With snow still piled up outside and cold days that just won’t let go, one thing we can all agree on is that even though the weather is cold now, this upcoming movie season will be really hot. I personally cannot wait to get in line for many of these movies. While most years barely have ten movies worth watching I had to add two more spots to make the twelve most anticipated movies of this upcoming 2014 movie season.
These movies are in order of release, because I don’t know which one I want to see the most. This movie season seems to be front loaded, meaning that movie companies are trying to release their creations earlier in the season. Last summer the best grossing movies like The Great Gatsby, Ironman 3, and Fast and Furious 6, all were released before the typical Memorial Day summer movie season kick off. This year the movies are coming out even earlier. The way this season is going, there will still be snow on the ground when the summer movies are being released.
On April 4, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, will kick off the season (at least for me). This is the sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger, which came out in July, 2011. Steve Rogers, Captain America’s secret identity will continue to struggle to fit into the modern world. (He fought in World War II and was frozen, only to be awakened in modern times.) In this film he will battle a new threat also from history, a Soviet super soldier and agent known only as the Winter Soldier.
Also, Robert Redford, is playing Alexander Pierce, an arms manufacturer, who is rumored to be Cap’s arch nemesis, The Red Skull, incognito. (I hope I didn’t spoil it for you.) This should prove to be a great summer blockbuster in the great tradition of the other Marvel films, and should also bring us one step closer to the next Avengers movie, The Age of Ultron. Be sure to stay in your seats to see the extra scene at the end of the credits, and it is also fun to see where Stan Lee will show up in a cameo appearance.
Two weeks after the dust settles from the Captain America release, Johnny Depp stars in Transcendence. In this science fiction thriller, directed by Wally Pfister, Depp plays a terminally ill genius scientist, who figures out how to transfer his mind into a computer. Leaving his physical body behind gives him power beyond his wildest dreams, and becomes unstoppable (until he uses all the data on his plan). This film also stars Rebecca Hall, who was in The Town, and most recently as the biologist Maya Hanson in Ironman 3, and Morgan Freeman, who was last seen (or rather heard) as the voice of Vitruvious in The Lego Movie. Since Johnny Depp has stated that he is retiring this might be the last time we get to see Depp in a strange film costume. This movie might be worth seeing just for that reason alone.
The summer movie season continues on May 2, with another Marvel super hero sequel, The Amazing Spiderman 2. Andrew Garfield revives his role as Spiderman, and takes on a variety of super-villains created by Oscorp. Marc Webb will direct this sequel, since he did such a good job on the first movie. Emma Stone will return as Gwen Stacy, and Sallie Fields will return as Spiderman’s mom. The new bad guys are played by Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon (Electro) and Paul Giamatti as Aleksei Sytsevich (The Rhino). They are led by Harry Osborn, who is also Spiderman’s memesis, The Green Goblin, being played by Dane DeHaan. The ridiculous action and special effects will truly get the blockbuster season off to a great start.
The pace of the summer movie rollout increases with three movies being released once per week. The first promises to be one of the great action films of the year. Godzilla will eat, smash and destroy New York on May 16. The world’s favorite giant radioactive monster is the first blockbuster style movie for director Gareth Edwards. But the trailer looks incredible and the film has a much more serious feel about it than all previous attempts at having a giant lizard wreak destruction on the city. The most noteworthy actor is Bryan Cranston, fresh off of the small screen as the star of Breaking Bad. This certainly looks like the most ambitious Godzilla film yet.
Following just one week after is X-Men: Days of Future Past. Based off of a lesser known comic this film adaptation will link the old and new casts in a time twisting plot. Doctor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) sends Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to the past in a desperate effort to change history and prevent an event that will result in catastrophic demise for both humans and mutants. The greatest challenge for this film is that there are just so many characters. A shortcoming of past X-Men films has been that many characters are left undeveloped. However, director Bryan Singer should be up to the task of keeping everyone interesting.
The month of May is closed with a Disney film, Maleficent, being released on the 30th. This Disney live action film is starring Angelina Jolie who plays the villainous Maleficent, hardened by events that drive her to curse the beautiful Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning). Directed by Robert Stromberg, who is no stranger to the fantasy world of Disney, having directed Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, the non-Disney fantasy The Golden Compass, and most recently The Hunger Games.
If fantasy is not your thing, you only have to wait another week for a science fiction film. On June 6, Edge of Tomorrow, starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, tells a story of a troubled soldier who fights a war with aliens. He gets caught in a time loop of his last day in battle, but every time he goes through the loop he becomes more skilled at killing aliens. I guess this is like Independence Day meets Groundhog Day. However, if you look at the trailer this looks really compelling.
June gives us a chance to catch our breath (and save up for the next ticket), because there are a few weeks off before Transformers 4: Age of Extinction is released on the 27th. Shia LeBeouf is not in this one, but Mark Wahlberg is, playing an auto mechanic who makes a discovery with his daughter (Nicola Peltz) that brings the attention of the Autobots, the Decepticons, and the U.S. Government. There most certainly will be a crazy amount of action, as Michael Bay has returned to the helm of his Transformer’s franchise.
The summer will be well under way as Dawn of the Planet of the Apes comes out on July 11. This is a sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes, from 2011. As hinted in the first movie a cure for brain diseases triggers a plague that affects humans and not apes. Survivors of the simian plague create an all-out war between humanity, led by Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) and the apes, led by the genetically altered Caesar (Andy Serkis).
A week later, on July 18, the future is not ruled by Apes but by the Queen of the Universe, in Jupiter Ascending. In this future science fiction epic, Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) a young destitute woman from Earth, gets targeted for assassination by the Queen of the Universe (Tuppence Middleton), and this begins here destiny to finish the Queen’s reign, with the help of a super soldier, Caine (Channing Tatum). The future of this flick may be that, like Pacific Rim last year, the film is great but there are just so many great films that this gets squeezed out.
This might be especially true because this summer will have another Marvel epic, Guardians of the Galaxy. In the far reaches of space and American pilot named Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is bound to the other Guardians of the Galaxy after he becomes the object of a manhunt, after stealing and orb coveted by the villainous Ronan (Lee Pace).
Another film that might be pushed off of the end of the summer movie list, by no fault of its own is the reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Set in New York, this new version of the old classic will make full use of the latest digital imaging and computer generated images.
If you were counting, these are all twelve. These are my twelve most anticipated movies. While it is still winter and it is still cold, know that we can all be anticipating (and saving) for this upcoming, hot movie season. See you at the movies.
By Henry Hernandez
