so we decided to do it at the very end. Originally, we wanted to do songs that would explain some quirk of the law that mattered in each episode, such as ‘mere puffery’ or ‘hearsay objections.’ But we never could get our ass in gear to make it happen. But that evolved into a modern Schoolhouse Rock series. And that seemed more doable.”

If you enjoyed lines from the short like “tiny hands that scratch and claw,” then we have good news: This won’t be the last time the Kings include the lively shorts. “We want to do one on microtargeting and the Facebook troubles, too,” Robert King said. “We still like the legal songs idea. Maybe next season.”

The second season of The Good Fight is currently streaming on CBS All Access.

There’s very little doubt that Isaac Asimov’s seminal Foundation series launched dozens - if not hundreds - of sci-fi plots over the years: Written in the golden era of sci-fi in the 1920s through the 1950s, Foundation built the archetypal sci-fi story you’ve come to love in franchises like Star Wars, Star Trek and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, as well as games like Horizon Zero Dawn and Call of Duty: Black Ops. 

Tackling Asimov’s sprawling 15-book epic and encapsulating it into a modern TV show is a terribly difficult task, and yet, a tag-team duo of writers, Apple and the production studio behind Altered Carbon are going to try and do just that. 

The news of the partnership comes by way of Deadline and Variety, both of whom claim that the series will be helmed by screenwriters and producers David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman. (Previously, Goyer worked on The Dark Knight trilogy, Man of Steel and Blade, and was the co-writer for Call of Duty: Black Ops and Call of Duty: Black Ops II, while Friedman wrote the 2005 screen adaptation of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds.)

The series will be produced by Skydance Media, the production studio who recently adapted Richard K. Morgan’s 2002 novel, Altered Carbon, into a hit TV show on Netflix.

 A new golden era of sci-fi television 

While the series would be Apple’s first big play into the sci-fi TV show space - it’s far from the first such adaptations made in the last two decades. 

Before this, we got Altered Carbon, The Man in the High Castle, George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Soon, Amazon will start filming its billion-dollar The Lord of the Rings spin-off series while FX, FOX and others are hard at work spinning various Marvel and DC comics from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s into TV shows.

It’s hard to deny that we’ve entered a new age for sci-fi television - one that might find a new bright star when Apple releases its Foundation adaptation on its still-unconfirmed streaming service sometime in the next few years. 

• Can't wait until then? These are the best shows on Netflix right now

Director Tim Miller and producer James Cameron have found their new Terminator.

Deadline reports Gabriel Luna has been cast in the role. Luna is best known for playing Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Natalia Reyes (Lady, La Vendedora de Rosas) and Diego Boneto (Scream Queens) will also star in the film.

Gabriel Luna as Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider n Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

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Today marks the initial start of AMD’s pre-sale of 2nd Generation Ryzen processors. The full launch is set for April 19th, which is when reviews and performance numbers will be officially available, but today we are able to tell you a bit about the processors that are coming, as well as some pictures, and link readers to where they can pre-order. We’re not overly fond of manufacturers offering pre-orders before revealing performance numbers, as with the Threadripper launch last year, however we can at least discuss the details of each part.

Apple has added yet another TV series to its ever growing lineup. The latest addition, Deadline reports, is an ambitious project headed by David S. Goyer (Blade, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) and Josh Friedman (War of the Worlds, Terminator: The Sa...

For a minute there, 2018 was shaping up to be a year of new organ discoveries. In January, Dr. J. Calvin Coffey, foundation chair of surgery at the University of Limerick, declared that he had "discovered" a new organ, dubbed the mesentery. Then, in...

It's getting increasingly difficult for internet providers to take advantage of the FCC's looming net neutrality repeal. Oregon Governor Kate Brown has signed the state's recently passed net neutrality bill (HB 4155) into law, forcing ISPs to honor...

Tech companies have been trying to do away with web passwords for years, but now it looks like they've reached a key milestone. The FIDO Alliance and W3C have launched a Web Authentication standard that makes it easier to offer truly unique encrypti...

Microsoft has released the source code for File Manager, the computer-navigating interface that debuted in Windows 3.0 and persisted through most of the 90s. Remember clicking rightwards through different folders, all nested in a single massive recta...

The interstitium helps hold our organs together, but it might do more than that.

Amazon knew if it wanted to win back some prestige in the TV production world over the next few years, it needs a Game of Thrones-level hit on its hands. So when the rights to The Lord of the Rings became available, Amazon was all too eager to sign its name on the dotted line. 

The deal went down late last year and, for the first time, details have begun to emerge on what, exactly, the world’s largest online retailer got itself into. 

Namely, Amazon has bought itself a five-season commitment to a story set in Middle-earth. Amazon’s initial investment was a $250 million deal brokered between New Line Cinema and The Tolkien Estate - a bid that just barely beat out its rival, Netflix. 

But that $250 million deal was just the beginning. New reports from The Hollywood Reporter claim that, after factoring in casting, producers and visual effects, it could cost Amazon well over $1 billion to make this show a reality. 

If those estimates are correct, that would mean the new series would cost approximately three times as much as the original trilogy cost to make a mere decade ago - and make the TV adaptation of The Lord of the Rings one of the most expensive TV shows in the history of the medium. 

This wouldn't be a huge problem but, remember, Tolkien’s world is finite - unlike, say, George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire which currently has five massive missives, plus two more on the way. 

Unless we’ve yet to discover a hidden cache of Tolkien’s work, we’ll soon have to dive into the unwieldy pre-Baggins world of The Silmarillion or The History of Middle-earth, compiled by J.R.R. Tolkien’s son in the ’80s and ’90s. 

There are stories to be told here, sure, but audiences might not respond as kindly to Morgoth as they did to his padawan, Sauron. 

The deals go ever on and on...

Speaking of villains, it’s certainly possible that Bob and Harvey Weinstein might make their way into these deals one way or another: When the first film in The Hobbit trilogy came to theaters, the Weinsteins used a deal inked in 1998 between themselves and New Line to snag $12.5 million of the production company’s profits.

That’s not even considering Peter Jackson, the golden boy of the franchise and the one responsible for hoisting the series from made-for-TV movies to million-dollar blockbusters. Jackson has not yet commented on whether he might join on in Amazon’s grand adventure - although, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Jackson’s lawyer has been working to bring the famous director/creator and Amazon closer together. 

Should Jackson or the Weinsteins finagle their way into separate deals and/or lawsuits, it could further run up Amazon’s tab. 

Hopefully Amazon has a dragon’s hoard worth of gold up there in Seattle to pay for all this.

• Need something to watch between now and then? These are the best Netflix shows

The final season of Game of Thrones will feature a battle the likes of which TV has never seen before. Sure, there's been the Battle of the Bastards and the Loot Train Ambush, but all of those sequences will pale in comparison to what awaits fans when Season 8 premieres in 2019.

According to Watchers on the Wall, the cast and crew just wrapped a 55 consecutive night shoot of a massive battle. That length of time more than doubles the amount of time it took to film their previous large-scale action scenes.

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One of The Good Doctor’s docs is checking out.

EW has confirmed that season 1 cast member Chuku Modu, who played surgical resident Dr. Jared Kalu, is not returning for the ABC medical drama’s second season. The show’s first season ended with Jared receiving an offer from a hospital in Colorado, and showrunner David Shore told EW in March that he hoped to return to that storyline in the new season.

However, it isn’t all bad news: The Good Doctor is also adding four new series regulars. Recurring players Will Yun Lee, Fiona Gubelmann, Christina Chang, and Paige Spara have been promoted to series regulars. In season 1, Lee and Gublemann played surgical residents Alex Park and Morgan Reznick, and Chang starred as Dr. Audrey Lim, one of the hospital’s attending surgeons.

Spara portrayed Lea, the free-spirited neighbor and love interest of Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore). The last time we saw Lea was in the two-part midseason premiere, which ended with her deciding to return home to the East Coast after embarking on a mini road trip with Shaun.

For more information on what to expect in season 2, check out our postmortem with Shore here. Deadline Hollywood first reported the casting news.

The Good Doctor will return for its second season this fall on ABC.

Following the news that DC’s Legends of Tomorrow has been renewed for a fourth season, EW can exclusively reveal that Jes Macallan has been promoted to series regular.

The actress joined the show at the top of season 3 as Time Bureau agent Ava Sharpe, who recently ascended to the head of the agency. The character, who became a love interest for Sara (Caity Lotz), was revealed to be a clone.

“Jes has a power to captivate in person as well as on screen. She had been guest-starring on Legends for all of two days when one of our teamsters, the guy who had been driving her to set, told me that we ought to make her a series regular. He wasn’t wrong,” executive producer Phil Klemmer tells EW. “We knew that we wanted Sara to fall in love with someone in season 3, and our challenge was to come up with a character worthy of our fearless captain’s love — and then the second challenge was to find a performer capable of playing that part. The door had barely closed on Jes, having just finished her chemistry read with Caity Lotz, that we all turned to each other and agreed that we had found our Ava.”

Klemmer continues: “Her character arc was a bit of a slow burn this season, and yet each episode revealed a new facet of her character. She’s been alternately funny, poignant, engaging, endearing, and kick-ass this season — and yet I know for a fact that we haven’t hit all of Jes’s hidden gears as an actor. We are lucky to have a whole new season in which to find them. It’s not every actor who can find the emotional heart of a storyline that features John Constantine, a chicken, and a severed human foot. Thank God we found Jes Macallan.”

The news also comes on the heels of the show promoting Matt Ryan, who portrays John Constantine, to series regular for next season as well.

Legends has seen a bit of turnover this season. Tala Ashe joined the cast at the top of season 3, but both Victor Garber and Franz Drameh exited the series, while Wentworth Miller briefly returned before once again taking his leave. Keiynan Lonsdale was recently added as a series regular.

The season finale of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow airs Monday at 8 p.m. ET on the CW.

One of Prime Video's earliest successes is about to fade away: Amazon has canceled Mozart in the Jungle after four seasons. It's not certain what prompted the decision to axe the show, but it wasn't due to a lack of talent when the "sex, drugs and cl...

As Virgin Galactic continues its quest to "open" space flight, it completed its first powered test flight since the 2014 crash that killed one of its pilots. Now we have video of the new SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, separating from its carry vehicle and...

SpaceX had to cut off the Iridium Next mission's live feed earlier than usual, and it might be because its Tesla stunt got a bit too much attention. The private space giant raised questions and fueled conspiracy theories when it suddenly stopped Falc...

Tonight San Bruno police identified the shooter at YouTube's HQ as Nasim Aghdam, a 39-year-old woman from San Diego and said there is no evidence she knew the victims or that they were specifically targeted. While the sources have not confirmed a rea...

There are many members of the animal kingdom that rival our own wits.

Margot Robbie will kill you. And you will probably thank her for it.

The Oscar nominee stars in Terminal, a bonkers neo-noir that is brimming to the edge with style. Directed by Vaughn Stein, the thriller follows two assassins on a mysterious mission in sinister city, where they run into all sorts of kooky characters, including Robbie’s beguiling waitress who may or may not be a serial killer.

Terminal Trailer

While the previous Terminal teaser promised an alluring Dark City-style noir, the full Terminal trailer is a little more unhinged than that. The frantic pacing and campy costumes seem more along the lines of a Terry Gilliam film — aided by Robbie’s absolutely terrifying performance as a waitress who moonlights as a serial killer.

The plot seems pretty threadbare compared to the film’s non-stop eclectic visuals. The anonymous city which provides the setting for Terminal is consistently drenched in neon, while Robbie dons a slew of elaborate wigs and costumes. Then there’s Mike Myers in heavy prosthetics, Simon Pegg sporting a scraggly beard, and Mac Irons and Dexter Fletcher as the two main assassins.

A lot happens in this somewhat messy trailer, and I can’t really tell you what exactly it’s about. There seems to be a lot of style and not a lot of substance, but hey, I would watch Margot Robbie paint a door. So watching her kill several men while dressed as a dominatrix doesn’t sound half bad.

Here is the latest Terminal synopsis:

In the dark heart of a sprawling, anonymous city, Terminal follows the twisting tales of two assassins carrying out a sinister mission, a teacher battling a fatal illness, an enigmatic janitor and a curious waitress leading a dangerous double life. Murderous consequences unravel in the dead of night as their lives all intertwine at the hands of a mysterious criminal mastermind hell-bent on revenge.

Terminal is set to arrive in theaters on May 11, 2018.

The post ‘Terminal’ Trailer: Margot Robbie is a Literal Femme Fatale in an Off-Kilter Neo-Noir appeared first on /Film.

Netflix updates the classic series Lost In Space for a whole new generation, creating a formulaic yet entertaining saga enriched by complex characters. Our spoiler-free Lost In Space review is below.

The Space Family Robinson

Irwin Allen’s somewhat cheesy 1960s sci-fi program gets a cinematic upgrade for the Netflix age with Lost In Space. Employing production design that would be right at home in the rebooted J.J. Abrams Star Trek franchise, Netflix’s Lost In Space takes the raw materials from the original show, and molds them into an episodic drama featuring surprisingly complex characters.

This isn’t the first time Lost In Space received a big budget update. In 1998, the Stephen Hopkins-helmed Lost In Space blasted into theaters, bringing with it a blockbuster mentality and some truly terrible special effects. Netflix’s take, thankfully, improves on this formula in nearly every conceivable way.

This doesn’t mean Lost In Space’s mission is a complete success. The show suffers from a been there, done that atmosphere – we’ve seen this sort of thing before, in countless space adventure shows and movies. What makes Lost in Space work, however, is its rich cast of characters, all of whom are complex and well-crafted. Hell, even the damn robot is complex in this show.

Set in the not-too-distant future, Lost In Space wastes no time throwing its audience into the adventure. The Robinson family – father and former military man John (Toby Stephens), mother and aerospace engineer Maureen (Molly Parker), 18-year-old doctor Judy (Taylor Russell), super-sarcastic middle-child Penny (Mina Sundwall), and youngest, and shyest, child Will (Maxwell Jenkins) – crash onto a mysterious, uninhabited planet. Almost immediately, things go very, very wrong – Maureen’s leg is severely injured, Judy gets trapped in some ice, and Will gets separated from the family. It’s a jarring opening – there’s literally no set-up, and there’s almost a sense that perhaps we’ve jumped too far ahead and have started with a later episode rather than the start.

Employing quick-thinking problem solving, the Robinson clan works hard to save each other from catastrophe. They also get some unexpected help – during his separation from the family, Will saves the life of a strange, possibly alien robot. The robot proceeds to follow Will back to his family, and assist in the rescue of Judy. From here, Lost In Space is off to the races.

Each episode employs a similar formula – the Robinsons get in danger, and they have to work together to save each other before it’s too late. They’re not alone, however. There are more survivors who have crashed on this planet, and a community begins to take shape. There’s also the mysterious Dr. Smith (Parker Posey), who claims to be a psychiatrist but is clearly bending the truth. And then there’s Don West (Ignacio Serricchio), a smuggler that the show really wants to cast as their own Han Solo. They even give West a moment to sarcastically call Judy “Princess”, a la Han to Princess Leia.

All of these elements congeal into a fairly entertaining saga that unfolds leisurely over 10 episodes. Unlike some other Netflix shows, Lost in Space isn’t designed to be binged. This is not a 10-hour movie; it’s an episodic series that’s better experienced in spurts. Savor your journey with the Robinsons; don’t blast through it. It’ll be more rewarding in the end.

Lost, In Space

While the overall look of Lost In Space looks beamed over from J.J. Abrams’ Trek films, this isn’t the only Abrams influence present. In creating the new take on the series, Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless perhaps took the Lost portion of the title a little too seriously. Lost in Space handles its exposition almost identically to Lost – that is, it employs constant flashbacks.

The first episode drops us right into the action, and it’s through these flashbacks that we begin to learn more about the Robinsons, and several other characters. It becomes apparent that Earth has become almost uninhabitable, and a select group of colonists have been selected to start a new life to a new home world.

We also learn that the Robinson clan wasn’t exactly a stable, happy family before blasting into space. Maureen and John are estranged, nearing divorce. As a result of this, John is practically a stranger to his kids, and part of the show involves father and children reconnecting as the adventure unfolds.

The flashbacks work well…at first. As they continue, however, it’s almost impossible to separate them from Lost. Lost made this approach seem fresh. Here, it’s derivative, and frequently frustrating. There are times where it comes off like a cheat – as if the writers are deliberately side-stepping rather simplistic exposition in order to shoehorn in another flashback.

 

Dr. Smith, I Presume

It probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Parker Posey that her take on Dr. Smith is the best element of Lost In Space. The first season of the original Lost In Space portrayed Smith as a villain, but eventually, actor Jonathan Harris’ fey, whiny take on the character became more like comic relief.

Posey’s Smith is more complicated. She’s obviously not who she says she is, but her motives are an ever-present mystery. Perhaps the only real motive she has is self-preservation. Smith moves from one person to the next, constantly working to turn characters against each other. She’s Shakespeare’s Iago in an orange tracksuit.

This is a tricky character, and there were many ways Posey could’ve handled it. A part of me wishes the show had let Posey go into full over-the-top mode (like her work in Blade: Trinity, for example). Instead, Posey underplays it a bit – and that works, too. Her Dr. Smith is a emotionally unstable individual who has a great grasp on spinning lies. Part of the fun in watching Posey’s performance is the way she nimbly deflects questions and pulls answers seemingly out of thin air.

Smith’s doings are villainous, but Lost In Space is smart enough to not make the character seem reprehensible. The strength of the character lies within the way Posey makes Smith somewhat sympathetic. We can almost see her point at times. At the same time, we wish she would just stop trying to ruin everyone else’s lives. It’s a fascinating character, and Posey does a superb job.

 

Danger, Will Robinson

Netflix’s Lost In Space has a robot that’s worlds removed from the original series. No longer the amusing, rubber-armed, bubble-headed character warning, “Danger, Will Robinson!”, the robot is now a potential threat. Other characters are understandably leery of the very-powerful automaton. Yet the robot strikes up a friendship with the shy Will Robinson.

The friendship is a frequently touching element to the series – don’t be surprised if you find yourself growing empathetic with that robot, folks. In many ways, the robot becomes more of a father figure to Will than John. In one sequence, when Will teaches the robot to play catch, you can almost hear Linda Hamilton’s narration from Terminator 2: “It would never leave him, and it would never hurt him, never shout at him, or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. It would always be there. And it would die, to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only one who measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice.”

In other ways, the robot is like a potentially rabid dog that finds shelter with a family while everyone else looks on in disdain. The robot listens to Will, but perhaps that isn’t the kind of power that should be placed in the hands of a small boy. Tensions begin to mount with other survivors as they look upon the relationship between Will and the robot with fear and disdain.

Character is Key

The many derivative elements borrowed from countless space sagas hurts Lost In Space. What saves it, however, is a set of complex characters. The main members of the Robinson family are all struggling in their own specific ways.

Maureen and John deal with their fractured relationship. Maureen, meanwhile, struggles with trying to take command of the mission and keep her family safe. While this is going on, John struggles to reconnect with his distant children. Judy suffers from PTSD from her near-death experience at the start of the show. Penny attempts to find her place as the middle-child who doesn’t have a specific skill-set, while also growing attracted to another crashed survivor on the planet. And Will has a constant sense that he doesn’t belong with his family.

These weaknesses and flaws make the Robinsons ultimately stronger. It’s easy to become engrossed in their stories, and their struggles, thanks to how rich their characterizations are. The cast handles all this admirably, with Mina Sundwall as a particular standout as the sarcastic Penny.

Lost In Space isn’t the best original series Netflix has created, but it is the type of show it’s fun to become wrapped-up in. Each episode builds upon the last while also remaining mostly episodic, and as a result, there’s a curious lack of urgency to the show. This isn’t a bad thing. Other Netflix series’ buckle under the pressure of being binge-worthy. Lost in Space knows how to take its time, and pull you along for the journey. You’ll likely be hooked by episode one, and won’t mind getting lost in Lost In Space.

***

Lost In Space debuts on Netflix April 13, 2018.

The post ‘Lost In Space’ Review: Netflix’s Space Adventure is ‘Lost,’ in Space appeared first on /Film.

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