This kind of story is always difficult. Put three people together in a room and you will get three different tastes in movies. I have tried to be as balanced as possible in my selection of the five must-see movies of the year. Love the movies you love, hate the movies you hate. These are just the movies that I will definitely be headed to the theatre to see.
Tony Stark is Iron Man and everyone knows it. Iron Man 2 comes out this May and after the near $600,000,000 the first movie made at the box office, this sequel is expected to soar even higher. I am pretty sure that everyone has been waiting for this since about 5 seconds after the first one was over. In this movie, everyone wants a piece of the Iron Man technology but Stark (Robert Downy Jr.) fears it will fall into the wrong hands. Iron Man, with Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Rhodey (Don Cheadle) at his side, will face off with Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) while having to contend with Black Widow, played by Scarlet Johansson. Iron Man set the bar for which all past and future superhero movies have been and will be compared to, and this movie franchise has become Marvel’s backbone when other movies have been met with harsh criticism.
In July, Inception will come out and challenge the way we think about our thoughts. It builds on the premise that the most powerful thing in our world is an idea. An idea can build cities and tear down civilizations. Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page star in this Sci-Fi action thriller from director Christopher Nolan, who brought us The Dark Knight.
FOX Thursdays’ big names Steve Carell and Tina Fey are teaming up for a night of easy laughs in Date Night. They play a suburbanite couple in a rut headed to Manhattan for a night on the town and the chaos that inevitably follows Carell and Fey ensues. For more cheap laughs check out I Love You Phillip Morris, Jim Carey’s new comedy about the pains of being in a prison-yard romance, coming out in March.
Alice in Wonderland comes out in March from director Tim Burton. I was hesitant to put this in the top five for a few reasons: one, because from 1903 to present there have been over twenty movie and television adaptations of the story of Alice in Wonderland and I do not really think we need another; two, the imaginings of Lewis Carroll combined with the scary world that is Tim Burton’s head seemed like a lethal combination from which none of us would survive; and three, the movie poster of Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter just freaked me out. But there is a reason why Alice in Wonderland is one of the most beloved stories of all time and the combination of live action and motion capture filming will give Wonderland a surreal look it has never had before.
How to Train Your Dragon, from DreamWorks, comes out in March and tells the story of Hiccup the substandard Viking and how he changes his world by defending his new friend, a dragon. It all sounds pretty cheesy, I know, but the ideas of Shrek and Kung-Fu Panda were not well received until days before the movies were released.
I have a list other enthusiastic mentions that I didn’t think were quite top five material, but I will still want to see in the months ahead.
Extraordinary Measures has already come out and it is probably the number one tear-jerker of the year. Valentine’s Day looks like a good all-star ensemble comedy that will give something to everyone for Valentine’s Day, whether they love the holiday or hate it. Clash of the Titans I know will have many headed to the ticket booth. If all the music in the movie is as epic as it is in the trailer, I see definite hope for this flick. The trailer looks good, but there is still room for failure. I think we all remember how Troy went. While I am not a huge fan of Russell Crowe and I am not sure that another Robin Hood movie is what the world of cinema needs right now, I will probably still give Robin Hood a shot when it comes out in May. But then again, it comes out a week after Iron Man 2. Will anything really compare with that?
As I looked over the movies coming out this year, I was struck by a couple of films that no one could even pay me to see. Help me in ridding the world of bad cinema and demanding a better quality movie (that is, if you agree with me, of course): Saw 7 (All I can say is, another one?), Youth in Revolt (This one already came out. I’m sorry but Michael Cera seems to only be capable of playing one character and his voice is like nails on a chalk board.), Edge of Darkness (a knock-off version of Taken which had better acting, better stunts, and overall a better plot—plus Liam Neeson can kick Mel Gibson’s butt any day of the week), Eclipse (not another teen vampire movie! although we did all know this one was coming.), and The Karate Kid (As a child of the 90s I grew up watching the real version with Mr. Miyagi, and it cannot be beaten. To remake it stabs at the heart of every child whoever said, “Wax on, wax off,” and begged their parents for karate lessons.).
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