Len Wiseman’s penchant for creating the dullest and most drab looking films has now spanned across almost every popular genre, from Horror (Underworld), Action (Live Free Or Die Hard), and Science Fiction (Total Recall). With the most ironic surname in Hollywood, Wiseman started his career in the Art Department on such schlockbusters as Independence Day and Godzilla. We can only assume that by working under Roland Emmerich, some of his wackness must have rubbed off on him.
According to Wiseman’s IMDb page “His design talents soon got him behind the camera directing commercials”. Ignoring the misuse of the word “talent”, it is strange that over the last few decades this has become a weird gateway into the film industry. These days, every Tom, Prick, and Harry who’s ever made a commercial or music video is allowed to direct a film. From Michael Bay, Gore Verbinski, Alex Proyas, Antoine Fuqua, McG, and also Wiseman, they are collectively responsible for ruining the look and feel of mainstream movies. If Hollywood wasn’t so far up its own arse it would realise that directing two hour films is not the same as making a two minute promo, and scooping up all the scum from the visual arts does not make for a talented pool of filmmakers.
When it comes to Len Wiseman in particular, his work on commercial briefs definitely shows, and his crappy films such as the torturous Underworld (and all its sequels) are some of the most shabbiest and painfully bad examples of filmmaking since Ed Wood picked up a camera. It’s strange that Screen Gems seem to love producing anything but actual “screen gems”, and by letting Wiseman create such soulless films, they have given yet another Hollywood pass to yet another hack.
With its wannabe Blade-cum-Matrix aesthetics and constant speed-ramping, Underworld was one of the most dismal and dreary films ever to feature in anybody’s nightmare of the noughties. This lycan lameness was not however the last of Wiseman’s tragedies, and Len who seems to crow-bar his scrawny forgettable wife into every piece of crap he makes, would go on to further their tag-team of terribleness with Total Recall.
Kate “Proof That Offspring Should Never Follow The The Same Trade As Their Parent” Beckinsale has been po-facing her way through Hollywood for a while now, and by appearing in almost everything Wiseman does, has become as synonymous with shitty films as her husband. But surprisingly, alongside the corny dubstep soundtrack and Jessica “Shubunkin Looking” Biel, for once she wasn’t the worse thing to feature in this particular film. With it’s piss-poor script trying constantly to allude to the Verhoeven original, and its needless strobes and lens flares from the J.J. Abrams school of post-production, Total Recall was one of the most lifeless Science Fiction films ever to be made.
It was however, Wiseman’s God-awful Die Hard 4.0 that was probably the epitome of his career in shittery. Mr. Wiseman claims he loved the original Die Hard when he first watched it, so much so that he made his own version in his backyard with the family video camera. It is then, quite ironic that after studying Film at De Anza College (not to mention many years in the movie business) his professional version was if anything; worse than an amateur film made by a child. Even though he has now simmered down with his reboot frenzy, Len for the last seven years has been on some kind of a mission to destroy every eighties and nineties Action movie he allegedly loved. If he remakes a Stallone flick, he’ll have a Planet Hollywood hat-trick of film-fuckery.
Aside from his mundane movies, Wiseman’s face which looks like a photofit of Eric Bana put together by somebody with amnesia, is so featureless that I almost nodded off while I drew his caricature. The end result looks so unlike Len Wiseman that in some strange unintentional homage to his films it is a poorly constructed recreation of something that came before it.
Unwiseman.
Categories: Celebrities
WHAT WENT WRONG WITH...? 
This guy is the reason Kate Beckinsale has an acting career, period.
Exactly, and that’s the Entertainment Industry in a nutshell; you’re only famous if you’re either the descendent or the spouse of somebody who’s already famous.
A double-edged sword…he created Kate’s acting career, true, and then subsequently destroyed it. The divorce timebomb for those two is ticking loudly.
What the hell are you smoking you deluded idiot? Kate Beckinsale has been in 40 films and 5 TV projects in her career, and her husband only ever had anything to do with three of them. She was in 20 films before she ever met her husband. Educate yourself you fool.
Maybe educate yourself you dumb fuck. Kate Beckinsale is the daughter of British Actor Richard Beckinsale, therefore my comment was correct. She’s famous because she’s THE DESCENDANT of someone famous and THE SPOUSE of someone already famous.
Mostly good job. I learned a lot about Len Wiseman’s antics from this. This was educational in some manner. My one gripe, however, is that you think people shouldn’t be in the same job as their parents. In this article you called her “Kate ‘Proof That Offspring Should Never Follow The The Same Trade As Their Parent’ Beckinsale”. Never is too strong a word. Plus, you may not have realized that there are many successful farmers or tailors whose parents were also those careers.However, you said on your Nicolas Cage article that he is an example of nepotism gone right. Little bit inconsistent, shall I say. But that’s not the main purpose of my comment. Most of what you said was great stuff. Len and his crew should be blamed for any bad film he makes.
Never may be too strong a word, but you must realise that that sentence and the Boxer-style nickname I gave Beckinsale was just a bit of comedy. The fact that she is a mediocre Actor she is (to me) “proof” that nepotism shouldn’t be a preferred method of attaining a job.
Nicolas Cage (until recently) is the exception that disproves the rule, but I would still argue that when it comes to Art you shouldn’t follow in the footsteps of your parents, talent sometimes skips a generation or completely misses the entire family tree. How many more talented people were passed over when Cage got his roles? We’ll never know, so I still stand by the word “never”.
BTW, the same applies to Farmers and Tailors, Farmers are generally trying to save money so they enlist their family, it doesn’t make their sons and daughters as good as the Farmer who actually wanted the job i.e. was their calling. Nepotism is always a lazy or money-saving way of filling a vacancy or position.
Len Wiseman is a fucking hack! The guy is responsible for some of the worst films in recent memory and also shoving his shitty wife down our fucking throats. Die Hard 4.0 is trash. Total Recall remake is a total piece of crap. The Underworld series might possibly be the worst franchise ever. It makes the Transformers Trilogy look like gold. There is another sequel in production and will be released next year. Can’t Hollywood see that we’re sick of Underworld and sick of Len Wiseman movies? We frankly have had enough!!
Len Wiseman only wrote and directed the first two you idiot. He had little to do with any of the rest. Does someone have a gun to your head forcing you to watch these films? So what are you whining about. You know what th rest of us are sick of? Why, untalented, unsuccessful fools crying about things they aren’t forced to watch.
Len Wiseman – Director and Co-Writer of Underworld & Underworld: Evolution
but also…
Producer and Co-Writer of Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans and Underworld: Awakening
…get a fucking clue you daft twat.
You’ve got a one-page, generic WordPress site so you can what? Come here and defend Len Wiseman? To take that contrived argument you’re making about us not being “forced to watch” Wiseman’s movies, does someone have a gun to your head forcing you to read this article? Why are you pissing and moaning about comments that you don’t agree with, people are ALLOWED TO HAVE OPINIONS contrary to yours. Maybe just fuck back off to your shite little WordPress site or crawl back up Len Wiseman’s arse, the choice is yours you sycophantic cunt.
” his professional version was if anything; worse than an amateur film made by a child”
LOL! This is why you are a stupid idiot. It’s hilarious that you think you’re qualified to judge a film or a filmmaker. So Die Hard 4, a film which was a box office hit, had an 82% rating on RT, and a Cinemascore rating of A- is worse than an amateur film made by a child? Well, you would know about being a child, but that is about it. I think I speak for many when I say shut the hell up.
So all “Box Office Hits” are automatically works of genius just because idiotic sheep like you paid money to watch them? And who pays attention to “overall” online ratings? These ratings are made by arse-licking fans like you who skew the overall percentage. Just look at Underworld which has a Tomatometer rating of 31% but an audience rating of 79%. People like you ALWAYS overrate certain films just because you have some crush on the Writer/Director/Actor. And what kind of fascist tells people to have the same opinion as everyone else, heil hhammack!
On the subject of the Die Hard series, every real Die Hard fan can see that the second film was worse than the first, that the third was better than the second, and that the fourth and fifth were the worst of all. I don’t have to go to Rotten Tomatoes to see what everybody else is thinking and then form my opinion from there, all I have to do is watch the frigging film and say what I feel. That’s how real criticism works, you don’t play follow the leader you moronic fucking boot-licking prick.
Now get the fuck off my site, everybody knows Len Wiseman is no fucking John McTiernan, and it’s cunts like you who are keeping his career going. And yes, I’m more qualified to judge films and filmmakers than someone like you, who’s blinkered adoration for a below-average Director has him defending someone who made four back-to-back trashy shite films.
who is this dumbass? hhammack is probably len wiseman himself lol!!!!
theres a thread on imdb that asks why die hard 3 is so underrated on rottentomatoes…….
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112864/board/nest/251196008?ref_=tt_bd_1
…..and the second reply sums up the len wiseman movie perfectly…….
“What is mystifying to me to this day, is why so many of them praised that so-called fourth part ‘Live Free or Die Hard’. That movie was utter concentrated shyte.”
people like hhammack are making it look like die hard 4 was a good movie but it wasnt. in my opinion its goes 1,3,2,4,5 but 4 and 5 arent even die hard movies just unconnected turds – they need to bring john mctiernan back and make a 6th
I agree, it seems that these revisionist types are grossly underrating Die Hard With A Vengeance but simultaneously overrating Die Hard 4.0. It’s pretty clear to anyone with any taste that the Len Wiseman sequel was inferior to the original trilogy in every way possible; plot, pace, script, the antagonist, the sidekick, everything about the fourth (and fifth) film have been garbage in comparison to McTiernan’s two movies.
Nothing that Wiseman has ever made is worthy of praise, he makes tacky trash that appeals to the worst kind of cinema-goers, I seriously don’t know how anyone can enjoy and praise a Wiseman film, they’re all shite. And that being said I never thought that anyone would defend this hack, for all I know it was actually Len Wiseman!