So, we’re left to wait to hear whether or not Fichtner will wear knife shoulder pads or a warthog, rhinoceros, or samurai rabbit costume. Keep in mind, he does have reasonable experience in dressing ridiculously.

This morning we have a first look at Quentin Dupieux’s Wrong, his second feature after exploding heads with the head-exploding telekinetic tire movie, Rubber. Starring William Fichtner and Jack Plotnick, the film is only described as a movie about a man and his missing dog.

In the above still, we see Steve Little (aka”Eastbound and Down‘s” Stevie Janowski), who I’m surprised to see can grow a beard. Here he presents a plain white ball. Is it a clue? A missing piece to a larger puzzle that will return the man to his canine? Or is it a ruthless, cold-blooded killer ball? One that can bounce around a room of its on free will, breaking windows and necks and leaving a pile of bodies a mile-high?

Meh, probably just a normal, old ball. (Quentin Dupieux’s Twitter)

I’m making a declaration that Fichtner is the new Walken. He can’t carry a movie on his own, but he’s like a great spice added to a dish. And today, the dish that gets a dash of Fichtner is Neill Blomkamp‘s Elysium. Spicy!

Fichtner seems to best thrive in intense adult situations, so it’s probably no coincidence that his commercial roles tend to be in R-rated fare (or hard PG-13 in the case of The Dark Knight). Fichtner’s brand of sleaze makes any film 13% better. Without him, The Dark Knight would have just been “very good.”

Fichtner joins the established cast of Matt Damon, Sharlto Copley, Jodie Foster and Wagner Moura. Elysium starts shooting in Canada in July, then moves down to Mexico in the fall until it wraps. Which can’t happen soon enough, as this promising film just got 13% better. (Variety)

In The Big Bang, he plays a private investigator hired by a giant to find his missing stripper girlfriend, Sienna Guillory, and the $30 million worth of diamonds she’s carrying. Along the way he encounters danger, Snoop Dogg on a porn set, James Van Der Beek, Autumn Reeser‘s horny waitress, and Sam Elliott as a gazillionaire visionary trying to re-create the Big Bang beneath the desert.

Sounds all well and good, but just show more of the stripper, guys. Seriously.

Drive Angry is sleazy, vulgar and crass. The execution is seriously misguided, but I like the idea of it enough to carry me through. I’m like that, I’d rather see a cool idea fail than see something typical succeed technically. Offensive is better than mediocre.

Milton (Nicolas Cage) blasts some bad guys on the road in graphically 3D shots, so immediately you know it’s that kind of movie. Cage owns the screen with his Elvis-y swagger and hints of his Peggy Sue Got Married voice. When he sips coffee in between kisses he stole from a stranger, that’s action hero cool. He gets a wound to his eye, just wears sunglasses over it.

However, I would say that even in an exploitation movie, beating up a naked woman and throwing her onto the street is not okay. Even when the person delivering the beating is also a woman, that’s not okay. I’m all for outrageous, but you can just sense the tone is malicious there. And making the female lead a tough girl doesn’t make it feminist. It’s still just a male fantasy of the tough cookie.

Milton hooks up with the tough cookie Piper (Amber Heard), another waitress from that vulgar diner who’s leaving her cheating fiancé in his car. (The mistress is the recipient of above beating.) The Accountant (William Fichtner) is following Milton and you quickly get the hint that neither Milton nor the Accountant are from an earthly plane.

Between Milton and The Accountant you have spiritual characters talking shop. The film may not be mature enough to give them anything worthwhile to do, but I like the idea of having them in the movie. The script does a good job of discussing their business vaguely, and both actors bring a certain unreality to their body movements.

I was offended on behalf of Michael Davis when the film threw in a sex scene shootout, but it’ll be okay. Anyone who Googles “naked sex gunfight” will find the scene from Shoot ‘Em Up and see it’s way better. The difference is Davis clearly loves women and protects her in that scene. Drive Angry director Patrick Lussier uses her as a prop.

Drive Angry make Paul Verhoeven look like a feminist. There are lots more naked women but the film manages to make nudity ugly with the cultists jiggling in the background and the lover grinding on a fully clothed Milton. All the dialogue is tits, dick, balls in a gross, trailer park-y tone. Even the soundtrack sings about pussy in “Fuck the Pain Away.”

The pursuit is simple. Jonah King (Billy Burke) killed Milton’s daughter and wants to sacrifice his baby granddaughter to Satan. Yet the plot can’t handle it. The Accountant enlists two cops for absolutely no reason and they serve no purpose in the story. The action provides no fast-paced thrills. It’s all slow motion violence for 3D. Cage sells the gun poses but there’s no flow.

Just keep telling yourself, “Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage, Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage.” It’s like a whole movie of the bear suit scene from Wicker Man.

_{How you gonna mess with Nic Cage‘s hair like that?!}

Summit has dropped the trailer for Drive Angry 3D. Patrick Lussier directs Nicolas Cage, Amber Heard, William Fichtner, and David Morse in what looks like another Ghost Rider with a car standing in for a chopper.

Cage plays a guy who breaks out of hell (what? how? what?) to get revenge against the cult that killed his daughter and took her baby. William Fichtner is the Devil‘s right-hand-man sent to bring him back. I gotta say, it’s perfect casting with Fichtner. There’s something always twitchy with that guy. I could totally see him doing Satan’s bidding.

Drive Angry 3D crashes into theaters February 11, 2011.

Check out the trailer after the jump…

Drive Angry: Trailer – Watch more Movie Trailers