J. K. Simmons for President

    The cast for the new Command and Conquer: Red Alert [1] was announced recently, which may not be a big deal to most folks who don't realize Red Alert is a video game. Most people who do know Red Alert is a game probably don't even care who plays what role in the cut scenes anyways... Given Westwood/EA's track record it would be a safe bet to assume that this game will be just as campy and poorly acted as the rest. As it turns out, EA actually opened up their wallet this time around and hired some pretty big names. Well, at least as far as video games are concerned.

    Here is the full casting break down (Lifted from Joystiq [1]):

• Gemma Atkinson (the UK's Hollyoaks)
• Tim Curry (Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Hunt for Red October)
• Andrew Divoff (LOST)
• Kelly Hu (X2, The Scorpion King)
• Jenny McCarthy (Scream 3, former Playboy Playmate of the Year)
• Ivana Milicevic (Casino Royale)
• Jonathan Pryce (Pirates of the Caribbean)
• J.K. Simmons (Spider-Man, Juno)
• Autumn Reeser (The OC)
• Peter Stormare (Prison Break, Armageddon)
• George Takei (Star Trek, Heroes)
• Randy "The Natural" Couture (former UFC Heavyweight champion)
• Gina "Conviction" Carano (Undefeated Elite XC fighter, American Gladiators)

    Now, there are a lot of names on that list which I've never heard of. Most of which are credited to shows or movies that I'd never watch (American Gladiators, Prison Break, The OC, etc). A few names stand out though... George Takei and Tim Curry for example, those are still pretty big names. Not exactly A-list, but people who don't play Command and Conquer games will recognize them in TV ads. Also in Red Alert 3 is Andrew Divoff, who is best known as the guy who played Mikhail on the third season of Lost [2]. He was a bad ass Russian Other that refused to die. I'm hoping he's reprising his role in Red Alert.

    It's not all rainbows and Lost baddies though, apparently Jenny McCarthy will play the role of Tanya. <LIAM> [3] Tanya is the annoying female Rambo uber-mercenary in the game. Tanya was always my least favorite part of Red Alert and the most embarrassing to watch in the cut scenes. I doubt this will change in Red Alert 3.

    The best part of the Red Alert 3 cut scenes will be Jonathan Pryce and J. K. Simmons. Jonathan Pryce played Elliot Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies and Seamus O'Rourke in Ronin (the best heist movie ever made). J. K. Simmons has a long list of awesome roles to his credit. He was J. Jonah Jameson in the Spiderman movies, he was on Law and Order a number of times, he played the dad in Juno, he was the head FBI guy in The Jackal, he was in the Postal movie, and he was even in an episode of Arrested Development. It looks like he's playing the role of the U.S. President in Red Alert so these cut scenes may not be that bad after all. In Red Alert 2 the U.S. President was played by Ray Wise, whose best performance (as far as I'm concerned) was as Leland Palmer on Twin Peaks. It was clear he knew he was acting in a video game, clearly not his best work. But I guess it was convincing enough because Ray Wise later went on to play the U.S. President on the fifth season of 24.

    The bar is set pretty low for Red Alert 3 as far as cut scene acting goes. Hopefully the addition of 'real actors' to the cast will improve things a little. To give you an idea of how far the franchise has come I've included the cut scenes from Red Alert 2's Allied campaign below. Behold the awesomeness that is Ray Wise and Fat Einstein.

Red Alert 2: Allied Campaign Cut Scenes Part 1

Red Alert 2: Allied Campaign Cut Scenes Part 2