Chaos Walking is finally coming out. A movie I recently saw the trailer for and was reminded the movie has been delayed quite a bit. The Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, alien planet where your thoughts are heard by everyone. Sounds interesting, but I’ll wait until it is streaming somewhere.
Our Friend, has Jason Segel in it, so I’ll eventually watch this. I keep meaning to check out Dispatches from Elsewhere on AMC.
February
A non-Disney, but still a musical, version of Cinderella is coming out. I’m not that familiar with Camila Cabello, but I feel her being cast as Cinderella is very telling of what type of film this will be. Idina Menzel, James Corden, John Mulaney, Miniie Driver, and Pierce Brosnan are in it, so it will probably be pretty fun to watch.
French Exit has Michelle Pfeiffer so that’ll be a movie to watch.
Dog has Channing Tatum co-directing and starring. It will be a comedy.
Flora & Ulysses is coming to Disney Plus, and it has Alyson Hannigan, Danny Pudy, Kate icucci, Bobby Moynihan, and Ben Schwartz, so should be a fun family film. I’m not familiar with the book at all.
oooooof! Tim Story is bringing a live action / animation mix Tom and Jerry to HBO Max. This is going to be like those Alien / Predator films that should be 80 percent the title characters, but won’t be.
The Russo brothers are co-directing Cherry, starring Tom Holland, based on a movie I’m not familiar with, so this promises to be good, with just those three being involved. Full disclosure, I haven’t read a book in maybe two years, which I really should get back into the habit of. As if I was Whoopi Goldberg.
Nobody has both Bob Odenkirk and Christopher Lloyd, so I’ll add this to my list of films to look out for. Which I have now done.
March
Coming 2 America, a sequel 33 years in the making. Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, John Amos, Wesley Snipes, and James Earl Jones, yes please! Also proving any movie can get a sequel.
Disney’s latest animated feature, Raya and the Last Dragon, comes out! I’m so excited! And maybe it is coming to Disney Plus as well? I love how Warner Brothers just threw it out there that all of their movies are coming to HBO Max on the same day. That’s a service I can fully support.
The King’s Man is the prequel in the trilogy, and I have yet to watch a single one of these Kingsman films.
Typing about prequels, The Many Saints of Newark, the prequel film to Sopranos is actually coming out. David Chase is co-writing it. Leslie Odom Jr. is in it, so that’s fantastic. Vera Farmiga is in it too, so that’s nice.
Morbius may be coming out, so that the BluRay will be out in time for Halloween. Will he be in the upcoming third Tom Holland Spider-Man film? The cast of that film is a dream coming true!
Another series I have dodged, Boss Baby, adds another film to its franchise, Family Business.
April
No Time to Die, the 25th film in the James Bond series, and most likely Daniel Craig’s fifth and last one. Such a great title.
Peter Rabbit 2 : The Runaway, I saw the first one, so I’ll eventually watch this one.
Bob’s Burgers : The Movie, H. Jon Benjamin getting that sweet movie money! Odd that Bob got a movie before Archer. It is a musical too! Fun!
Mortal Kombat is braving its face gain! Coming to HBO Max as well! For some reason, I thought this was the fifth in the series, but it is only the third.
A Quiet Place Part II reminds me that I really need to watch that first movie.
Edgar Wright brings us Last Night in Soho, with Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, and Terence Stamp!
The Asset reteams Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson.
May
Hopefully, Black Widow, actually comes out! We have to get these Marvel films back on track.
I saw, Rumble, thought it would be a WWE Royal Rumble movie, knew it wouldn’t, was about to move onto the next film on the list, but then I saw it. WWE Studios, say what?! It is an animated movie, and I’m hoping it is a fun romp.
The graphic novel, Marry Me, which I haven’t heard of, gets a big screen adaption. It will star Jennifer Lopez, who will be providing the soundtrack for, Owen Wilson is being let out of movie jail for this. Sarah Silverman was the name attached that peaked my interest.
Godzilla vs. Kong is finally coming! I have to yet to see either creature’s latest films, and I should really correct that.
Free Guy is probably my most anticipated movie that isn’t being produced by Marvel. A Grand Theft Auto mixed with Fortnite movie starring Ryan Reynolds? I was already trying to figure out how to preorder movie tickets when I first saw the trailer.
Saw is getting a ninth film in the franchise! This time with Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson, so it should be getting good again. I have not seen a Saw film since maybe the third one?
F9, the latest Fast and the Furious film, another complete franchise I have yet to see any films of.
Curella continues Disney’s need to create live action films based off of beloved animated series. In a twist, this is a prequel, starring Emma Stone.
June
Sylvester Stallone stars in a new twist on the superhero film, Samaritan.
Ghostbusters : Afterlife hopefully comes! We are really anticipating those sweet Lego sets that ought to come from the film’s release.
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights is coming out, and hopefully Roku and Amazon will have finally add HBO Max to their streaming TVs and devices by then. So annoying! My wife and I will probably watch this a slew, simply based on how often we watched Hamilton.
Venom : Let There be Carnage ends the month. Since when was Andy Serkis set to direct this? I feel like that should really step up the film, right?
July
Top Gun : Maverick finally comes out. Jon Hamm is in it, and I realize I sort of forgot about that guy.
Minions : The Rise of Gru comes out. Sequel heavy year, but that makes sense, as the movie industry has to make up for lost time.
Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings should be great, and I can’t wait to see a trailer.
The Forever Purge is the fifth and final installment of the Purge franchise. I should watch these once it is all said and done. Anyone know if they ever dealt with the events that lead up to the first Purge? I really could go for a documentary set in the that explains that first year and how bad things must have been. Like, there is no way Congress okayed this, but if they did, what made it all possible? Was the first two years like the worst?
I’ll believe Tom Holland’s Uncharted is coming out once I see a trailer, and once I see an article that states it is coming out “this Friday.” Until then, I have my doubts.
So they actually were making the LeBron James Space Jam movie? Titled, New Legacy. Coming to HBO Max, which is nice! And, yes, Lola Bunny will be part of the cast.
J.K. Simmons will be in Chris McKay’s The Tomorrow War, along with Chris Pratt, and Yvonne Strahovski.
M. Knight Shyamalan is being let out of movie jail again with Old, based on a graphic novel, Sandcastle, by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters.
Disney’s latest film based on one of their rides, Jungle Cruise (that does not even sound familiar), is coming out, starring Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, and Paul Giamatti. People really like the Rock in a jungle setting.
Everyone’s other favorite Old English story, The Green Knight, is getting a modern update.
August
James Gunn’s reimagining of The Suicide Squad is coming out. Should be pretty fun from everything I have seen. Coming to HBO Max, so that’s fantastic.
Hotel Transylvania 4?! For some reason, I have seen all of these. I really thought we said everything we needed to say with the 3rd one.
Deep Water, an erotic thriller starring everyone’s dream boat, Ben Affleck. This makes sense.
Jennifer Hudson will be Aretha Franklin in Respect. Surprised they didn’t go with R-E-S-P-E-C-T as the official writing of the title. Forest Whittaker, Marlon Wayans, Marc Maron, and Mary J. Blige also star in the film.
I forgot I wanted to watch The Hitman’s Bodyguard with Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson. Well, a sequel is coming out, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard – which I already fell in love with the title.
There’s going to be a PAW Patrol movie, a franchise Walker Dennis completely avoided.
Candyman is getting a direct sequel and not a remake, so I’m all about that. Though I’ve never seen any of the films. I imagine it will work like Halloween and ignore the films in the middle that they want to ignore.
Peter Jackson has apparently been working on a Beatles documentary this whole time.
September
Jackass 4 is going to be a thing.
Resident Evil gets a reboot, probably to be more in-line with the tone of the actual games, and tie-in nicely with Resident VIIIage.
Kenneth Branagh continues to adapt Agatha Christie books with, Death on the Nile. The film stars Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Gal Gadot, and Armie Hammer.
My Little Pony is getting a sequel film.
October
Dune will finally coming out. Well, Part One anyway.
Addams Family 2 reminds me that we kept not watching the first film.
Halloween Kills is a sequel to the 2018 Halloween direct sequel to the original Halloween film, and the 12 entry into my favorite scary franchise.
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon wrote a movie together again! The Last Duel will be directed by Ridley Scott and stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck will be more in a supporting role. Adam Driver will be dueling Damon.
Snake Eyes will get his spin-off film from the G.I. Joe franchise, yet another series that I have not watch any of the films of. There are only two other films, I thought there were like four of them.
November
Marvel’s Eternals finally comes out!
I was literally having the thought yesterday about how no one under 25 probably even knows Elvis or his significance, and here comes Austin Butler (Elvis) and Tom Hants (The Colonel) to bring the King back.
Clifford The Big Red Dog also finally comes out.
Mission : Impossible 7 comes out, and I’m way behind on this franchise, like, I’m sure the last one I saw was the second one. Hayley Atwell has joined the cast, so it should be pretty great.
There are a few films were directors are releasing two films, which makes sense as I’m sure there were films already completed and were waiting for theaters to open. Ridley Scott is directing a story about Guccio Gucci, staring Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro.
December
Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story finally comes out as well!
December 17, Spider-Man 3 featuring every single person! Probably my most anticipated film of the year!
Matrix 4 should be interesting. NPH joins the cast.
Sing 2 comes out, making it five years since the original, but I’m sure Walker Dennis will still want to watch it.
Thanks to Comic-Con International for hosting their own video!
I love seeing the cast together and having a great time! They filmed this so long ago.
I liked how they had fun with all of the delays, but ideally, we will see this moving on August 28, 2020. I am not sure why they are still holding out for theaters, I guess to be eligible for Oscars?
Towards the end, they reveal the opening scene, which looks super dark to me.
I strained my ears for any hints of Lockheed, and then I strained my eyes during any shown footage, and I could not see the little guy anywhere. I sincerely hope he makes the cut. Just see me an official Lockheed plushie, please!
It really is incredible how this cast just gets more and more famous, and yet, this film cannot just come out.
Anya Taylor-Joy has won me over as Magik already!
They made a Twitter emoji for Magik, #NewMutantsMagik is how you get it to show up.
I tried #NewMutantsLockheed, but it did not work, which would have been a fun treat.
Unofficially, of course. Though, one of these times, I really should donate to Wikipedia, with how much I rely on them.
We are bound to watch a movie in January so that we can get our 2020 Cinemark Souvenir Cups. Walker Dennis would get one of him for the first film but then go back to getting his kids combo that includes a very small drink. But we like having a third one for when we take a guest, most likely, one of our nephews.
January
The Grudge is having another go in the theaters. John Cho is in it so that’s one thing it has going for it.
Kristen Stewart continues her comeback with Underwater.
The Informer has Clive Owen coming back to films! I thought about that guy a bunch this year. He apparently has been making two movies a year for a while but I have not had any of those bring them to my attention. He was apparently in the show, The Knick, with Chris Sullivan, so I really want to watch that show now.
Whatever happened to Rupert Everett? I liked him in a slew of things!
Josh Harnett is even coming back to films with Inherit the Viper.
Dolittle may be the movie we actually end up watching in the theater, begrudgingly. I was not a huge fan of Eddie Murphy’s franchise, only having seen the first one, but it looks like they are putting money in this one with a giant all star voice cast. Robert Downey Jr. is Dr. Dolittle, the veterinarian who talks to animals, and can understand what they say back. The voice cast includes Emma Thompson, Rami Malek (coming a long way from Until Dawn!), John Cena, Kumail Nanjiani, Octavia Spencer, Tom Holland, Craig Robinson, Ralph Fiennes, Selena Gomez, and Marion Cotillard.
Will Smith continues his quest to reclaim the love of the people with the the concluding chapter of the now Bad Boys trilogy, along with Martin Lawrence. Which I appreciate him trying to bring back his 90s fun era as his attempts at Oscar gold has left me cold.
For Sebastian Stan fans, The Last Full Measure comes to theaters, sounds like a very interesting story involving William H. Pitsenbarger.
Stan portrays an investigator looking into a Medal of Honor request for Pitsenbarger. The film also has Peter Fonda in it, and I did not even realized he died back in August 2019.
Charlie Hunnam will be in Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen. Hugh Grant is in it too!
On my birthday, we get another attempt at making Gretel & Hansel into a movie.
February
I was going to give Birds of Prey a hard pass but Mary Elizabeth Winstead as The Huntress intrigues me.
So that is something the film has going for it. As Ali Wong is in the film along with Ewan McGregor as The Black Mask.
This really is the year of the comback! Alicia Silverstone is back, ya’ll! In The Lodge, a horror film.
Probably the definition of someone trying to reclaim their 90s cred, Jim Carrey in Sonic the Hedgehog! If I watch it, it will be for James Marsden and for the (hopefully) ten minutes we get in Mobius.
I am reminded that horror movies come out in February so that the BluRay will be available by Halloween. Fantasy Island is getting a horror film adaption that until right this moment as I type this, I was thinking about the Love Boat. I have never seen an episode of Fantasy Island so I have no connection to this.
Community’s Jim Rash is co-directing a film, Downhill, a remake of a Swedish film, Force Majeure. It stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus and WIll Ferrell.
Hey, Valiant Comics actually got Bloodshot made into a movie, starring Vin Diesal. Good for those guys!
Maybe the first legitimate movie I am actually interested in. Call of the Wild, a CGI-Animated adaption of Jack London novel. The voice cast is pretty stunning with Harrison Ford, Dan Stevens, Karen Gillan, and Bradley Whitford! Which reminds me, I still have that final season of Legion to watch.
It has been enough years (I guess?) so we are getting another adaption of Emma, this time with Anya Taylor-Joy. Are we going to get New Mutants this year?
The Boy is getting a sequel, this time with Katie Holmes.
I am a sucker for The Invisible Man, so I am excited about this new movie! Elizabeth Moss, who is enjoying an amazing career post-West Wing, is the gal who is being tormented by Oliver Mansour Jackson-Cohen’s the Invisible Man.
Wendy, a re-imagining of Peter Pan, is coming out at the end of February (along with Invisible Man), so that should interest my wife as she’s a huge Peter Pan fan. Seems like a very dark take on the characters.
March
I saw a trailer for Disney Pixar’s Onward, it looks cute with two demon sons wishing their father back to life but only get him from the waist down. Tom Holland may be lending his voice to too many animated films. Probably watch this with Walker Dennis but I would be okay with passing on it.
Ben Affleck will be in a sports drama, The Way Back. It is a re-team with Director Gavin O’Connor, which reminds me that I did want to watch The Accountant.
My Spy, starring Dave Bautista, Kristen Schall, and Dr. Ken Jeong, is the first kids’ movie I would be tempted to see. It looked silly and over the top, but in a good way.
A Quiet Place is getting a sequel, which might prompt me to finally getting around to watching the first movie.
Looks like the Riverdale cast has started making side movies! KJ Apa (Archie) is portraying Jeremy Camp in I Still Believe.
Britt Robertson (who I know from Under the Dome but she’s been in loads of things now), is portraying his first wife. His parents are played by Gary Sinise and Shania Twain. The story is what he based his song, I Still Believe, about.
Thanks to JeremyCampMusic for hosting the video!
Disney’s continuing quest to turn all of their animated feature films into real films, continues with Mulan’s release. Probably another one of these I will not watch until it is on Disney+.
April
Peter Rabbit 2 comes out and the first one was not horrible. Probably catch it whenever it becomes available to stream. Rose Byrne and Domhnall Gleeson are back, and that is all I care about.
Lookie lookie, we have New Mutants set for April! I cannot find a movie poster with the new date on it so I will believe it when I see it. I also still need to watch The Dark Phoenix Saga, I know it is not good but I should still watch it. Like Fallout 76, it feels weird not experiencing something in one of my favorite franchises.
We are getting the 25th Bond film, No Time to Die, such a great Bondy title! I still have to watch Spectre.
Trolls World Tour will be a definite movie we watch in the theater. I have to remember that Cinemark does Discount Tuesdays where movies are actually properly price, so we should try to take advantage of that more in the coming year.
The Secret Garden is getting another remake that maybe someone asked for?
May
Black Widow is hopefully a movie we watch in theaters. For whatever reason, we missed out on Captain Marvel, we kept missing times or the weekend got away from us. But I would like to watch it.
Tom Hanks wrote and stars in Greyhound, a war film based on a book.
The Personal History of David Copperfield has 12th Doctor, Peter Capaldi in it.
We get yet another animated origin story of Scooby Doo, titled Scoob! This was a trailer before Frozen 2 and Walker Dennis really wants to watch it. I wish it was just a feature length animated film and not an origin story but I am sure it will be decent.
Chris Rock developed a story that is being turned into the ninth installment of the Saw franchise, The Organ Donor. I thought we were done with that series?
Fast & Furious 9 is happening, I will be skipping that, I still have not seen one of these films.
Spongebob will have a trilogy of films come this summer.
Artemis Fowl, directed by Kenneth Branagh is coming out, I have heard of the book series but do not know anything specifically about it.
June
Wonder Woman kicks off the month!
Candyman pulls a Halloween and is making a direct sequel to the original film, and Tony Todd is back in the role as well! Which reminds me, I still have to watch that new Halloween film. Plus, I should play more Dead by Daylight, I feel like I am constantly reminded of how I made so many purchases in that game, and have not played in a while.
We saw a trailer for Pixar’s other movie, Soul, but I am not sure if we are going to watch it in theaters, I do like the idea of the film though and it promises to have jazz music in it, so I like that. Tina Fey co-wrote it, so it should be funny.
Judd Apatow is back with King of Staten Island, that stars and is co-written by Pete Davidson. He was just starting SNL when I gave up on the long running sketch comedy series. Heck, I used to at least know who was hosting it but I have given up on that too. Do people even talk about SNL sketches? I was told about the Batman sketch and even that was years old.
So funny!
Thanks to Saturday Night Light for hosting the video. Thanksgiving 2017, so two years ago, and I only heard about it a few months back when Arkham Knight was the free PS+ game.
Ton Gun’s sequel, Maverick, finally becomes a real thing after years of hearing about it. Looks pretty legit with Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm (also making movies again?), and Ed Harris joining the cast. I imagine the plot is Miles Teller (out from movie jail) is the new maverick and Tom Cruise as to get him to focus his energy and dial back his bad boy ways.
In the Heights, is this year’s musical! I have not heard about it before but I hope there are some good songs in it. Jimmy Smits, Stephanie Beatriz (who we heard sing in Lego Movie 2), and Lin-Manuel Miranda are in smaller roles, by judging how their names are listed on the Wikipedia page. I still have not seen La La Land outside of watching three songs from it. This post is mostly about movies I was excited about but did not go out of my way to watch.
July
Minions gets a sequel, The Rise of Gru, which should deal with his twin brother, right? At least it should be acknowledged. Thankfully, Walker Dennis is not despicably into this franchise, I think he likes it enough but he seems to be a bigger fan of Illumination’s other properties.
Ryan Reynolds has a science fiction comedy, Free Guy, coming out. It sounds super fun! Reynolds is a NPC in a GTA/Fortnite mashup of a game, and becomes aware that he is in a video game. Which is a very fun premise. What would that world be, just an open world first person shooter? Is there a game like that? So Fortnite but in a more city like local but still with the countdown and the parachutes?
Ghostbusters : Afterlife, the movie, if we do not watch any other movies this year, we will watch this one, for sure! Probably buy the souvenir cups and popcorn bowl too. I am committed to this!
The Purge gets a fifth film! Five more and they overtake Saw, if I am counting right. The concept fascinates me but I need an origin story as I have so many questions about how it all got set up and what the infrastructure must have been like to get it started. Have they dealt with that yet? Even if it takes place in a comic or novel, I would totally read that.
Christopher Nolan is back with Tenet, and he did bring Michael Caine along for the ride! “Action thriller” seems to be the only description of the plot. RPatts getting some pre-Bat-time. Kenneth Branagh is having a banner year with directing a film and featuring in another one.
Bob’s Burgers is getting a film! Fun series, I only seen the first season and maybe some of the second? I just barely have time for the shows I do watch.
Disney ride, Jungle Cruise, gets a film starring Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt (who must have really impressed someone with her Captain Marvel audition), and Paul Giamatti.
We’re getting a Marvel Morbius movie?! I have been wanting one of these since Marvel has made movies and we have had Octobers! Missed ropportunity to have it be in October as even the BluRay will not be available by then. Jared Leto as Marbius kills my buzz but maybe he will be better in this role? 11th Doctor, Matt Smith, plays a friend in it! I cannot find a legit image that does not look like an artist rendering of what he should look like. Unless the above is legit, then we are off to a good start.
I get Sony has to do something with the Spider-franchise but I am really hoping this is at least watchable. I just wish Disney had all of the characters but then we would not get a Morbius movie. Then again, we are getting Blade, imagine that crossover? I am now!
August
Respect, Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin. This is dumb, and I am sure someone had the conversation, but I wished it was spelled R-E-S-P-E-C-T, which I get is longer and the hyphens are distracting, but it is probably more fun than they are hoping for.
I completely forgot to expect Bill & Ted Face the Music! I am smiling just typing that! William Sadler is back as The Grim Reaper, so that is amazing. I really wished they did this while George Carlin was still alive. Amy Stoch is back as Bill’s step-mother and Hal Landon Jr. is back as Ted’s father.
Let Him Go is a drama with Kevin Costner and Diane Lane, so someone really wanted more of them together after not getting it from Man of Steel, and I am right there with them! Thomas Bezucha, who directed Family Stone, directs this film. The pair have to save their grandson from an off-the-grid family.
September
Video game franchise, Monster Hunter, gets a film starring Resident Evil’s Milla Jovovich.
The Conjuring gets its eighth film in the franchise, which I am happy that Patrick Wilson keeps getting continued work.
The Kingsman gets a prequel with The King’s Man, another franchise I have nothing to do with.
Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse gets a film adaption, the origin story of John Clark, a recurring character in Jack Ryan stories. They have to do something while Amazon has the Jack Ryan rights.
Sopranos prequel film, The Main Saints of Newark comes to theaters, with David Chase co-writing.
Edgar Wright is back with Last Night in Soho, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, and Terence Stamp.
Aaron Sorkin is writing and directing, The Trial of the Chicago 7, based off of the true events of the riots that took place during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
and not the Chicago White Sox like I originally thought it was going to be about before clicking the link for more information. Seems like a very interesting case and I have not heard anything about it before hand.
Apparently the story has been adapted a couple times already. The film stars Sacha Baron Cohen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Thomas Middleditch, William Hurt, Frank Langella, and Michael Keaton. So I will eventually watch this. I am sure it will also get Oscar buzz around it.
October
Now we get the real reason why Morbius is not the October movie from Sony’s Spider-Thinktank! Venom 2 is a thing, were we even expecting it? Walker Dennis sure did take to the first one so he might be able to watch the second one in the theater. Woody Harrelson is in it so we must be getting Venom vs. Carnage, which should look better as two black characters fighting each other was not pleasant on the eyes.
That poster may not be legit, but it looks pretty cool.
Tom Hanks’ second movie, BIOS, it is a science fiction film that also features Skeet Ulrich.
Hey, Murder on the Orient Express is getting a sequel! Death on the Nile, also written by Agatha Christie. Kenneth Branagh is back as the director and star of the film. So Sir Branagh is directed two films in one year and stars in two films as well, that has to be a record for director/actor, right? Along for the ride is Gal Gadot, Letita Wright (Shuri from the Marvel films), Armie Hammer, Annette Bening, and Russell Brand. These movies have quite the cast and I really do want to watch MotOE.
The 1990 masterpiece, Witches, is getting a remake! This time by Robert Zemeckis, so I am not sure if this is going to be a CGI film like his previous ones or a proper live action film. Cast is shaping up to be a delight with Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, Stanley Tucci, and Chris Rock. The film promises to be closer to the book version, which typical of remakes.
As referenced above, Halloween Kills is the sequel to the 2018’s Halloween sequel to the original movie. Seems like a giant cast but Michael definitely needs to kill people so a larger cast lets that happen. I really need to see that 2018 one. Jamie Lee Curtis and Judy Greer are back, and Anthony Michael Hall is in this too! This marks the 12th installment for the franchise.
GI Joe’s Snake eyes gets his own spin off! I have yet to watch any of these films, and not necessarily going to break that tradition with this one. Now, if there was a new Ninja Turtles and/or He-Man movie, along with Ghostbusters, then my trinity of cartoons would be complete!
We get two musicals this year with Everybody’s Talking about Jamie, which will be the comedy one. I have not heard of this one either.
November
Can Marvel strike Guardians gold a second time with Eternals? So many question marks with this film, including, what is this even going to be? Is this going to work as an origin story for the Marvel Universe? A second option? Still, that cast and it being a Marvel movie, should mean success. Black Widow could be the more action heavy movie and this one being the more thought-provoking film, though I am not sure if Marvel has one of those just yet. Angelia Jolie, Kumail Nanjiani, Salma Hayek, and Kit Harington, please come on into the Marvel Universe!
Clifford the Big Red Dog gets the live action adaption treatment. Hopefully they do not lean into the Curious George disaster walking tropes, which Clifford is not known for but I can only imagine they are going to attempt to give the big ol’ dog an origin story. Will Walker Dennis want to see it? I doubt it,
There is no link but Netflix is making a movie (for theaters?) titled “Red Notice” directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber who also directed We are Millers and Dodgeball. So it has to be a comedy. The cast is pretty great with Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot, and Ryan Reynolds.
Ben Affleck’s second film, Deep Water, based on the psychological thriller book.
Maybe the first movie I watch with Walker Dennis and I watch due to my wife’s disinterest in the big monster genre, but who knows, she might want to watch it. My big caution about the film is the percentage of dumb humans to actual monster content as I would want the split to be 95/5 monster to humans. Dumb humans can set up who the characters are for 15 minutes, then the next hour could just be the monsters fighting, as humans seek shelter but I also don’t care if any of the humans live. Which is my biggest gripe with the Aliens vs. Predators films as it is like 30/70 with the humans taking most of the film’s running time. Plus, there are so many humans in this film! Dreamboat Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, and Kyle Chandler, so maybe they will not take up too much time either. Plus, these are not any two no-name monsters, this is Godzilla vs. King Kong, so this should be presented like the once every 40 years match-up that it is! Can you actually believe the last time they fought was in 1962?! Way too long!
Disney’s official 59th animated feature film, Raya and the Last Dragon comes out. Raya is searching for, you guessed it, the last dragon. We have managed to watch the last several Disney films in the theater, so I imagine this one will get seen as well.
Will Smith, chasing that Oscar gold, stars in King Richard, a film about Venus and Serena Williams’ father, Richard. I guess he’s the most important part of those two’s career? I guess a movie from their perspective or from their point of view, could be a tad larger in scope so focusing on someone managing both daughters is the way to go.
December
Sylvester Stallone has a film, Samaritan, kicking the month off.
We are trying our hands with another Dune movie. The film should cover the first half of the novel, so hopefully we get the second film. The film stars Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Daddy Stellan Skarsgard, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem. The original film came out in 1984 and the book in 1965.
As this post takes some time to write, I legit was thinking that it has been a while since Steven Spielberg released a film and wondering if he was retired. Turns out, he has been directing West Side Story! We are getting three musicals this year! That should fill up the Golden Globes Musical or Comedy category! I have also not seen Ready Player One, or it turns out, several other Spielberg films. It looks like a cast of relatively unknowns, but I bet it launches several careers. The original film came out in 1961, and like most remakes, is supposed to be closer to the original Broadway source.
Even Coming to America is getting a sequel! Coming 2 America, get it? That’s fun. The original film came out in 1988. Plot seems a little dicey with Eddie Murphy’s character realizing he had a child (a son) he did not know about, like how he claimed Scary Spice’s daughter was not his, and now has to make six movies a year to pay off that child support. Silly Eddie Murphy! Arsenio Hall is back for this as is James Earl Jones. Leslie Jones and Wesley Snipes joins the cast.
We are supposed to get Uncharted this year, but for some reason, I am very doubtful of it. The lack of a Wikipedia page, Mark Wahlberg as a young Sully, no movie posters even being made by fans, Tom Holland as an even younger Nathan Drake, I’ll see if Travis Knight sticks around. I would love an epic Uncharted film, it would have to be at least three hours long, right? Hopefully we get a new Uncharted game, heck, even if it was shorter one like Lost Legacy, that would work for me! Which I still have to play Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy, I will one of these months soon. Probably once I have Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 completed, or out of my system, whichever one happens first.
Good grief! We are getting a live action / animated combo of a thing to bring Tom and Jerry to modern audiences! Repeat my complaint already about too many humans above in Godzilla vs. Kong, but even more so here! Colin Jost is in movies now?! At least Dr. Ken Jeong is in it. Oh, and it is being directed by Tim “Fantastic Four” Story. At least it is during December, when we need a kids movie. Probably be a hard pass for it.
The Croods finally get a sequel to their 2013 film, which I also have no interest in watching. Hopefully the Cinemark Dollar Summer Movie program offers the first movie, or this will have to be another pass for old dad.
Tom Hanks’ third film, News of the World helps close out the year. Takes place after the American Civil War, he is tasked with bringing an orphan daugther to her next living kin. It is based on a novel.
The year ends with a third Ben Affleck movie, Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, that reteams him with life mate, Matt Damon, who along with Affleck, co-wrote the film. That’s fun. Adam Drive is also in it, no other information is available.
. . .
It looks like Affleck and Tom Hanks have three movies out this year. No Christian Bale or Hugh Jackman (has anyone seen him in a while?) He’s doing Broadway and world tours, good for him!
By my count, 11 films, I am legit interested in watching, that seems like a decent enough movie going experience. As Walker Dennis gets older, it will be more fun to take him to more films.
Of course, other movies might crop up but these are the ones I could manage any opinions on.
. . .
I wish you a Happy New Year! Make Good Decisions!
2020 is going to bring us the Summer Olympics and a Presidential Election. Who are the Democrats going to put up? It does not look like anyone is leading nor does it look like any of them can do it. Which seriously, how come no one is ever being groomed to be the ideal candidate? We did not get anyone during Obama’s re-election nor did we get anyone for George W. Bush, nor Clinton before him. It really cannot be that hard but I also understand no one would really want that job.
The Summer Olympics will be held in Toyko, Japan, so they should be glorious! Nasa is supposed to launch an exploratory mission to Mars. Liberia is going to agree to stop cutting down their trees and Norway is going to pay them to not do it.
In fiction, Arno Stark, Iron Man 2020, is supposed to become a thing.
Turtles in Time’s Neon Night Riders takes place in this year.
The company that makes the robots in I, Robot, forms. Godzilla : Final Wars takes place in 2020. Hugh Jackman’s Real Steel also takes place this year.
Of course, SeaLab 2020. The events of Harry Potter : The Golden Child take place. Dark Angel’s second half of Season One and the first half of Season Two.
The 11th Doctor two parter, The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood.
Glee’s series finale.
Robot House from Fallout is born on June 25, 2020.
I was noticing all of the movies that are coming out this upcoming summer and it looks like a major movie like every other week or so! Once I started down the list, I had lots of opinions and I figured I’ll get them out of my head.
Glass. I still need to watch Split but I’m super excited from what I’ve seen from the trailers. I just loved Unbreakable and anything that gives us more stories from that world, the better! Why is Dunn even locked up?! I could see if he made various visits to Glass and then it timed out well with the Split fellow but he’s clearly locked up there too.
February
Jacob’s Ladder. Can you believe they are remaking Jacob’s Ladder?! That’s when I knew I was going to want to write this article.
Lego Movie 2 : The Second Part. This movie once I tell Walker Dennis that it is coming out, is going to be very eagerly anticipated. He saw the trailer and wanted to watch it immediately. Luckily, he’s forgotten about it for a minute so that’s good for us. We’ll watch it probably the second weekend it is out.
What Men Want. On the flip side of Jacob’s Ladder, I read this title was thought to me self “what is this, a female version of What Women Want?” And it totally is and I love it! Especially as it stars Taraji P. Henson! I imagine there will be at least one joke about how men are always thinking of sex, or it would be a running gag but I’m hoping it has more than that.
All-Star Weekend. Jaime Foxx is writing and directing films now. Pretty great cast with Robert Downey Jr., Dr. Ken Jeong, and Gerald Butler. I’m not sure why Butler doesn’t act more, him and Clive Owens should have much better careers.
March
Chaos Walking. I’m not familiar with the series but this has Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, both of whom must have filmed it in-between breaks from their bigger films. This is supposed to be the start of a new franchise so we’ll see about that.
Fighting with My Family. Stephen Merchant wrote and directed this movie about WWE’s Paige, who I’m not familiar with at all. But I do love me some Stephen Merchant. If you haven’t listen to his episode of Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum, please do so!
The Rock co-produced the film and will be in the movie too.
Captain Marvel. I can’t wait for this film, my first film of the year that I really want to see. I want to see Lego Movie 2 as well but if I had to choose only one film, will it probably be a later film but I wouldn’t watch that one unless I got to see Captain Marvel. My wife might be done with the Marvel films so I might have to take Walker Dennis with me. The Marvel films are usually rated PG-13 but that’s for like superhero violence and he sees that type of stuff with most action cartoons. I was folding laundry and he sat through Scott Pilgrim just fine. He seemed way into it, now that I typed that. I was building some Lego sets that he received for his birthday and I had Captain America : Winter Soldier and he didn’t seem to pay too much attention to that one. Those are two completely different films though. Scott Pilgrim holds up like crazy. This past weekend, I was folding laundry again (a weekly chore), and I started Black Panther and that movie starts off pretty slow for a now five year old. I’m sure watching it in the movie theater will help too.
Dumbo. Tim Burton’s Dumbo. The trailers look pretty good and I like how they seem to focus on Dumbo but I’ve seen Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and I’m hoping Dumbo is treated better.
April
Shazam! I’m all for funny super hero films and Captain Marvel probably lends itself to more comedy or at least, more family friendly fare, but that first trailer left me rather cold. I do like how both Captain Marvels are getting films in the same year. At least Carol came first.
Pet Sematary. Another remake but horror movies can be remade all the time, with special effects being what they are and how long ago the first film was, I don’t see a problem with it.
Hellboy. I’m really hoping this new version works out as I would love a new Hellboy movie every other year. He could easily sustain that type of franchise. David Harbour should be great in the role too.
Breakthrough. I saw a thumbnail of Chrissy Metz on YouTube and made a dumb judgment call on what the trailer would be like and what type of film it would be but I was pleasantly surprised. I also had to look up the true story as I do with any film based on true events.
It comes out on Easter so that’s pretty smart. The film also stars Topher Grace and Mike Colter. We just started Luke Cage’s first season last night too. Such a great first episode. We’re hoping to go between Luke Cage and Season Five of Agents of SHIELD but we’ll see how that works out.
Under the Silver Lake. A neo-noir film starring Andrew Garfield and Topher Grace, could be interesting.
Avengers : Endgame. My buddy Greg has a theory the film will end with Tony in space, giving Pepper that farewell speech of his that can be seen in the trailer. I’ll be curious who survives and how Captain Marvel plays into the film. I’m really hoping no one dies and any of these actors can just come back as they please. But I also get why the studio has to write them out if the actor doesn’t or can’t come back.
May
Pokémon : Detective Pikachu. I had shrugged my shoulders when I first heard of this film and figured it would come and go like the other Pokémon films that come to the theater. Then I saw the trailer with Ryan Reynolds as Pikachu and now I’m all on board.
The Hustle. A female version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson. Could be good. I do like Anne Hathaway.
John Wick 3 : Parabellum. I have yet to see any of these John Wick films but I really should.
Aladdin. I’m still iffy on Will Smith as the Genie but once I see the first official trailer, I’m sure I’ll be sold on him.
Brightburn. A horror film using the premise of Superman, written by the Gunn brothers (but not the third one, he’s producing it though), I’m all signed up for this. Teenage Superman but with invisibility and maybe only heat vision? Also, the film has Elizabeth Banks, so that’s great too.
Godzilla : King of the Monsters. This film will have Mothra, that’s all I needed to know! One day, we’ll get Mechagodzilla but I imagine that’ll only come with a Pacific Rim crossover. Hopefully this would be the film that makes it 80/20 monsters vs humans seen on film but I doubt it.
Rocketman. The Elton John biopic, with Taron Egerton has Elton John. I still only really know him as the voice of Johnny from Sing! He was the gorilla.
June
Dark Phoenix. So odd they dropped “X-Men” from the title as this is going to be the last X-Men film made by FOX. I’m still hoping that they go into space but it seems like this will be based more off of Ultimate X-Men’s Dark Phoenix, which we sort of did to poor results. I have high hopes for it.
The Secret Life of Pets 2. Another film Walker Dennis is going to love. I wish Patton Oswalt was at least attempting a Louie C.K. impression but I also completely get why Illumination didn’t want that.
Men in Black International. I didn’t even know we were set to get this picture. Doesn’t look like we’re getting either Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones but maybe they are holding that as a surprised. I know it was the first thing I looked up. This is the London based MiB with Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson, both great in Ragnarok. I’m also happy to see Kumail Nanjiani will be in it as well as Liam Neeson.
Shaft. I was all about Samuel L. Jackson as Shaft with Christian Bale as the villain way back in 2000. This one stars Jessie Usher as the latest Shaft. Richard Roundtree is back as well. Tim Story of Fantastic Four fame is directing the film. I was hoping they were going to make Usher the nephew to Jackson’s Shaft, so that it was always the brother of the previous Shaft but they are not going in that direction.
Toy Story 4. I still wished they stopped at 3 but 3 made $1.067 billion so that’s pretty hard to walk away from that type of money.
Grudge. Another horror movie remake.
Child’s Play. The eighth installment but a reboot! Aubrey Plaza is in this one so that’s two things.
Ford vs. Ferrari. James Mangold who directed the 3:10 to Yuma remake and The Wolverine and Logan, is giving us our sole Christian Bale film of the year. I thought Vice was supposed to come out but it must have had a limited release in 2018. Bale is neither Ford or Ferrari but based on the events of the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans. Matt Damon is also in this but is neither Ford or Ferrari.
Tracy Letts is Ford II and Remo Girone is Ferrari.
47 Meters Down : Uncaged. This reminds me I hadn’t seen the Mandy Moore first film where she fights sharks. Probably not a good sign for her that she’s not in this one. I do wish they titled it, 48 Meters Down. That would have been awesome.
July
Spider-Man : Far From Home. The European Vacation of Marvel films! I’m all for Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio and Cobie Smulders is in this too! Keaton is back as the Vulture too! So many coincidences!
The Lion King. I know they were never going to do this but it would be great if they let Jon Favreau had his way with the film but just carried over the audio from the 1994 film. Since there is no human element like Jungle Book, this is just going to be a feast for the eyes. Plus, they had James Earl Jones come back as Mufasa, so they should have just let everyone come back.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film, and I like how we’re still counting these. His take on the Charles Mansion instructed murders. A giant cast for this film! DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Damian Lewis, Luke Perry, Emile Hirsch, Dakota Fanning, Nicholas Hammond. Yes, that Nicholas Hammond! thwip thwip! I forget he was one of the young children in The Sound of Music. Apparently he made two films in 2018, The BBQ and Ladies in Black. Ladies in Black has Julia Ormond as one of the ladies who was Sabrina in the 1995 Sabrina remake. Which is always high on my list of worthwhile remakes.
Al Pacino is also in the movie. Lena Dunham and Rumor Willis too. Damon Herriman is Charles Manson. Looks like a guy who has been in known films but wasn’t known from said films. Bruce Dern rounds out the cast. In nondisclosed roles are – Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Kurt Russell, Timothy Olyphant, and James Marsden!
August
Hobbs & Shaw. The Fast and the Furious spinoff.
The New Mutants! Hopefully this movie doesn’t get pushed back any further! Several July/August horror films so they can be released on BluRay in October. I can’t wait to see more of Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik and I really hope Lockheed makes the cut into the film too. I also want to see them in a variation of the New Mutants classic uniforms. Since this is going to be the last last FOX X-Men project, I want them to just go crazy and include everything as there will not be a sequel. Unless there is and we can get Warlock and Karma but time will tell.
Dora the Explorer. A live action take on the story. I wonder if the plan is to make one of these every year or have this transition into a live action series. Benicio del Toro is Swiper, I’ll have to rewatch a scene but it feels like a miscasting but I’m sure he’ll be fine in the role. She’s entering high school and there’s a plot about rescuing her parents. You know, like in the cartoon.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I want to be in so hard with this film! I love the classic children’s stories so much! They are barely a page long but the images and the words really stick with you as you read. I used to reference this as my favorite horror stories back in high school and only a few even remembered it.
Such a great collection and Amazon has it for under $20!
The film is co-written by Guillermo del Toro. Imagine if this was done like a 30 minute HBO series, roughly animated and retold five stories in those 30 minutes? That would have been awesome or at least, another take on the story.
Angry Birds Movie 2. Can you believe they are making a sequel? I can now that I see the first one made $352.3 million. That and I’m sure the tie in game makes Rovio Entertainment tons of bank.
Playmobil : The Movie. Like the Lego Movie but harsher on the eyes is my best guess for the film. I’m hoping it steals a lot from Lego and has a wealth of references to their playsets.
Especially their Ghostbuster sets! Walker Dennis got all of these except for the Egon/Ghost and the Terror Dogs sets. Mostly as I didn’t even know they made a Terror Dogs until right now. He still wouldn’t have gotten it but still. The Firehouse, Ecto-1, Stay Puft and Slimer all look amazing. But the individual figures do not look great on the box. They are fine and clearly in the Playmobil model but ooof.
A real shame we ended up with two Janines and no Egon but that’s how you sell a boxset. Walker doesn’t mind at all and he got plenty of people and he’s all for a play house set.
Angel Has Fallen. A film I was going to scroll pass even though it has Gerald Butler and Morgan Freeman in it. So first the White House (Olympus) falls, then London fell, now Butler’s character is being framed (of course!). Classic Jack Bauer nonsense where the one guy who has spent years (or two days?!) saving the country and should have a school in every state named after him, is of course, turned traitor and everyone immediately doesn’t question it. But this one taking place on Air Force One does catch my attention. I have yet to see any of these films but I’m a sucker for a airplane hostage film. I get that from my mom’s love for disaster films.
September
It : Chapter Two. I’ll watch these eventually.
Downton Abbey. My wife was interested in this once I told her about it. The show has been off the air since December 2015. It doesn’t feel like three years has passed but I also haven’t heard people talk about the show in a while. Probably at least two years. I wonder if it was better to do a film than a revised television series. I guess it was as they went with the feature film route.
October
Gemini Man. Ang Lee directed. An aging assassin (Will Smith) has to fight a younger clone of himself, also played by Will Smith? For some reason the younger clone can predict the older one’s moves when you’ll think it would be the other way around. So the original older model will have to come up with some new tricks, I supposed. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is in this, which is what caught my eye. She’s so great in Scott Pilgrim and one of these days, I’ll pick up Mercy Street again. I read All About Nina was a good film of hers that came out in 2018.
The Addams Family. A few horror movies get released in actual October. This is the kid friendly animated horror movie.
Zombieland Too. I have to still watch the first one.
The Goldfinch. Our sole Luke Wilson film of 2019. Another great actor that I don’t see why he doesn’t get more roles.
November
Terminator 6. With this film, I’ll be three movies behind on the Terminator series, and one television series. Linda Hamilton is back, so this one might be the one to watch.
Charlie’s Angels. This was the other movie that sparked wanting to write this article. I’m all for Elizabeth Banks directing this film. I wonder if this is why she didn’t direct Pitch Perfect 3. The cast on the other hand, ooof. Kristen Stewart, probably ran out of Twilight money and now needs another success story. I imagine she’s available for two more films. Naomi Scott, of Pink Ranger fame in the last Power Rangers film. She’s also going to be Jasmine in the Aladdin live action adaption, so 2019 could be big for her, she’s on both ends of the year, so that works for her. Ella Balinska rounds out the trio. I guess she’s the Lucy Lu of this cast. I’m sure the other two are fine to great but Kristen Stewart being the star of the film isn’t ideal. Maybe she’s loosen up these days and is ready to have some fun. Patrick Stewart is also in this so that could be really neat too. Seems like this could be a television series if it wasn’t for Naomi Scott blowing up.
I had to check. Taylor Lautner hasn’t acted since 2016, Run the Tide as his last film and he had a main role in Scream Queen’s second season.
Robert Pattinson has been steadily in films and has four films in post production right now. I heard Good Time was supposed to put him back on the map.
Sonic the Hedgehog. We didn’t get Walker the Sonic Lego Dimensions set so he still doesn’t have much connection to the game. He’ll love it if we got it for him but it doesn’t seem likely. I like that they kept his red shoes but apparently are giving him two separate eyes, which seems disappointing. Once the official image comes out, I’ll make up my mind if we’re going to watch it. It has to be better than the Mario film, right?
Midway. We way into playing Lego Dimensions again and my initial thought was this was going to be related to the Midway Arcade era of games but that isn’t the case at all. This movie gives us the sole Aaron Eckhart film appearance of the year. Not sure why he doesn’t get more work either. He had four films in 2016 and now this film. I forgot he was in London Falling and he was in Tom Hank’s Sully film too that year. The film is about the Battle of Midway:
A decisive naval battle between America and Japan during World War II. So it will be pretty intense. I should check to see if there are any documentaries or docuseries that have dealt with the subject material as Wikipedia doesn’t offer any insight with that.
The film also has Woody Harrelson, Mandy Moore, and Patrick Wilson in it. I like Wilson in most things I see him in but he’s making those Insidious and Conjuring films. He’s always working and it is hard to keep up with him. Glee’s Darren Criss is in the film as well and Nick Jonas is back to acting as well. Jonas is also in that Choas Walking film too.
Margie Claus. Ben Falcone and Melissa McCarthy are bringing us a new holiday musical about Mrs. Claus stepping up.
Last Christmas. One of my favorite Christmas songs and it is being turned into a film now.
Frozen 2. This is finally happening and I’m sure we’ll be taking Walker Dennis to it.
December
Jumanji 3. Combining story elements from both previous films and recognizing the sequel was a sequel and not a reboot.
Star Wars : Episode IX. Working title has been Black Diamond but I’m sure that’s not what will be on the poster.
Cats. The famous musical will be finally given the movie treatment. Jennifer Hudson and Taylor Swift are in it so that’s happening. JHud has been growing on me with the previous season of The Voice so either she’s tone down her antics or I’ve grown to accept it. I’m sure it is the latter. The film of course will be a big deal, lots of names in it. Ian McKellen, James Cordon (of course), Idris Elba, Dame Judi Dench, Rebel Wilson (also back in a big way in 2019), and Jason Derulo. I recall watching some of Cats on VHS back in the day from the Broadway show but I think I lost interest 20 minutes into it.
Super Intelligence. Ben Falcone and Melissa McCarthy are also bringing us a Sci-Fi Action Comedy and they are bringing James Cordon along as well.
Little Women. This film is finally being remade as 1994 was 15 years ago. 1994’s version is when Christian Bale met his wife, Sandra Blažić, who was Winona Ryder’s personal assistant during the film. That was mine and his main take away from that film. So it is time to remake that story. Apparently there was a remake done in 2018 but it doesn’t look as big of a deal but it does have Lea Thompson as Marmee March. Susan Sarandon was the character in 1994 and Laura Dern is the character in the 2019 edition. So a rich legacy there.
Call of the Wild. Jack London’s 1903 classic novel come to life. Harrison Ford, Dan Stevens, Omar Sy and Karen Gillan are in it. Omar Sy was Bishop in X-Men : Days of Future Past. He was also in Jurassic World as Barry and provided the voice for Lego Dimensions : Jurassic World – it is truly all connected!
. . .
So that’s the 2019 in Film! Some big films and some small ones and several sequels and remakes.
Thanks to YouTuber TheX-MenFiles’ channel for hosting this video.
Also, thanks for making this one big video instead of the two different parts ones that I’ve been watching (or trying to watch) for months now. Still can’t get through the movie but that’s because I keep starting it when I know I can’t commit to it.
Still can’t believe that Emma Frost and Banshee were the first X-Men to be adapted to live action.
This film came out in 1996 and I still remember being so excited for it coming out and counting the days and making sure my VCR was set up to record it.
Still wish we were able to get Husk instead of the made up character of Buff.
Whenever I see Matt Frewer in anything (which sadly, isn’t enough these days), I get in the mood to watch this again. So yes, I have now seen 50/50 and it wasn’t the depressing ride I was told it was. Anna Kendrick is great in it though I do question the ending of it, as far as her involvement.
Also, thanks to BBC America, I see the Star Trek : The Next Generation episode – A Matter of Time, pretty regularly or at least, I have the option to do it.
I didn’t know he was the voice of Sid in the Batman : The Animated Series episode – The Man Who Killed Batman. Such a great episode!
I really like seeing Bachalo’s art in quasi-motion. We get all four issues of the miniseries here. As well as X-Men 1 (the comic that started it all way back in 1963!) and Giant Size X-Men 1 that gave the X-Men a new lease on life.
The worst part of this is Ken O’Brien as the voice of Iceman. Not as bad here as he isn’t a main part of it but X-Men 1, ooof, that is hard to listen too.
I’ll go into the individual issues once I review the actual comics but as a DVD, this is a good story. The story is that Magneto has escaped and this is worst as the world thought he was dead but instead, Xavier just tricked everybody with his disgusting mind powers in believing that so the world’s guard was down. SHIELD has the Ultimates go after the X-Men as they are as bad as Magneto’s crew.
I don’t own issue one as Kitty doesn’t appear in it so the entire first part was a surprised. I had read it in the trade version (as that’s how I was reading Ultimate X-Men for the first ten or so trades until I started buying back issues) but that was a while ago.
This DVD only cost me $1.99 but most times, if you try to search for it, people want like $50 to $100 for this item. Who would pay more than ten dollars for this, is beyond me.
I wish there was more to this collection but the run stops here, the first five trades were converted to motion comic.
I’m not sure why they went with solely Ultimate X-Men and not bothered with Ultimate Spider-Man as I would have bought those as they were being released.
This DVD came out in October 12, 2004 – so the first one would have been out to tie in with the X2 at the time. Though Spider-Man 2 was around that same time but who knows why they went one direction and not the other.
While rewatching this DVD, I noticed something. It does a great job of crediting Joss Whedon and John Cassaday, as it should – it doesn’t mention Laura Martin, at all.
That got me thinking about how Chris Eliopoulos gets completely screwed with these DVDs. Since the dialogue and sound effects are now spoken or heard, does he not get anything from the success of the comic, that made these motion comic DVDs possible? Does anyone know? It isn’t right that these two don’t get any credit, but to shut out Eliopoulos completely? That is not cool.
I commented on how I thought Kitty did the least amount in this arc, out of the four. I was pleasantly surprised that Kitty probably does just about the same amount here as the other arcs.
Kitty and Lockheed get spotlighted when all the psychics are taken, but these two can still communicate via their empathic ability.
Kitty first confronts the Danger Room, pre new body.
Kitty names Danger.
Kitty saves the team on Genosha from the initial blast from the giant Sentinel that originally killed everyone on the island.
Kitty gets to experience her first fastball special. Also, a major wedgie.
Plus, other situations. I really like the motion comic but the credit business bothered me.
Our friends Tina and Damian agreed to watch Walker Dennis on the 11th and we were able to watch X-Men Apocalypse, as an early Father’s Day present.
Overall, I really enjoyed the film. Much better than I was lead to believe it was. I really don’t have any problems with it, lots of surprises. Which I really need to learn a lesson with this, and not follow films too closely.
Onto the major spoilers –
The film opens in 3600 BCE, which I didn’t even know we were adding the E to it, it stands for Era, which doesn’t seem that crucial of a change. I see some traitors of Apocalypse that try to halt the body transfer that Apocalypse has to do to gain additional powers. I like how his ship is clearly Celestial powered but the film doesn’t go into the alien technology aspect of Apocalypse’s origins. That’s probably for the best, as we’re not going to go into the Celestials in the next film – or any of these films. This also explains why Apocalypse hasn’t been around before the “present day” main portion of the film, he’s been sleeping this entire time. We see his Horsemen in action.
We jump to the present, which is 1983, in Ohio. The first new character is Scott Summers, a welcome addition to the films! He’s portrayed by Tye Sheridan who I just saw in the Standford Prison Project – which has a lot of known faces in the cast. Once he has the glasses on, he sort of reminded me of Miles Teller. Maybe all white twenty year olds look the same with that chin? I tried to find an image of the two together but it doesn’t exist, hmmmm.
Scott gets his powers activated in the boys room and totally takes out a dumb jock, which is awesome. His high school teacher is explaining how it is the tenth anniversary of Magneto’s attack on the White House, seen in Days of Future Past. They really emphasis that passage of time in this film.
Berlin. Angel played by Ben Hardy – who I don’t know but apparently he was on EastEnders for a while. I know the old BBC show, by reputation only. He’s in proper Angel form, and has recently taken out Blob, in a cage fight. This is his tenth victory, in a role. This scene makes me start thinking about how this new timeline and so now I’m thinking of how Wolverine Origins still fits into this new continuity. I imagine that some details may be tweaked but that film should remain the same – so I’m just looking for aspects that could be changed. Blob’s inclusion here, I feel like it doesn’t change anything of Wolverine Origins. I do like how Blob was wearing his black unitard with yellow belt.
Angel is sort of bad arse. We see Mystique, looking like a white Jennifer Lawrence, is snooping around the arena. Angel’s next opponent is Kurt Wagner, Nightcrawler – played by Kodi Smit-McPhee who I also haven’t seen before. I really enjoy Kurt and he definitely didn’t disappoint in this film. I wished we got more than just the one scene (well two I suppose) of just Mystique and Kurt together but they didn’t want to play up that angle and I can’t blame them for that. Kurt hurts Angel’s wing, and Mystique is able to crash the arena’s power systems so everyone flees.
Kurt is brought in a box that dampens his power, a motif that we see a couple times throughout the film. Which makes total sense, as ten years later, yeah, people are going to have created security measures to protect themselves against rogue mutants and mutants named Rogue.
Poland, once again, Michael Fassbender’s Magneto steals the film for me. I’m still all for a Magneto solo film, I could watch two hours of Magneto straight killing humans (or whatever he wishes to do) as he is Magneto for me.
I’m not a big fan of Assassin Creed, I played parts of the first two games – i did like the second one more than the first but with Fassbender as the star of the film, I’m all for watching it now. Though I don’t know how they will turn an 80 hour game into a two hour film. That one looked good and the Mark Wahlberg’s Deepwater Horizon. It was nice to see Kurt Russell in a film again (I know he’ll be in Guardians of the Galaxy 2) was Interstate 60 his last film? Probably the last one I’ve seen him in. Such a great movie. I’m not that familiar with the events of Deepwater Horizon.
Oh, this is the event that lead to the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I hadn’t thought about the origins of the event itself, back in 2010.
Magneto is going by the name of Henryk Gorzky. A name that I don’t believe has any significance to Magneto of the comics. A quick Google search lead me to Henryk Gorski, the Polish sport shooter in both the 1960 & 1964 Summer Olympics. There was also, in 2009, another Henryk Gorski (52) strangled a 24 year old woman. “Gorzky” didn’t have any results besides related to this film.
Erik has a wife, who I kept listening to hear her get name checked but she never does. It wasn’t until the credits that listed her as Magda that I got the confirmation, which is great that they got the name right from the comics. I’m not sure why they took the time to get Magda right but didn’t name the daughter Anya instead going with Nina. Why go half way with the research?
Havok, with totally 80s hair, has taken Scott to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Scott meets Beast, who is also in his white Nicholas Hoult form. He meets Jean Grey, portrayed by Sophia Tuner. I really need to watch Game of Thrones as I’m missing so much. Plus, I need to know more about Daenerys Targaryen. I do like seeing these three Original Five members of the X-Men being together. I start watching the backgrounds, like a hawk, looking for any boy throwing an iceball or a girl walking through a wall – but I had no luck. I’m sure I saw a young brunette with a giant patch of white hair on her head, so that could be Rogue. Maybe Singer’s way of throwing a character a bone for skipping her in the theatrical cut of Days of Future Past.
Scott meets Xavier, who wants Scott to test out his eye blasts. I guess Havok hadn’t seen Scott’s powers either, as no one thinks to just have Scott blast into the sky. Instead, he blasts a tree that Xavier’s grandfather planted and he use to swing on – it was his favorite tree. The other students are weary of Scott now. This is also the first light moment of the film, which the film does a better job of peppering with as this film didn’t seem as dark and dreary as the others.
Mystique brings Kurt to a mutant underground railroad of sorts. There we meet Caliban –
played by Tomas Lemarquis, who looks like he was taken straight from the comic! I still need to watch Chris Evan’s Snowpiercer one of these days.
In Egypt, the beautiful Rose Byrne returns from First Class, as Moira MacTaggert. She’s following a mutant cult who worship Apocalypse. Unfortunately, if it wasn’t for her actions, the entire film wouldn’t have happen. She follows the cult members under a rug that leads underground but she didn’t recover the entrance with the rug so sunlight hits the underground pyramid that wakes up Apocalypse. This is the first callback to First Class, one of the two X-films that Bryan Singer didn’t direct. I didn’t quite miss her in Days of Future Past but she is a welcome return. Apocalypse waking up causes an earthquake. Back at the factory in Poland, Magneto saves a co-worker from being smashed by a molten bucket – this will backfire on him. Poor Magneto, from mutant leader to common factory worker – sort of like what Wolverine did for years during Wolverine Origins.
Xavier’s School. The students are scared as Jean is having one of her nightmares. Xavier comes to her bedside, as Beast stands at the door. Xavier sneaks into her dream and witnesses the possible destruction of the world. Jean wakes up and to sooth her, he leaves his wheelchair and gets into her bed. Which seems highly inappropriate but Beast is at the door so nothing is going to happen but it is still an odd choice.
Which reminds me, during the trailer, I had thought Sophie Turner wasn’t all that attractive in this scene (for those short seconds) but she is attractive and I wanted to correct the record.
Cairo, Egypt. Storm, played by Alexandra Shipp – who I also don’t know. Did this happen at anyone else’s theater? Before the film started, after the trailers, Alexandra Shipp had a message of thanks and kept emphasizing that the film employed over 1500 folks and it was a pleasure to work on and everyone is excited for us to see the final product. Or did only Cinemarks get this message? It felt like an odd choice. Like, get Singer to do the message or someone bigger or smaller from the cast. Like, I don’t know, like it put her in a lower tier or something. Maybe I’m overthinking it.
We see Storm using her powers to steal some food. Before we see her do it, we see Apocalypse wearing a cloak and walking about the city. I was hoping we’ll get a twist of Storm pick pocketing Xavier, but this time, with Apocalypse but that didn’t happen. In an alley, Apocalypse saves Storm from the shop keepers she stole from. I make a big deal about movie Captain America waking up 60 years later but imagine waking up 3800 years later? I’m not even sure how the brain rations anything it sees.
Poland. Magneto is telling Magda that they need to leave. After some convincing, Magda agrees but Nina is missing. They search for her and come across her surrounded by police officers. They know who they are talking to, as they brought wooden bats and one dude brought a bow and arrows. That guy, I couldn’t believe someone thought an archer was the way to go.
The officers let go of Nina as she runs into her mother’s arms as Magneto has agreed to go with the officers. Nina starts freaking out and this causes birds to swoop down and start harassing the officers so she has some sort of mutant power over animals. Apparently, on the ride home, when we first see Nina – my wife pointed out to me – that Nina was feeding a deer and wild rabbits so she knew from the get go. The archery fuck gets distracted and lets loose an arrow.
The entire time, once we saw the officers, my mind was racing on how Magneto’s family was going to die. It didn’t make sense it would be by baseball bat, as he should be able to stop one of them from being killed. But when that arrow was fired and it goes through both mother and daughter, my heart just stopped. Being a husband and father, these scenes hit me harder than in my single days. Magneto has had nine years of being a father and husband and he loves his family so much. As he should! To have them both die, in that same moment, is heartbreaking. I would have been fine, super fine, if the movie just stop and we got thirty minutes of Magneto killing the police officers and leaving that one archer to just straight torture for the remainder twenty-five minutes. Instead, he kills them in seconds, including the archer, with Nina’s necklace that has the last remaining pictures of Magneto’s parents. It is intense! I swear, the scene probably lasts like five minutes at most but it felt like forever as my brain processed it from expectations to results and what-could-have-beens.
Hank tells Xavier about the earthquake and Hank’s computers are going crazy. We see the Cerebro from the original X-Men trilogy. Xavier checks in on Moira, who he still secretly loves. He’s checked on her a few times and can barely talk about her, which is pretty funny. Xavier and Havok, as we need to get as much screen time of Havok and that hair, as possible.
Lucas Till should have told the hair dressers to go less 80s with it.
Xavier reminds Havok how, in a total dick move – very much like Superman in Superman 2, Xavier erased Moira’s memory. In an awesome and silly exchange, Xavier gets Moira to reveal she has a son – who is totally Kevin and that is frightening! and an ex-husband. Havok enjoys this exchange, as do I, so much. Moira is a good sport during it, she doesn’t know why Xavier knows so much about her or why he seems so familiar to her. Though she has read all of his papers he has written.
Moira essentially gives us the scene that was in all of the trailers, the background exposition of who Apocalypse is.
Egypt. Storm takes Apocalypse back to her place. He discovers television and is able to touch the screen and absorb all information of the missing years. I like the way Apocalypse, who is played by Oscar Isaac who played Poe Dameron in Star Wars : Force Awakens.
Who I glossed over in the very beginning of the film and he’s the flipping star of the film.
I’m glad they were able to make Apocalypse appear more blue as he looked way more purple in photos prior to the film’s release –
made him look like Ivan Ooze from the first Power Rangers film.
Apparently I’ve seen Oscar Isaac in a few things. He was Joseph in The Nativity Story and he was Little John in Russel Crowe’s Robin Hood film.
One of the news reports mentions how America and Russia is a super power and we get a fun moment when Apocalypse uses the term “super power” which I feel like is hardly used in these comic movies. It sounded unique.
Apocalypse makes Storm his first Horseman, it is a shame that each one isn’t given a proper title. By turning her into a Horseman (woman?) he turns her hair white. This won’t be the only hair change Apocalypse is responsible for. At some point, Storm talks about her hero worship of Mystique. Mystique is a hero of many young mutants. Mystique disagrees that she’s a hero, it is why she is rarely in her blue form.
Hank has made a special pair of sunglasses made of ruby quartz for Scott to hold back his powers. I wished we could have gotten a montage of different materials, or just have Hank with three pairs of glasses, with different materials. Instead, Hank got it right on the first go.
Scott still has to lift the glasses to let loose his optic blasts and it wasn’t until the final fight when I realized that he typically has a visor – I got pretty swept up in the film and didn’t really watch the film with my arms crossed looking for faults.
Mystique brings Kurt to the Xavier Institute. Kurt makes fast friends of Scott, Jean and Jubilee. I really thought Lana Condor, as Jubilee, was going to get more screen time. It wasn’t until I was looking things up for this post that I remembered that Jubilee was suppose to get an entire moment in an arcade in a mall but we never get it. Bryan Singer said that there will be no Director’s Cut of this film but there will be delete scenes.
Jubilee, Kurt, Scott and Jean go the mall. They watch Return of the Jedi, which is fun – especially for FOX to allow them to make a Star Wars reference, when they no longer own the rights. I think Jubilee is the one (if not her, it is Jean) who says third films are the worst of the trilogy. Which I thought was producer and screenwriter, Simon Kinberg’s way of insult X3. Then I realized this film is the third of the new trilogy and I thought it was pretty good. Hard to believe this is the ninth film in the X-Men franchise. That’s pretty impressive.
Xavier and Mystique get a fun moment to catch up. I first saw this scene during Graham Norton Show, Season 19 episode 8 –
Thanks to DailyMotion user, El Weston for hosting this episode. I originally saw it on YouTube but that video appears to no longer exist.
Jennifer Lawrence looks stunning in that dress, some great stories are told in that episode. Then Johnny Depp and Will.i.am appear and you can stop the episode before all of that happens. Jack Whitehall is pretty funny, I should watch his proper comedy special, if he ever gets one.
Mystique tells Xavier about Magneto’s family dying and the look on Xavier’s face, like he knows the entire world is going to be ripped to shreds. Magneto, or his power over magnetism, truly is one of those all powerful powers.
Back at Caliban’s shop. After hours, Apocalypse & Storm arrive, looking for powerful mutants. Caliban tries to get them to leave but quickly learns he is out of his league with Apocalypse. As a comic Horseman, it was great that we got a scene with Apocalypse and Caliban. Caliban is protected by Psylocke.
Olivia Munn is Psylocke, she doesn’t get a lot to do but is seen a whole bunch in this film. If she made a reference to her brother, Brian, I missed it as she doesn’t talk much once this scene is over. Though she is great in the role. We also do not get her saying “focus totality” which is a real shame. She has both a real sword and her physic sword. Later, she uses a physic whip, which I didn’t care for but it is her powers, she can do with them as she wanted.
Psylocke becomes Apocalypse’s second Horseman and she knows where to go for a third one. Which will be Angel and I wish we got more moments with Angel and Psylocke, as the two dated in the comics. Angel has a busted wing, due to Kurt’s fight earlier. I do like how they said an angel needs to fight a demon, in that earlier scene. Reminded me of Ultimate X-Men.
Apocalypse takes pity on Angel and gives him a massive power upgrade –
I do wish Apocalypse called him “his Archangel” but he didn’t but Angel does look great with the metal wings.
Quicksilver, who tries to steal the movie again but is usually the best part of the scenes he is in. He’s watching the news that Magneto is clearly back and murdering fools. His mother comes into the room and he goes back to playing Ms. Pac-Man – who he mistaking just says “Pac-Man” but he’s in fact playing the much superior game. On another television screen, we see and hear the Knight Rider theme song – which is awesome!
Magneto shows back up to the factory, he gives a pretty great speech. One of these fuckers told the police that the all powerful Magneto was living in their sleepy Polish city. Which lead to the death of his wife and daughter, so now all of these fools have to die. If I worked at the same factory as Magneto, I would just be cool and the next day, I would have brought him in a cake or something. Magneto is about to kill these fools when Apocalypse and his Horsemen arrive. Apocalypse kills the factory workers and offers to make Magneto even more powerful. They all teleport away.
Apocalypse teleported them to Auschwitz, which I already know is a brilliant move on Apocalypse’s part but he could be just igniting Magneto’s rage in an uncontrollable way. We get flashbacks to both First Class and the first X-Men film, to Magneto’s origins. Which wouldn’t be affected by the timeline change so that’s a smart move. We get several clips from the previous films which I’m not sure is a holdover from Days of Future Past but I enjoyed them.
Once Magneto has been properly motivated, he destroys all of the remaining buildings, so the world knows that Magneto is on the warpath.
Back at Cerebro. Xavier, Mystique, Hank, Alex and Moira are about to look for Magneto. Xavier had to tell Mystique, earlier, that he midnwiped Moira’s mind as Mystique wasn’t there for that scene as she had joined Magneto.
Xavier finds Magneto and they have a telepathic conversation. I like how Apocalypse is just cool that Magneto walked away (but not out of the room) to mutter to himself. I’m really not sure what those four were doing during Magneto’s conversation, as they seem to just be walking around.
Xavier is a good friend, having so much sympathetic for Magneto’s lost. He doesn’t try to belittle Magneto’s motivations.
Eventually Apocalypse walks over and uses his connection to Magneto to connect to Xavier. From here, the movie really kicks into gear. Apocalypse uses Xavier’s connection to Cerebro to reach into the minds of everyone on the world. He has soldiers and seamen fire all of the nuclear warheads into space. So there goes the main offense the world was going to have on Apocalypse.
Xavier is glued to Cerebro so Hank has to start trashing the place. As the heroes start to leave the chamber, Apocalypse and crew arrive. Magneto takes a knocked out Xavier with them. Alex, trying to help, blasts at Apocalypse but they teleport away. So Havok’s blast hits the fancy new Blackbird and it explodes!
Quicksilver arrives, and notices the explosion starting. We get treated to what would be a minute’s worth of explosion, experienced over six minutes as he is rescuing the main cast and the students in a super fun sequence. Once everyone is out, we get treated to our first . . . Xavier Mansion Explosion!
It is intense to actually see the whole thing go down as it happens so often in the comics, that I got use to it.
Brian Cronin, over at Comics Should Be Good, has a great list of when the comics mansion exploded.
It is during the rescuing part, that we see the girl with the white patch of hair but I can’t find that image anywhere.
Scott, Jean, Kurt & Jubilee come riding back and Quicksilver believes he saved everyone. Hank asks about Alex, who Quicksilver doesn’t know, as it turns out, Havok was the closest to the explosion, so Quicksilver didn’t see him. Scott doesn’t take the lost of his older brother well but it is okay, as we have the much better Summers brother in the film.
It is this at this time that my bladder starts telling me that I have to pee. Which I always do before the movie starts and that usually works for me but not this time. I worked at Hastings that morning and I had a very tight window from leaving there, to go home and pick up my wife and son so we can get him to Tina’s. This caused a slight issue where, in my rush to get out of the store – I apparently annoyed an older man wanting into the lock video cabinet, as he had waiting twenty minutes before I got around there. Which I know that couldn’t be true but I tried to be playful and that upset him greatly but I got him his Blurays and he wanted to talk to my supervisor but I didn’t have time to defend myself but I’m sure I’ll hear about that at some point. Has this happened to other Hastings were sales are low and staff has been scaled way back? This keeps happening where I either get a Friday night shift or a Saturday morning shift. So there was suppose to be someone else on the floor but he was covering cafe and the other person hadn’t arrived for 2pm so that’s what happened there. I probably could have handled it differently but I had to go home.
I knew a certain scene was coming up so I had to hold out until that scene had happened, a scene or a moment.
Once Scott has had his moment, Colonel Stryker arrives and knocks all the mutants out. For some reason – Kurt, Scott & Jean are not knocked out. The soldiers pick up Mystique, Beast, Moira and Quicksilver. They are thrown on a helicopter and the mutant teens with altitude jump on the helicopter too. By the time the chopter is about to take off, Stryker flips a switch that dampens their mutant powers. If only Kurt teleported onto the chopter and immediately teleported them off, the rest of the film would have played out differently. Instead, some acting had to happen and everyone is now captive.
If you wanted the interview above, Jennifer Lawrence reveals that they were able to scale the makeup process way back. So now she is essentially wearing pantyhoes on her legs and arms. Which is unfortunately as whenever she is in knocked out, and in her natural blue form, you can see her white skin through the slits in the pantyhoes. Sort of takes me out of the film but I can see production trying to stay on Jennifer Lawrence’s good side. Mystique and Beast are both in their blue forms, now that they are taken captive.
Styrker has taken the mutants to Alkali Lake, a great connection to X2. Quicksilver wakes up and freaks out now that Beast is blue and Mystique is blue. He’s worried that he’s going to turn blue too – so funny! Plus, Kurt is blue so that’s a lot of blueness going around. The three teens, meanwhile, are running around the base, trying to go unnoticed by the troops – which doesn’t work.
Meanwhile, Apocalypse and the Horsemen have Xavier, back in Egypt. Apocalypse forces Xavier to send a message to everyone in the world – the dark days are coming. At some point, Apocalypse mentions how the world needs to be cleansed and it totally reminded me of Ra’s al Ghul’s speech about how the League of Assassins have been cleansing the world, for generations. Xavier, somehow sends Jean a side telepathic message – I’m not sure how that works. Apocalypse wants Xavier to finish the speech by stating “the strongest will survive” but instead, Xavier ends it by saying the strong need to protect the weak – which isn’t the same at all.
In the dampening cell, that still gets Xavier’s message – so I’m not sure how that works too. Quicksilver mentions to Mystique how Magneto is his father – no mention of the younger sister from the first film. Mystique is confused by the information and Quicksilver tries to explain to her where babies are made but she understood that part of his story.
Then we got to the actual scene that steals the film. Like Spider-Man in Captain America : Civil War, I knew this was coming but I also thought this was only going to be a minute but it was a full on scene. An awesome scene!
Jean senses a mutant, who is more machine than man –
Thanks to Tumblr user, hughjackmania for the above image.
The head gear is a pretty good attempt at the comic Weapon X by Barry Windsor-Smith –
but with the understanding that once Jackman agreed to be in the film, FOX wasn’t going to allow his face to be covered by a silly helmet.
The scene is awesome, as he slays into soldiers as he tries to escape. It really did remind me of the Wolverine Origins video game (that I still enjoyed) with him just mowing down fools. I was reminded of my own thought – of why did the soldiers keep coming at him? I would have just stopped and walked away. The teens keep following behind him.
This, of course, did not happened during Wolverine Origins, and I’m okay with this change (especially as I have to be) but it still lines up in my mind. Jean gives him back a few memories and he runs away in the snow, not naked. So Wolverine Origins can still happened. Except that Scott isn’t going to be a prisoner for Wolverine to be free about that is another slight change. That film can still work, maybe not with “Deadpool” at the end but another Weapon XI stand in. Also, that Patrick Stewart’s Xavier wouldn’t be at the end of that film, but James McAvoy’s but that works too, due to what Apocalypse does to Xavier.
Wolverine, has a crazy amount of hair on the back of his head, as the last we’ll see of him. My wife says it is due to being in that chamber for so long but I say it is due to being filming a movie that requires him to have long hair.
So once Weapon X is gone, I head to the bathroom so I missed like three minutes of the film.
I come back and the mutants are on a new plane. My wife said it was a Russian plane but I’m sure it must be Canadian as they were at Alkali Lake. So I’m not sure. I did see that Beast sees the flight suits and the X-Men get sweet suits!
I had forgotten that Moira got a suit even, as she stays in the plane during the final battle. The suits seem very flattering on the ladies
Egypt. We start the climax of the film. Apocalypse tells Magneto to start stripping the world of metal. He takes Xavier to the transfer plates so that Apocalypse can take Xavier’s body and powers.
In classic X-Men fashion, they split up. Beast, Scott, Jean and Kurt will go after Apocalypse. Mystique and Quicksilver go after Magneto.
Magneto was given a sweet new outfit too!
Quicksilver decides to not to tell Magneto that he is Magneto’s son – though I’m sure that would have had Magneto stop destroying monuments. The world is definitely going to be changed after this.
Storm and Cyclops fight, and it is awesome. I wish we stuck with these two for a bit. Psylocke seems to really beat Beast down and we are treated to Round Two of Kurt v Archangel.
Quicksilver tries to slow flight Apocalypse but he stops him in his tracks. That slow fight does look pretty great through. Psylocke is told to kill Quicksilver but it is really Mystique. Apocalypse grabs Mystique by the throat, as Storm watches.
Apocalypse made a comment about how he is linked to Xavier. Xavier knows this to be true and realizes that he has a connection to Apocalypse. It is at this time when I realize that we haven’t seen the scene where Xavier loses a fight with a giant Apocalypse in the mansion. Which we get the beginning of that fight. I do like Apocalypse showing off one of his known powers – the ability to grow – I was hoping a giant A would show up on his belt but that didn’t happened. Xavier puts up a decent fight but Apocalypse is clearly beating him. Xavier reaches out to Jean but she is super slow to coming to the rescue.
On the outside, we get a classic Claremont care bear stare moment as Magneto turns on Apocalypse as does Storm – so powers are coming at him. Cyclops starts blasting the dude, as well. Jean finally decides to help and goes all out Phoenix Force – which looks pretty incredible. I hope Singer gets his wish of properly adapting the Dark Phoenix Saga and having it be in space. That would be simply uncanny!
Apocalypse is dead, which makes sense as you can’t have Apocalypse just sitting somewhere, planning a second attempt. Psylocke walks away, silently.
For her thanks, Xavier gives Moira her memories back – which she is happy about but I hope she never drops that it was a dick move on his part. A clear time jump happens as Magneto and Jean are almost done rebuilding the school. Downstairs, Xavier tells Magneto that the world has already started rebuilding. Quicksilver has decided to not tell Magneto about his origins.
During Magneto’s decision making process, before he turn on Apocalypse, we got full clips from First Class – which was fun. I do like Xavier and Magneto together, they have great chemistry and moments together. They repeat the whole “what will you do when someone comes to this school looking for trouble” that I feel like has been done in X-Men 1 & 2 and again in First Class. Xavier has had to answer this question a few times to Magneto but I do love the answer every time.
Movie ends with Mystique giving a speech about how these peeps are the X-Men as we see they got sweet new official outfits –
I forgot to mention how during that Apocalypse fight, when he was going to take over Xavier’s body, it came at the price of Xavier’s hair! So that’s how he became bald.
The outfits do look pretty nice, I’m glad Kurt got some red on his and Cyclops got his visor. Mystique being in a white outfit is nice as well.
During the post credits scene, we see the janitors working on collecting the bullet shells fired from Weapon X’s escape. Which is a great detail, I could go for a Damage Control series. We see government officials open a cabinet and take some blood from Wolverine and put it in a briefcase.
A great way to tease both Mister Sinister and X23! I know when asked who he would play in a comic book movie, Bryan Cranston said “Mister Sinister” which if FOX could get him to sign a contract, they would go out of their way to make that film. It wouldn’t be great, unless it was a Mutant Massacre style film. Which could really work as a film.
This was a pretty good movie, I think the altered timeline could still make the other films work – until told otherwise.
Jackman has made all nine films, a record for an actor in a comic book movie franchise! I imagine Chris Evans is going to beat this record, with his brief appearance in Thor : Dark World, him or Robert Downey Jr. due to both Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man : Homecoming.
. . .
Thanks for these websites for keeping my memory of the film alive –
Special thanks to our friends, Tina & Damian for watching Walker Dennis for nearly four hours before we made it back to pick him up. Without them, we’ll never watch movies in the theater.
This film is an absolute blast!
We are going for full spoilers here.
In 1991, we see Winter Soldier being sent on a mission to kill two targets.
In Largos. The film puts the year and the countries’ names in giant white text, which feels like a bold choice. I really like how we first see Captain America leading his team of Avengers – Falcon, Black Widow and Wanda. They are chasing Crossbones and we see some great team dynamics. Everyone gets a moment to shine. Unfortunately, one of Wanda’s moments is that Crossbones tries to kill himself (and Cap) and she starts floating him to the sky. He doesn’t quite make it there and explodes, taking out an entire floor.. Seven Wakandans were in the building, and are now dead.
At MIT, Tony gives a speech and a demonstration of a new therapy tool. It lets you essentially have a holodeck session from Star Trek Next Generation. He relives a moment with his father (returning John Slattery) and his mother, played by the beautiful and elegant Hope Davis! I’ve liked Hope Davis ever since I saw Mumford – one of my all time favorite films! We see a young CGI Robert Downy Jr. that looks like it could have been from one of his earliest films. Though the scene lasts too long and I start thinking about how it is only slightly better than the face lifts that Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan received in X3. We get the first hints that Tony and Pepper are no longer a couple.
Jim Rash, of Community fame – who the Russo Brothers directed this film (and Winter Solider AND the next two Avengers films) also directed Rash in several episodes of Community.
General Ross, now the Secretary of Defense, has come to the Avengers Compound with news. I like how William Hurt came back to reprise his role. He is there to tell them about the Sokovia Accords. Cap is not a fan of the Accords. The UN is run by dudes, and dudes have agendas. What if they don’t approve of a mission that the Avengers really want to go on or are told to go on a mission that they don’t want to be involved with.
I’m not sure how anyone can be Team Tony but I’m definitely Team Cap, I was back in the original comic storyline and I’m still committed.
Vision makes a few good points but he’s wrong as he is on Team Tony. Vision makes an argument about escalation, buy does his best not to use that word as that is how Batman Begins ended with that incredible speech of Commissioner Gordon’s.
I do like Vision and Wanda together, I wish it had more romantic undertones, instead of me reading too much into their moments.
Him wearing that sweater is pretty great too.
If they don’t sign the Accords, those members will no longer be Avengers.
The character who will later be revealed to be Baron Zemo – played amazingly by Daniel Bruhl, torments a retired Russian general. I sort of recognize him from Inglourious Basterds, at least, I can visualize him from it. I need to watch Rush to see him with Chris Hemsworth. I’ve never seen this before but he hangs the general upside down, so that his head is in the sink. The sink continues to fill so that, ideally, the water will rise to the point that it goes above his nose. Seems like a truly gruesome way to torture someone and to die. He really wants to know where Winter Soldier was kept in 1991. Oh, we saw earlier that Winter Solider can be controlled by repeating 12 words in a certain sequence.
Cap gets a message that Peggy Carter died in her sleep. We go to LONDON for her funeral. We see the lovely Emily Vancamp from Winter Solider and ABC’s Revenge. She’s back as Sharon Carter. She recites the amazing speech from Amazing Spider-Man 537 –
Such a great speech and Emily really nails it. We can see that Cap likes her too, she’s Peggy’s niece.
We never see her wear this –
but bravo someone tricky her to get into this outfit and getting photographed.
Vancamp and Chris Evans have great chemistry together. There is a moment where the two kiss and Falcon & Winter Solider totally see it and give Cap thumbs up, like jerk best friends. We don’t get enough of this but whenever Falcon and Winter Solider are together, their rivalry is so fun to watch. They are both best friends of Steve’s and they know it and hate it.
Vision is alone with Wanda, she doesn’t know it yet but she’s not allowed to leave. She likes Vision and we can tell he likes her, but there isn’t enough romantic tension for my taste. Wanda is playing the role of Nitro in this but is then quickly forgotten about, for a sizeable chuck of the film. I guess that happened to Nitro too, in the first quarter, he was mentioned a bunch but then the story moves away from him and he’s forgotten. Outside of the Wolverine tie-in issues, of course.
VIENNA. The Accords are being signed by like 119 countries. We meet T’Chaka, the current King of Wakanda. So we know something horrible is going to happen to him. He seems very friendly. T’Challa is standing by a window and sees an oddly parked white van. The van explodes and T’Chaka dies. The world suspects that Winter Soldier was the cause of the explosion. Cap and Falcon go off to bring him in, ahead of the military and police. Black Widow tells them not to as they are not signed Avengers.
T’Challa is played by Chadwick Boseman who was Jackie Robinson in 42. A film I still need to watch. I know him from a nonhit NBC show, Persons Unknown, that we watched on Hulu or Netflix, years later and I still think about to this day, like three years later. He was also on Lincoln Heights, a show my wife started watching, as she watched nearly everything on ABC Family but not so much now that it is Free Foam. At first, T’Challa is bad arse but it isn’t until the final scenes of the film when I became all about Black Panther. I do like the character, especially written by Christopher Priest and his “Sturm und Drang,” Black Panther Volume Three Issues 26 – 29. Such a great storyline that involves all of the Kings of Marvel – Black Panther, Magneto, Namor and Doctor Doom. So great!
We are introduced to Everett Ross, played by Martin Freeman, Bilbo Baggins from the Hobbit films. I wish we got a scene with Everett Ross and T’Challa, that would have been fun for this Christopher Priest fan. I really need to watch BBC’s Sherlock, especially now that Freeman (Watson) and Benedict Cumberpatch (Sherlock) are now in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Also, Doctor Who’s Steven Moffat is heavily involved in the series. Plus, the seasons are way short so I should be able to do so. I’m working my way through X-Men Evolution Season Two (expect to see that post one of these days) and the OC (a show I’ve been wanting to watch for a long time and Hulu now has) then maybe I can watch Sherlock then. If my wife doesn’t want to watch it as well. We like Elementary so she might want to see Sherlock, same characters but that’s all they have in common.
The chase sequence with Winter Solider being chased by Captain America, who is being chased by Black Panther who is being followed by Falcon, is so great! Black Panther, in action, is a real treat to see. That stairway sequence that starts it, and how Cap doesn’t want to fight the German police but he has to protect his friend Bucky, is so much fun.
BERLIN. Cap and Tony are arguing about what to do. Zemo reads the twelve words and now the Winter Soldier is his. I like how Cap and Tony are about to reach an agreement but Tony says one wrong thing and Cap backs out of the deal. Tony’s dad mentioned a bunch over the years, how he knew Captain America, in his younger days. The government has taken Cap and Falcon’s equipment. Steve chases Winter Solider and has this great moment, on the roof, when he grabs a rail and the helicopter that Winter Solider is using to escape and Steve actually prevents the helicopter from taking off. He’s so strong!
Bucky, finally under his own control, reveals that Zemo wants the other five would-be Winter Soldiers.
We begin the sequence of heroes recruiting heroes to fight their friends.
Sharon Carter gives back Cap and Falcon’s weapons. Cap recruits Hawkeye, who recruits Wanda. She takes out Vision, at the Avengers Compound. Hawkeye also recruits Scott Lang, Ant-Man and Paul Rudd’s first minutes are instantly classic. The film really takes a depature here as we lead up to one of the best scenes in a film, possibly ever. We’ll get to that in a few paragraphs. Ant-Man shakes Captain America’s hand, way to long. Lots of jokes here and I want another Ant-Man film, so quickly.
Meanwhile, Natasha and Tony chat. She wants to recruit Black Panther and Tony wants to recruit someone else. QUEENS. In a very small apartment, we see Marisa Tomei as Aunt May. I honestly thought we weren’t going to see the character outside of the airport scene so this entire scene (and how long it lasted) was a very pleasant surprise. We of course, meet Tom Holland, the third actor to play Peter Parker, in fifteen years. He sort of looks like a young Tobey Maguire – they both have wide faces. Maybe I’m crazy.
Turns out, RDJ and Tomei dated back in their early acting days. Both were together for films “Only You” and “Chaplin” which I’ve seen the second one but don’t quite remember Tomei being in it. I’ve liked Marisa Tomei but when I look at her films, I haven’t seen that many of them so I’m not sure where I really like her from. I didn’t care for My Cousin Vinny, not when it came out (I was too young) and I couldn’t get into it a few years ago either. Too much that Joe Pesci, I like mine a little more controlled like in JFK or in smaller doses like in the Lethal Weapon films. What Women Want, The Guru and Anger Management, I’ve seen her in, not large parts but she’s the aspect in those films. I don’t quite remember her from both Wild Hogs or Loverboy but I’ve seen those. She was interesting in Lincoln Lawyer, a film I couldn’t get into. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a good film, while she’s on screen. She was great in Crazy, Stupid, Love. I still want to watch the Wrestler. She had a small part in the great, The Big Short, film too.
Tom Holland is a new face to me, he’s great as Peter Parker and sign me up for that upcoming Marvel / Sony Spider-Man film. He tries his best to not repeat “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility” when Tony asks him why he fights the good fight. Have to save that for his solo film, I suppose. I like how small their apartment is and how Peter had to build everything he wanted. Tony has great chemistry with Peter too, I’m glad RDJ is signed on for Spider-Man : Homecoming. I imagine at some point, that film will have a dancing scene in it.
The Airport Scene. So many great scenes leading up to this and out of this but this scene, I just want to watch again, if that’s possible without spending twenty dollars.
Thanks to Tumblr user, ageofsuperheroes, for the following images.
We get Team Cap –
vs Team Tony –
Plenty of images of Team Cap but it was so hard to find an image of Team Tony, I imagine due to Spider-Man.
It really is a great costume redesign –
I really like how they kept the white eyes, that’s crucial ever since Amazing Spider-Man did it right. I like the bold reds and the blues and how separate they look. I know there are smaller details that might bug me but overall, it is a costume I can approve of. I’m hoping that we don’t get too much of the make-shift outfit in his own film – I”m also hoping we don’t get an hour of origin story either – and so his solo film takes place 30 minutes before Civil War and the rest of his film takes place after the film.
We get some great matchups here. Spider-Man gets plenty of time to banter. Falcon has to tell him to stop at some point. Ant-Man gets flung from one of Hawkeye’s arrows into Iron Man’s suit. Black Widow fights Hawkeye. Black Panther gets to fight Winter Soldier. Falcon v War Machine. Ant-Man turns into Giant-Man, as there is an ant in every giant. That’s a WordWorld reference for you folks that don’t young children.
Thanks to YouTuber Abdoukarim Bonitzer for hosting that video!
Vision phases through Giant-Man, and Scott Lang freaks the heck out. I wish Kitty got to fight this much, like Vision does, in the X-Men films.
Captain America and Winter Solider steal the Avengers Quinjet, after Black Widow lets them do it. In the chase, Vision misses Falcon and hits War Machine, knocking him out of the sky. Poor Rhodey is nearly crippled by this action. Tony is sad that his friend is hurt.
I kept waiting for this meme to take place in the film, but that would have been too much fun in a film that is already pretty fun.
Black Widow knows she’s going to be in trouble and leaves. Spider-Man’s mask is lifted, providing a reason to have Holland on set, as he clearly could have been CGI-ed up to that last part, but clearly he was present as he has such a presence.
Bucky tells Cap, in the Quinjet, that he remembers all of his kills.
Tony, in his own jet – and this reminds me that I do sort of like Iron Man’s new armor. Mostly red with yellow highlights. He learns that Bucky was set up and that it was Zemo, dressed as Bucky, that blew up the United Nations. Tony goes to The Raft, where Hawkeye, Ant-Man, Wanda and Falcon are being kept prisoner. Falcon reveals where Cap and Bucky went but only if Tony promises to go there as a friend and ally. Tony is all committed to this. Which I have to remember that we have yet to get the Cap/Bucky shield fight with Iron Man, which I can’t imagine how they get to that point. When they do, it is spectacular!
All the heroes, including Black Panther following Iron Man in a jet, make it to the snow base that Zemo has been trying to get all movie long. He killed the five would-be Winter Soldiers, he never wanted them. Behind a glass plated door, he starts a devastating film. We see the beginning of the tape from the beginning of the film, but now we see who Winter Soldier killed. Winter Soldier straight up killed Tony’s parents! Including Hope Davis!
If Cap was a good friend, he would let Tony beat on Bucky for like ten minutes and then break up the fight. Tony realizes that Bucky was under mind controlled but Winter Solider killed his mother so a beating must be thrown down.
Zemo, not a German (which is a real shame) is from Sokovia and has been listening to voicemails throughout the film of his wife about their son. They died, and by the time he got back to his family (he was on a mission) the Avengers were gone and his father were holding Zemo’s wife and son’s dead bodies. He thought they were safe living so far out of the city but since the entire country was air lifted, no one was safe. Zemo wanted to take the Avengers out from within. Which may not have completely worked but the Avengers have definitely said and done things that no one will be forgetting anytime soon.
Since Cap won’t let a rightful beating happen, he prolongs the fight by getting involved. At the end, Tony wants his dad’s invented shield back and Cap drops it. Iron Man took off Winter Soldier’s cybernetic arm.
Zemo is about to kill himself but Black Panther stops him and it is this moment that I really dig the character. His fight was never with Bucky so he changes to the proper target. Something Tony tried to do but his mother’s murderer is standing in front of him so justice must be beaten out.
Everett Ross has Zemo (who I also wish had some sort of purple fabric on) in the same prison cell that Winter Solider was in earlier. Zemo’s plans may have been stopped but he hints that he may have additional plans that are still playing out.
At the Avengers Compound, Tony got Rhodes some cybernetic leg braces. Stan Lee, as a FedEx carrier, asks Tony if he is “Tony Stank” which I and Rhodes enjoys. In the box, is an old school phone from Steve and a letter. Whenever Tony needs these (Secret) Avengers (that’s what I’m calling Cap’s team, in my mind) they will be there. As Cap is breaking out the Avengers from The Raft.
Credits start to roll and we get the mid-credit sequence wherein Black Panther agrees to put Bucky on ice until they can find that red Russian notebook with the twelve words. Cap’s cool with it but it seems an odd choice.
So then two minutes of credits and I have to use the bathroom so we missed the after credits scene.
Thanks to YouTuber Closery for hosting this video so that I could pee with peace of mind This would have been fun to have seen in proper quality and sound.
I forgot how Spider-Man and Cap shared that fun exchange about Queens / Brooklyn, that was a nice touch. Spider-Man also got to make a Empire Strikes Back reference too.
This was such a great film, lots of humor and great characterization. Everyone got a moment to shine and clearly the Russos know how to handle this many characters so we don’t have to fear for the space Avengers films.
I believe that captures all of my thoughts on the film. I’m not sure if I’ll get to watch X-Men Apocalypse, but who knows at this point.
As a Kitty Pryde fan, I don’t own many movies that I’m embarrassed by. She doesn’t get referenced in too many non-X-Men films. There is 25th Hour and then there’s 2008’s Superhero Movie. Which was one of those parody movies. This one uses mostly the first Spider-Man film for inspiration. The best scene of the movie is when the main character, Dragonfly, goes to the Xavier School for the (Non-Asian) Gifted.
The Kitty and the Kitty wannabe happens at the 0:22 through :028 mark.
Thanks to YouTuber Movieclips for hosting the video! I did not think it was going to be on YouTube at all. Now, if I can only find that Edward Norton talking about his desire to walk through walls like that character from the X-Men.
If I remember correctly, Superhero Movie, wasn’t that bad, it may be one of the better parody films. Disaster Movie has a fun Batman cameo, so I will count that one as one of the better ones as well.