Entertainment It’s Almost summer blockbuster season!
Entertainment
It’s Almost summer blockbuster season!
- Details
- Published on Friday, 11 April 2014 00:00
- Written by Tim Wyman
A fter the seemingly never-ending winter of polar vortexes and temperatures that have caused polar bears to give thought about moving south, the initial signs of winter’s end are upon us.
Snow is melting. Birds are returning from wherever it is they take refuge. And Peoria potholes are destroying tire rims at a breakneck pace. Soon we will be sharing pitchers of margaritas around the pool, grilling hamburgers and enjoying warm, clear nights while a baseball game soothes in the background.
The return of warmth to the earth means one other thing — the return of the Hollywood movie blockbuster season.
The time between Memorial Day and Labor Day is more than just the traditional grilling season. It also means that Hollywood has a lineup of movies ready for us that showcase its biggest stars, boast $150 million production budgets, and offer loud, sit-you-back, visually thrilling, and jaw-dropping scenes guaranteed to delight even the most cynical of moviegoers.
This year is a little different, too. In Hollywood’s never-ending pursuit of the almighty dollar, this year’s blockbuster season starts earlier than ever before.
Already in early March, we saw the sequel to “300” and by month’s end, we will see the epic “Noah,” based upon (yeah, really) that story from the bible. Starring Russell Crowe as the titular character and Jennifer Connelly, perhaps now we will find out what really happened to the unicorns and how Noah handled all that dung. This $130 million epic is offered in the same vein as a 1960s “Ten Commandments” so let us hope that the writing is good and that Crowe has not picked another bad script to lend his considerable talent.
Then almost immediately in April, Disney/Marvel releases “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” with the same cast as typically replete in these Marvel movies that have inundated the last few summer seasons. Supposedly, the plot harkens back to the 1970s spy thriller genre, so there is hope that this could be an interesting film beyond the CGI. And Scarlett Johansson is back as the Black Widow, so, really, what more does it need?
One of the most eagerly awaited shows for this summer will be “Transcendence,” released on April 18. Directed by Wally Pfister, the guy who was cinematographer for the “Dark Knight” trilogy, this film stars Johnny Depp and Rebecca Hall in a sci-fi story about a computer scientist who is studying the human brain and after some sort of immediate issue, must upload his own mind to the computer. Whether he becomes a 2014 HAL is unclear, but with Christopher Nolan as a producer and supporting stars such as Cillian Murphy and Morgan Freeman, this is one that offers hope for being pretty good.
Then, the first week of May brings us the sequel to the very nice reboot of our favorite man-arachnid with “The Amazing Spiderman 2.” Now, I will grant you that “Amazing:1” was an exceptional movie and Andrew Garfield was outstanding as the titular character (what is more remarkable is Garfield’s lack of visibility since), but this sequel could easily slide down the path of last year’s “Pacific Rim” — pretty packaging and little substance. Its most redeeming element is that the supporting cast of Paul Giamatti, Jamie Foxx, and Chris Cooper are among the very best actors of their generation and they usually do not pick bad scripts. This one looks like it will be fun.
May will bring at least the 362nd Hollywood remake of “Godzilla.” Starring relative newcomer Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, and “Breaking Bad” hero Bryan Cranston, there is initial hope that this CGI epic may offer more than the “Pacific Rim”s of the world. This time, Godzilla goes all Tokyo on San Francisco and there is no need explain how the plot works out (is there?), but the preview gives us hope there is an actual story behind the two hours it will take to kill the big lizard. Let us hope that an actor of Cranston’s considerable ability picked this film for the script and not the payday. And all this before Memorial Day.
Unfortunately, the middle of the summer promises a lot of sequels, primarily to rebooted franchises. Before Labor Day, we will see another “X-Men,” “Jump Street,” “Transformers,” “Resident Evil,” and “Planet of the Apes.”
In the middle of all that there are some films that hold some significant promise. At the end of May we will be treated to Seth MacFarlane’s follow-up to “Ted” with the live-action comedy, “A Million Ways to Die in the West.” There are sure to be obvious comparisons to “Blazing Saddles” and MacFarlane is certainly no Mel Brooks, but he is still an extremely talented and funny man.
The biggest gamble of the summer is the second Disney/Marvel movie of 2014, “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which will be released in August. IMDb describes the plot, “in the far reaches of space.
An American pilot named Peter Quill finds himself the object of a manhunt after stealing an orb coveted by the villainous Ronan.” Um, yeah. Bradley Cooper is voicing the supporting character, a large humanoid-like raccoon, so this film has a chance to be wildly bad, but with Vin Diesel voicing another supporting character what could really go wrong?
Really, the biggest and most awaited films of 2014 will appear at the end of the year when we see the final installments of “Hunger Games” (which surprise me every time by being actually better than one would think) and “The Hobbit” (meh).
Christopher Nolan, he-who-is-exceedingly-talented (I’m serious), will release his first directorial/original film this year since “The Dark Knight Rises” with a sci-fi epic titled “Interstellar.” Written by Nolan as well, this film follows a group of scientists who leave Earth through a worm-hole in order to save it from climate change.
Starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, and a litany of other exceptional character actors, this is the film that should sit in the middle of the July 4th weekend.
Unfortunately, we will have to wait until a grey weekend in November.
However, there are plenty of loud, teeth-rattling CGI effects waiting for us in store this summer. Or as I like to title it — the Summer of Sequels to Reboots. As spring springs eternal hope, there is a lot to give us hope that this summer could be better than most. Enjoy. And cross your fingers.
