2015: Hopes

 

The Water Diviner

Russell Crowe makes his directorial debut with a timely WWI tale about the formative trauma for the Antipodes of the slaughter of the ANZAC in Turkey. TV writer/producers Andrew Knight and Andrew Anastasios provide the screenplay, which is a step away from their usual crime caper comfort zones, in which Crowe travels to Gallipoli in search of his three missing sons in 1919. He is aided in this likely fool’s errand by Istanbul hotel manager Olga Kurylenko and official Yilmaz Erdogan, while familiar Australian faces like Damon Herriman, Isabel Lucas and Jai Courtney round out the cast.

 

Chappie

Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver are career criminals who kidnap the titular character and raise him as their own adopted son – but he’s a robot! Yeah… This peculiar feature is definitely a change of pace for writer/director Neill Blomkamp but it’s not clear from his first two features District 9 and Elysium whether he has the chops for a smart sci-fi crime comedy mash-up. District 9 was a gore-fest with a hysterically muddled message about apartheid, while Elysium was an embarrassing, illogical call to arms for Obamacare. Jackman’s been on a bit of a roll though so fingers crossed.

 

The Gunman

March 20^th sees Sean Penn attempts a Liam Neeson do-over by teaming up with Taken director Pierre Morel for a tale of a former special forces operative who wants to retire with his lover, only for his military contractor bosses to stomp on his plan; forcing him to go on the run. The lover in question is Italian actress Jasmin Trinca, while the organisation and its enemies have an unusually classy cast: Idris Elba, Javier Bardem, Mark Rylance, and Ray Winstone. Morel will undoubtedly joyously orchestrate mayhem in London and Barcelona, but can he make Penn lighten up?

 

Furious 7

The death of Paul Walker delayed his final film. Following the death of Han, Dom Torreto (Vin Diesel) and his gang (Walker, Jordana Brewster, Ludacris, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Dwayne Johnson) seek revenge against Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham as the brother of Fast 6’s villain). Chris Morgan pens his third successive Furious screenplay but, apart from dubious additions like Ronda Rousey and Iggy Azalea to the cast, the main concern is how director James Wan (The Conjuring) will rise to the challenge of replacing Justin Lin. Wan can direct horror but how will he handle Tony Jaa’s chaos?

John Wick

April 10^th sees the belated release of Keanu Reeves’ acclaimed low-fi action movie in which his sweater-loving retired hit-man wreaks havoc after his dog is killed; it being his last link to his dead wife for whom he’d quit the underworld. M:I-4 villain Michael Nyqvist is the head of the Russian mob who soon discovers his son Alfie Allen has accidentally unleashed a rampage and a half. Chad Stahelski, Reeves’ stunt double on The Matrix, directs with a welcome emphasis on fight choreography and takes long enough to make the action between Reeves and Adrianne Palicki’s assassin comprehensible.

 

Mad Max: Fury Road

Well here’s an odd one and no mistake. Original director George Miller returns to the franchise after thirty years, co-writing with comics artist Brendan McCarthy and Mad Max actor Nick Lathouris. Max Rockatansky is now played by Tom Hardy channelling his inner Mel Gibson, roaring around the post-apocalyptic Australian Outback with Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult. This does look like Mad Max 2, but it’s not a remake; merely an excuse to do Mad Max 2 like sequences of vehicular mayhem but with a huge budget for the mostly practical effects, and some CGI sandstorm silliness.

Jurassic World

Jurassic World opens its gates in June, boasting an all-new attraction: super-dinosaur Indominus Rex, designed to revive flagging interest in the franchise park. From the trailer it appears that in reviving this franchise new hero Chris Pratt has combined the personae of past stars Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill. Bryce Dallas Howard meanwhile takes over Richard Attenborough’s presiding over disaster with the best of intentions gig. Apparently there will be some animatronic dinosaurs, but the swooping CGI shots of the functioning park emphasise how far blockbuster visuals have come since Spielberg grounded his digital VFX with full-scale models.

 

Mission: Impossible 5

July sees Tom Cruise return as Ethan Hunt for more quality popcorn as Christopher McQuarrie makes a quantum directorial leap from Jack Reacher. Paula Patton is replaced by Rebecca Ferguson, but Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, and Ving Rhames all return, as do Robert Elswit as cinematographer and JJ Abrams as producer. The trademark stunt this time appears to be Tom Cruise hanging onto the side of a flying cargo plane, the villain is possibly Alec Baldwin’s character, and the screenplay is by a curious combo of Iron Man 3’s Drew Pearce and video game writer Will Staples.

St James Place

October 9^th sees the release of something of an unusual dream team: Steven Spielberg directs a Coen Brother script with Tom Hanks in the lead. Hanks plays James Donovan, a lawyer recruited by the CIA to work with the Russian and American embassies in London in 1961 after Gary Powers’ U2 spy plane is shot down. The Company hope to secretly negotiate a release for the pilot, and keep all operations at arms’ length from DC to maintain plausible deniability. Amy Ryan, Mark Rylance, Alan Alda, and Eve Hewson round out the impressive cast of this drama.

 

Crimson Peak

October 16^th sees Guillermo del Toro reunite with Mimic scribe Matthew Robbins. Their screenplay with Lucinda Coxon (Wild Target) sees young author Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) travel to the titular mansion of a mysterious man, who lives in seclusion in the mountains. Apparently del Toro has outdone himself with the production design of the mansion’s interior. The cast includes Supernatural’s Jim Beaver as Wasikowska’s father (!!!), Tom Hiddleston, Doug Jones, Charlie Hunnam, and the inevitable Jessica Chastain. But can del Toro, who’s not had it easy lately (The Strain), deliver a romantic ghost story mixed with Gothic horror?

 

Spectre

The latest Bond film will be released on November 6^th. In a hilarious reversal of prestige John Logan’s screenplay was overhauled by perennial rewrite victims and action purveyors Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. Sam Mendes returns to direct as Daniel Craig’s 007 investigates the titular shadowy organisation, which makes a most welcome return after decades of lawsuits. Christoph Waltz may be Blofeld, Daniel Bautista is definitely his henchmen, Lea Seydoux and Monica Belluci are Bond girls, and charmingly Jesper Christensen’s Mr White links Paul Haggis’ Solace and Spectre. And Andrew Scott joins the cast! Perhaps Moriarty’s a Spectre operative.

 

Mr Holmes

Writer/director Bill Condon has been on quite a losing streak (Breaking Dawn: I & II, The Fifth Estate). So he’s reteamed with his Gods & Monsters star Ian McKellen for another period piece. Adapted by playwright Jeffrey Hatcher (Stage Beauty) from Tideland novelist Mitch Cullin’s work, this finds a 93 year old Holmes living in retirement in Sussex in the 1940s troubled by a failing memory and an unsolved case. Condon reunites with Kinsey’s Laura Linney, and intriguingly has cast Sunshine’s Hiroyuki Sanada, but this will be closer to ‘His Last Bow’ or Michael Chabon’s retired Holmes pastiche?

Mockingjay: Part II

All good things come to an end, and Jennifer Lawrence’s duel with Donald Sutherland’s President Snow reaches its climax in November with what director Francis Lawrence considers the most violent movie of the quadrilogy. Familiar TV faces join the cast, with Game of Thrones’ Gwendolen Christie as Commander Lyme and Prison Break’s Robert Knepper as Antonius, and Philip Seymour Hoffman takes his posthumous bow as Plutarch Heavensbee. The last movie shook up the dynamic of these movies with a propaganda war, so it will be interesting to see how Lawrence stages an all-out rebellion against the Capitol.

 

Macbeth

Arriving sometime towards the end of year is Australian director Justin Kurzel’s version of the Scottish play starring Michael Fassbender as Macbeth and Marion Cotillard as Lady Macbeth. That pairing enough is reason to be excited, but we’ll also get Paddy Considine as Banquo, Elizabeth Debicki as Lady Macduff, David Thewlis as Duncan, and Jack Reynor as Malcolm. Not to mention that Kurzel directed The Snowtown Murders and his DP Adam Arkapaw shot True Detective. Hopes must be high therefore that this will be both visually striking and emotionally chilling in its depiction of Macbeth’s descent into bloody madness.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The movie event of 2015 arrives on December 18^th. The original heroes (Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford) and their sidekicks (Peter Mayhew, Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels) will all be making a welcome return after the passionless prequel protagonists. Director JJ Abrams has also cast a number of rising stars (Domhnall Gleeson, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Gwendolen Christie, Lupita Nyong’o, Oscar Isaac) and a total unknown (Daisy Ridley – allegedly the protagonist!) The trailer seemed to indicate that this trilogy might actually be some fun, but Super 8 showed that fan-boys sometimes forget to bring originality.

2013: Fears

Cloud Atlas

David Mitchell’s 2004 novel is one of the most bafflingly over-rated books of  the last decade. Six novellas stitched together, and wanting a medal for  referencing their own sub-Stoppardian structuring, it comprises pastiches of  Golding/Melville, Huxley/Isherwood, 1970s Pakula, Amis, and even The Matrix; small wonder then that it’s the  Wachowskis who’ve filmed it with co-writer/director Tom Twyker. But they’ve  added another layer of inanity, not since Zelig have people played other races so  ridiculously. February 22^nd sees Halle Berry, Tom Hanks, Jim  Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, and Ben Whishaw being racially insensitive in the  service of a misguided interpretation of the novel as in thrall to  metempsychosis rather than meta-textuality.

 

Oz: The Great and Powerful

James Franco achieves every stoner’s dream when listening to a certain  synched Pink Floyd album and floats his way to Oz. Or rather to a greenscreen  warehouse where Sam Raimi promised he’d CGI Oz in around his roguish Kansas  magician later. The rights to Baum’s novels are out of copyright but don’t  expect to see any innovations made in the classic 1939 film because it’s not out  of copyright. Raimi’s not directed anything truly impressive in ages but his  witches are quite a triumvirate: Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams, and Rachel  Weisz. Incidentally did you know that Wicked is coming to Dublin in November? Go see Wicked…

 

The Host

Saoirse Ronan has been on a bad run of giving performances better than the  film that houses them, and this looks like another example. In Time auteur Andrew Niccol adapts and  directs the latest Stephenie Meyer franchise. Ronan is Melanie Stryder, whose  body has been claimed by an alien but whose mind resists the parasite. Liam  Hemsworth is her love interest and William Hurt and Diane Kruger are Melanie’s  relatives put on the spot by her reappearance. On March 29^th we’ll  find out if Niccol has managed to find a method to convey the struggle of two  minds in one body that is any way, shape, or form visual.

 

Gatsby

I venerate F Scott Fitzgerald’s  masterpiece, and the trailers of Baz Lurhmann’s suspiciously postponed splashy  film bespeak a totally disastrous adaptation. Leonardo DiCaprio is a good choice  to play the enigmatic titular old sport, as is Joel Edgerton as his  nemesis Tom Buchanan, but the blanker-than-thou Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway  may narrate us all into a coma, while Carey Mulligan has the eternally thankless  role of Daisy. Lurhmann has a remarkable inability to handle subtlety; Gatsby is not about swooping thru raucous  parties and zeroing in on high camp comedy scenes. And as for the delay, ‘allegedly’ for a Jay-Z score; Aliens  was scored in less than a fortnight…

 

The Hangover: Part III

May sees the latest instalment of the inexplicable comedy franchise spawned  by a crude film with a handful of good gags and a not nearly as clever structure  as it thought it had. Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis this time  head to Mexico. So, more racist stereotypes, idiotic cameos, and crass humour.  But at least a different plot as we’re promised a character death… The Hangover is largely responsible for making  Galifianakis a star, and, given how dispensable he is from Bored to Death say, that’s an awful lot to set  against getting Cooper in the position where he could star in Silver Linings Playbook.

 

Man of Steel

On June 14^th 300 director  Zack Snyder will unveil his first PG-13 film deliberately scripted as such.  Russell Crowe as Jor-El, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Laurence Fishburne as Perry  White, Diane Lane and Kevin Costner as Martha and Jonathan Kent are all solid  casting choices, while Michael Shannon as General Zod is truly inspired. Against  that Henry Cavill as Superman is a gamble. The first non-American to don the  cape, he’ll struggle unless David S Goyer’s script eschews angst and that  doesn’t seem likely. Maybe this’ll be the origin story we didn’t know we needed,  but trying to Nolanise such an optimistic character seems like a folly.

 

World War Z

June 21^st finally sees Brad Pitt’s UN worker try to prevent a  global zombie epidemic in an adaptation of the seminal Max Brooks novel by  Matthew Michael Carnahan, writer of the inert Lions for Lambs. The studio ordered massive  reshoots and the third act was rewritten by Drew Goddard so we’ll see if that  and the presence of Matthew Fox and David Morse can save proceedings. Director  Marc Foster was handpicked by Pitt, but reports have it that they ended up  communicating only by messages to a studio executive; perhaps because of small  mishaps like how production started before there was an agreed make-up design  for the zombies.

 

Pacific Rim

Guillermo Del Toro hasn’t made a film since 2008’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Talking Movies was rather hoping he’d never  make another one, and just stick to writing novels with Chuck Hogan, but  somebody has relented and financed a giant aliens versus men in giant robots  blockbuster. So, the last 5 minutes of Aliens but supersized and with bad CGI instead  of great VFX… Oh, and clockwork. It’s great to see Rinko Kikuchi’s stellar  turn in The Brothers Bloom rewarded with  a leading role opposite Charlie Hunnam as the mind-melding pilots fighting the  Kaiju water monsters in IMAX 3-D, but, even with Clifton Collins Jr, can this  work?

 

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

This film should have been released last  year but was pushed to this year (in one of the funniest stunts ever pulled by a  major studio) because Channing Tatum had some major hits just before its release and so they  wanted to do some reshoots, as he died in the first act. So a Superbowl ad,  warehouses full of toys, and Jon Chu’s original directorial vision be damned!  Here comes a completely different G.I. Joe:  Retaliation in which The Rock, Bruce Willis and Adrianne Palicki tackle  Cobra’s evil Jonathan Pryce, Arnold Vosloo, Lee Byung-Hun, and Ray Park in a  script from Zombieland’s writers – now  with added Tatum!

 

The Lone  Ranger

Pirates of the Caribbean shipmates  Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp lurch aboard a tremendously over-budget  revisionist take on the Lone Ranger character. It has the same release slot as  the first POTC, August 9^th,  but the self-indulgence involved in this movie’s budgeting farces makes you  think it’s more of a POTC 3 endeavour.  Armie Hammer is the masked avenger who’ll be playing second fiddle to Depp’s  super-authentic Native American tracker Tonto.  Helena Bonham Carter also  appears, even though Tim Burton is not directing. Mind you, Verbinski does share  some traits with Burton; he also gets fixated on quirkiness and loses sight of  his story and his bland heroes.

 

Elysium

August sees District 9 writer/director Neill Blomkamp make  his Hollywood debut with a sci-fi that pits the 1% in the shape of Jodie Foster  against the 99% in the shape of a bald Matt Damon. Blomkamp’s South African  colleague Sharlto Copley is also in the cast as is I Am Legend’s Alice Braga. This is set in a  2159 world where the poor live in overcrowded slums on Earth while the rich  orbit above in an immaculate spaceship. The concept sounds not dissimilar in  feel to the Total Recall remake. But  that could be because this film’s been much delayed by reshoots and  rescheduling; which might suggest grave studio concerns.

 

Gravity

Alfonso Cuaron hasn’t made a film  since 2006’s Children of Men, perhaps  because he’s returning in October with another film which is more about its own  shooting style than anything else. It’s in 3-D, it’s incredibly CGI heavy as it  tries to grasp weightlessness, and the opening sequence is shot in one  continuous silent 17 minute take. Sandra Bullock stars, with support from George  Clooney, as astronauts who survive a catastrophic incident aboard a space  station and have to find a way to return to Earth. Every actress in Hollywood  seems to have been interested in this script, but not to the point of committing  to it; which raises suspicions…

 

The  Counsellor

The 2000s were marred by two notable  co-dependencies; Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott;  which hurt all involved. Let us hope that poor Michael Fassbender is not  getting sucked into the sinkhole that sunk Crowe’s leading man career as he  reunites with his Prometheus director  Scott for a drama about a lawyer getting in too deep with his drug-trafficking  clients. The cast includes Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz, Breaking Bad’s Dean Norris, logically enough,  and Javier Bardem, also logically enough; as this is No County for Old Men novelist Cormac  MacCarthy’s first original screenplay. Expect terse dialogue, stark amorality,  brutal violence and no catharsis.