James Vanderbilt Movies

A group of black mercenaries plan their revenge against the government that set them up for death in the Legendary Pictures/Warner Bros. adaptation of the Vertigo comic. Stomp the Yard's Sylvain White directs from a script by James Vanderbilt (Zodiac). Watchmen's Jeffrey Dean Morgan heads up the cast, which also includes Chris Evans, Zoe Saldana, and Idris Elba, with Jason Patric handling the villainous duties in the film. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

The gruff, adamantium-clawed Marvel superhero Wolverine strikes out on his own in this X-Men spin-off starring series regular Hugh Jackman. The story gets under way as the boy who will become Wolverine makes a shocking discovery about his family bloodline, and gains a brother in the process. Flash forward to find the mutant siblings battling side by side through two world wars and Vietnam -- where they are sentenced to death for killing a commanding officer -- and Logan (Hugh Jackman) and his brother, Victor Creed (aka Sabretooth, played by Liev Schreiber), have joined a top-secret government task force. When their targets begin to include innocent civilians, conscientious Logan escapes to the Canadian Rockies, where he builds a home with pretty schoolteacher Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins). Informed by his old commanding officer William Stryker (Danny Huston) that the members of his old team are being targeted for death, Logan is heartbroken when Victor finds and kills Kayla. Vowing revenge, Logan agrees to take part in a dangerous experiment that will fuse his bones with a powerful metal alloy called adamantium, which makes him virtually indestructible and gives him the strength needed to defeat his powerful brother. Subsequently betrayed by Stryker, Logan (now Wolverine) sets out to find his blood-lusting brother and stop the cycle of violence once and for all. Along the way, the temperamental hero is joined by fellow mutants John Wraith (Will.i.Am) and Remy LeBeau (aka Gambit, played by Taylor Kitsch). But before Wolverine can seek vengeance against Striker and his brother, he'll have to do battle with Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) a formidable mutant instilled with many powers. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Beck (The Rock) is a "retrieval specialist" in hock to a powerful and not particularly nice gentleman named Walker (William Lucking). Beck is anxious to retire from his dangerous work and open a small restaurant. Walker tells Beck he'll be free and clear with enough cash to fulfill his dream if he does one more job. He sends Beck into the Brazilian rainforest to bring back his wayward son, Travis (Seann William Scott). Travis is down there looking for a legendary idol, El Gato Diablo, which he could sell for millions if he found it. A pretty local, Mariana (Rosario Dawson), offers Travis the use of her boat in exchange for a cut of the take on the statue. But the powerful Hatcher (Christopher Walken) owns the area's huge mine, where locals work for slave wages, and feels that anything found in the area is his property. He refuses to let Beck take Travis back to the U.S. until the statue is in his hands. Using his estimable fighting prowess (he doesn't like guns), Beck manages to get Travis out of town, but Travis doesn't want to go home, and he ends up getting them stranded in the jungle, where they're confronted with horny monkeys and angry guerrillas. To make matters worse, Hatcher and his thugs are hot on their trail, and Mariana turns out to have her own motives for getting involved. The Rundown, the second film directed by actor Peter Berg (Very Bad Things), features a brief, uncredited cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

The disappearance of a military leader and the death of four of his men leads two investigators to wade through a morass of deceptions and half-truths in search of the facts in this thriller. Sgt. Nathan West (Samuel L. Jackson) is the leader of an elite team of U.S. Army Special Forces operatives known as the Army Rangers; West is known as a highly effective officer, but one with a short temper and aggressive attitude who is not well liked by his soldiers. During a seemingly routine training exercise in Panama, a hurricane sweeps in, and four of West's six men are dead, while West himself seems to have vanished. Eager to get the facts behind what happened, Col. Bill Styles (Tim Daly) assigns Capt. Julia Osborne (Connie Nielsen) to investigate. However, Osborne is having a hard time getting the two survivors to talk, so Styles brings in Tom Hardy (John Travolta), a former Army Ranger who served under West and became a first-class interrogator; Hardy later became a DEA agent, but left law enforcement after allegations of corruption. Hardy interviews Dunbar (Brian Van Holt), who claims that the four soldiers had been murdered, and West was killed in retaliation. Kendall (Giovanni Ribisi), the other survivor (whose father is a powerful officer) has a very different story of how the five men turned up dead, and it's up to Hardy and Osborne to determine who is telling the truth -- or if anyone is saying exactly what happened. Basic marked the first time John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson appeared in the same film together since their breakthrough roles in Pulp Fiction. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide