Another year, another huge line-up of the good, the bad and the recycled is poised to grace our cinema screens in 2015. The Standard's movie reviewer MATT NEAL looks as some of the films that lay ahead.
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There are some genuinely intriguing award prospects we will hopefully get to see early in the year, in particular the all-star biopic Foxcatcher and the black comedy Birdman. Foxcatcher stars Steve Carell, Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo and explores the dark story behind Olympic training group Team Foxcatcher, while Birdman tells the story of an actor (played by Michael Keaton) haunted by his most famous role. It’s not all Golden Globe-nominated gems though — Lloyd and Harry return in belated comedy sequel Dumb & Dumber To while Liam Neeson uses his special skill set for hopefully the last time in Taken 3. And Johnny Depp continues his love of silly accents and strange costumes in the Pink Panther-esque Mortdecai.
It’s hard to tell whether The Wachowski’s space opera Jupiter Ascending is going to be Matrix-like hit or Speed Racer-like bomb, but it certainly looks intriguing. More of a dead cert to be a blockbuster is the adaptation of S&M novel Fifty Shades Of Grey, which will give mothers something to see after they’ve dropped the kids off to at The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water, which looks genuinely hilarious. Comic book movies will continue to be a big thing, but one lesser-known one that might be worth a look is the cross-generational spy thriller Kingsman: The Secret Service, which stars Colin Firth, Michael Caine, Samuel L Jackson, Mark Strong and Mark Hamill.
The return of South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp (District 9) is something to get excited about, especially if you’ve seen the trailer for his robot story Chappie. Dystopian teen fiction adaptation will again be a big deal this year, starting with Divergent sequel Insurgent, but for non-teens the adaptation to look out for in March will be Ron Howard’s In The Heart Of The Sea, which sees Chris “Thor” Hemsworth getting his Captain Ahab on as a crew member of a whaling ship. At the other end of the spectrum will be Kenneth Branagh’s live-action take on Cinderella, which is set to help Disney on its way to making all the money in 2014.
The big movie of April will be Furious 7, not only because the Fast & Furious franchise has become a surprise juggernaut but because it’s the film Paul Walker was making when he died back in 2013 and fans will be clamouring to see where the series goes from here and it does with Walker’s character. There will be decidedly less clamouring involved with the release of Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. Seriously — who the hell thought Paul Blart: Mall Cop was a movie that deserved a sequel?
This is set to be the biggest month of year due to some massive releases — none more massive than Avengers: Age Of Ultron, which brings together Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America and co yet again for another dose of super-sized comic book action. It will help make Disney even more money and looks set to be a sequel that might actually be worth watching. Ditto for Pitch Perfect 2, the follow-up to the surprisingly great 2012 a cappella comedy. But colour us concerned when it comes to Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller’s 30-years-later sequel to Beyond Thunderdome — it could be awesome, it could be style over substance (especially given that film reportedly didn’t have a script — just a storyboard). But it pays to expect the unexpected, which is what Tomorrowland (yet another Disney film!) promises. Starring George Clooney and directed by Brad “The Incredibles” Bird, the movie’s plot is being kept under wraps, but the buzz is building.
Because eight seasons wasn’t enough, Entourage is on its way to our screens, with the trailer promising more of the same. You can probably expect more of the same from The Transporter Legacy too, which aims to keep the franchise going without Jason Statham. And there’s probably more of the same in Ted 2, in which Mark Wahlberg and Seth McFarlane’s bong-smoking teddy bear reteam for more shenanigans. And there’s probably more of the same in Jurassic World, in which someone decides the lessons learnt in the first Jurassic Park movie aren’t worth remembering and goes ahead with the whole dinosaur-theme-park-thing, all the while saying “what could possibly go wrong?” at the top of their voice. The film that looks truly original and intriguing (at least on paper) is Pixar’s Inside Out (yep, that’s Disney again). Inside Out is set almost entirely inside the head of a young girl, with the principle characters being her emotions. Certainly seems far more promising than another Ice Age/Madagascar/Shrek sequel.
Magic Mike was another better-than-expected film of 2012, but will people be lining up to see it’s sequel Magic Mike XXL? Best guess is it might be the same people lining up to Fifty Shades Of Grey in February. And who will be queuing for the weirdly spelt Terminator Genisys, which, judging by the trailer, makes no sense whatsoever. But in between the pointless remakes of Point Break and Poltergeist and yet another live action Peter Pan story, July also holds the all-star comedies of Trainwreck and Pixels, Marvel’s latest origin story Ant-Man, and the Despicable Me spin-off Minions, all of which hold plenty of promise (even though Pixels does star Adam Sandler).
Desperate to hold onto the rights to the characters, Fox are rebooting The Fantastic Four and fans of the comic book family are understandably nervous. As are fans of classic TV show The Man From UNCLE, which is getting the Guy Ritchie treatment and stars Henry “Superman” Cavill and Armie “The Lone Ranger” Hammer. Less worried are fans of classic rap trio NWA, who are just stoked to see the story behind the rise of Eazy-E, Dr Dre and Ice Cube coming to the big screen in Straight Outta Compton.
Expect another strange accent and weird costuming (this time it’s the hair) from Johnny Depp in Black Mass, where he plays real life Boston mobster Whitey Bulger alongside the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch, Joel Edgerton and Kevin Bacon. The other “based on a true story” tale to look out for will be Everest, in which Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, Jason Clarke, John Hawkes and Sam Worthington re-enact the 1996 disaster on the mount. And the dystopian young adult adaptations continue with the second film in the Maze Runner series — Scorch Trials.
The Last Witch Hunter stars Vin Diesel “as an immortal witch hunter who must stop a plague from ravaging New York City” and it co-stars Michael Caine and Elijah Wood — can we buy our tickets for that one right now? But seriously, the big one in October is likely to be Jon Favreau’s live-action redo of Disney’s The Jungle Book, complete with Bill Murray reportedly singing The Bare Necessities. There will also be plenty of singing in the ’80s cartoon reboot Jem & The Holograms, the very existence of which continues to prove Hollywood has run out of ideas. Mind you, so does Scouts Vs Zombies, which stars Arnold Schwarzenegger’s son Patrick, and yet another Frankenstein story, this time starring Daniel Radcliffe and James McAvoy. Thankfully there will also be new films from Steven Spielberg (St James Place), Guillermo del Toro (Crimson Peak), and Robert Zemeckis (The Walk).
More young adult dystopia awaits with the final Hunger Games film, while that strange mix of nostalgia/cash-in awaits in The Peanuts Movie, which sees the studio behind Ice Age bring Charlie Brown into the CG age. But Charlie and his friends will likely be going head-to-head with the second Pixar film of the year, The Good Dinosaur, which reimagines the earth without the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Sci-fi will also be big in November with Matt Damon starring in Ridley Scott’s The Martian, and a strong cast lined up for Jeff Nichols’ “sci-fi chase film” Midnight Special. But let’s face it, this month is going to be all about Bond — James Bond — who returns in Spectre.
For many people, the whole year will be merely building to this point — the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens aka Episode 7 aka Disney Does Dagobah aka Jar Jar Abrams’ Star Wars. But believe it or not, there will also be other films released that month, including a fifth Mission Impossible film, a fourth Alvin & The Chipmunks film and fourth pairing of Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in David O Russell’s Joy.