The Hughes Brothers don't exactly have a lot of films under their belt -- in fact, it's been nine years since the release of their fourth feature film, From Hell, and while that film got mixed reviews, you have to admit that it looked good, if a little grisly. Ditto Book of Eli, which is visually stunning in some places, as the Hugheses capture and artificially create the bleak landscape of a post-nuclear America. And they certainly don't shy away from violence, as arrows pierce people's necks and knives sever appendages with regularity. Hell, they kill a cat in the opening scene. If that sort of thing gets you upset -- more upset than humans getting killed, which also happens a lot -- then you may want to pass on this movie, but you'll miss out on pretty good action flick, with some great cinematography and some decent performances, too.

James Bond fans have had plenty to say about the art-housening of Bond films lately, with the last two films having more in common stylistically with the Bourne films than the Bond franchise. Well, they ain't seen nothing yet. Sam Mendes, director of American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Revolutionary Road and Away We Go, will direct (or at least consult on) the next James Bond film. Additionally, writing chores will be partially handled by Peter Morgan, who also penned such tepid dramas as Frost/Nixon, The Queen and The Other Boleyn Girl. Looking back at their mostly sedate filmographies, we have some predictions as to what we'll see in the forthcoming action spectacle currently known only as Bond 23.

Bastards, drunks, rodents and car salesmen -- the unsavory become savory in this week's DVD releases, with three blockbusters coming out as well as a couple of fun comedies and a few interesting documentaries, for those of you who think the real world is plenty interesting enough. Weirdos.

Taylor Lautner, the werewolf with the chiseled abs from Twilight: New Moon, has just gotten a franchise of his own. He's been cast as the lead in Max Steel, a film adaptation of a cartoon and toy line from toymaker Mattel. Mattel is probably thrilled to have landed such a red-hot actor, since their He-Man movie seems to be mired in development hell; meanwhile, their chief rival Hasbro already has the Transformers and G.I. Joe franchises, plus Battleship and Monopoly in development. We'd worry about whether Lautner has the chops to carry a franchise -- remember, New Moon is only his fifth movie -- but something tells us he'll do just fine in the not-terribly-challenging role of a teenage kid who gets injected with nanites that make him into a super-powered secret agent. Check out Steel's origin story in condensed form below, then watch all three seasons on Hulu.

For those of you who were hoping that Ninja Assassin would be a historical exploration of what ninjas were really like, be warned: the filmmakers were not striving for realism. In fact, one of their biggest stylistic influences for this film was Ninja Scroll, a particularly gruesome bit of Japanese animation where blood shoots out like geysers, the ninjas move supernaturally fast, and one even travels through shadows like they're a network of tunnels. Needless to say, I was very interested to see how they would convey the feeling of that movie in live-action, given that a direct adaptation has been on the drawing board for years. In a word, they nailed it.

Are ninjas still cool? Are they becoming cool again? Because while the trailer for Ninja Assassin (by the director of V for Vendetta) looks awesome, it feels like we should have gotten this movie years ago, when ninjas were kinda in the limelight. Not before The Matrix, of course, because this movie uses a lot of that movie's bullet-time slo-mo action -- except here, it's shuriken time. Omar G. and Pablo G. watched the trailer, and they have plenty to say on the subject of ninjas, which has surely gotten them marked for death by several of the more secretive ninja clans out there. Watch what will surely be the last "Trailers Without Pity" below, or click here.

Another movie about the end of the world from the makers of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow? This time based on the Mayan calendar, which predicts said event will happen in three years' time? We call bullshit. Our resident movie vloggers, Omar and Pablo Gallaga, have asked their family members -- all of whom are descended from Mayans -- and none of them seem to know anything about this. See what the brothers have to say about Roland Emmerich's fear-mongering, John Cusack's taste in scripts and the repeated destruction of the White House in the latest installment of Trailers Without Pity, embedded below for your safety.

Toys and board games are sweeping through Hollywood as the next big marketable properties, and the optimistically named HIT Entertainment has landed themselves a doozy. He's Thomas the Tank Engine, the cherub-faced locomotive who pulls cars around the English countryside and chats up his similarly smiley-faced (or frowny-faced) colleagues in his successful TV series and omnipresent toy line. Thomas has had model-scale movie adventures before, but we're curious how it might translate to a live-action-mixed-with-CGI adaptation, so we looked to some of the great "train" movies to see if they would have been improved with the addition of Thomas' smiling face.

In Bruce Willis' new film, he plays a cop who has a robotic duplicate. But looking at the duplicate's goofy hair and stony expression, we have to wonder -- haven't we seen this robot before? Willis has gone through a lot of different looks and personalities in his movies, which makes us wonder how many of them were the real Bruce and how many were simply surrogates. Check out our handy guide to the many acting robots of Bruce Willis, and see exactly which model you've been cheering on all these years.

For many Highlander fans, there can be only one. The 1986 original, with its Queen soundtrack and Clancy Brown as the villainous Kurgen, is considered a classic, while its sequels... not so much. Besides being a blatant screed against global warming, Highlander 2 ridiculously gave the franchise a sci-fi twist and revived and rejuvenated its dead or aging characters, and the films went downhill from there. Now that Summit Entertainment is developing a remake with Fast and Furious director Justin Lin and Iron Man writers Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, I feel an obligation to give them a few tips to prevent their new franchise from going down the same road as the original.