2014 - The Year in Sci-Fi Movies

Well, at least the year in Sci-Fi movies which have piqued my interest, anyway. There are plenty of tentpole movies coming up that have me pitching a cinematic tent, starting in no particular order with director Gareth Edwards (Monsters) reboot of Godzilla starring "Breaking Bad" star Bryan Cranston; Aaron Kickass Taylor-Johnson and the not-a-twin Elizabeth Olsen. 

Disaster maven Roland Emmerich failed miserably with his over-inflated 1998 attempt to reboot the Toho Studios franchise which started the Kaiju genre. Edwards' Monsters was quite good, though it was more of a character-study set inside a Sci-Fi story. The newly released trailer looks amazing. I didn't get to see del Toro's Kaiju movie Pacific Rim. I won't be missing Godzilla:

Andy and Lana Wachowski, who gave us The Matrix and 2012's wildly underrated Cloud Atlas, are back this year with Jupiter Ascending, a seemingly Jungian tale of a seemingly ordinary young woman who discovers she is the key to the fate of the entire Universe. Mila Kunis (Ted; "Family Guy") and a pointy-eared Channing Tatum (Magic Mike) star.

Christopher Nolan's (more on him in a moment) cinematographer Wally Pfister makes his directing debut with Transcendence, about a terminally ill A.I. scientist whose consciousness is uploaded to a mainframe and sets about to destroy life as we know it. Johnny Depp (thankfully not in a Burton or Verbinski film) stars alongside Kate Mara and Nolan favs Morgan Freeman and Cillian Murphy.

Marvel has four major films coming out this year, further cementing their dominance in the Superhero genre. Of course, Uncle P has never been a fan of Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man, so I will be skipping that movie. But I have every intention of seeing X-Men: Days of Future Past; Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the weirdest of the "Avengers"-related movies. Guardians of  the Galaxy.

Then there's the sequel to the Planets of the Apes franchise, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. The creator of Gollum and the most recent incarnation of King Kong, Andy Sirkus reprises his CGMC role as the sentient chimpanzee Caesar. Gary Oldman; Keri Russell; Judi Greer and Kody Smit-McPhee (Let Me In) co-star.

Then there's the "Found Footage" movie, Earth to Echo, about a group of boys who discover an alien in a very Spielbergian film from first-time feature director Dave Green:

Last, though hardly least, is Christopher Nolan's belated semi-annual birthday gift to me, Interstellar. Shrouded, as all of Nolan's movies are in secrecy, Featuring a huge cast of major stars, including Matthew McConhaughy; Anne Hathaway; Jessica Chastain; Michael Caine; John Lithgow; Ellen Burstyn and Matt Damon, Interstellar is about a space crew using a wormhole top traverse the galaxy.

As the Brits might say, I am chuffed for the upcoming movie year!  How about you?

More, anon.
Prospero

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Retro Review: "Now You See Me"

I missed Now You See Me when it was in theaters earlier this spring, though I found the concept to be fascinating. I caught it tonight OnDemand, simply because there was literally nothing else worth watching on broadcast or regular cable TV (no, I don't watch or care about "Breaking Bad" or the NFL and am not ashamed to admit it - bring on "The Walking Dead!").

Four street magicians (Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco) are given Tarot cards with an invitation to meet at an NYC address by a mysterious, hooded stranger. A year later, billed as the "The Four Horsemen," they appear together at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and pull off what appears to be a magical heist of a French bank, dispensing over 3 million Euros to the audience. Among that audience is magic debunker Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), who has made millions exposing fraudulent magicians, starting in the 1970's with a magician who apparently died while trying to escape from a safe dumped into the East River. The four are immediately detained by the FBI, interrogated by Special Agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo); Agent Fuller (Michael Kelly) and Interpol Detective Alma Dray (Melanie Laurent). But with no real evidence, the four are released. Promoter Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine) follows the four to New Orleans, where they drain his bank account to enrich the victims of Katrina, much to the consternation of Rhodes and Dray. What follows is a cat-and-mouse game of deception, distraction and double crosses which kept me guessing right up to the movie's surprising end.

Director Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk; Clash of the Titans) doesn't exactly have a stellar record, though he does manage to display a bit of flashy style here. The screenplay by Ed Solomon (Men in Black), Boaz Yakin (Safe) and Edward Ricourt has more than a few issues (the hooded stranger's motive is made painfully clear early on and the hokey secret society subplot is just a bit hard to swallow), but the cast's performances are earnest and it's obvious they're all having fun, especially when given some hilariously snarky dialog. And that's all this movie really asks of you - to have fun. Terrific SFX; multiple locations; an exciting car chase through Manhattan and a new twist on the heist genre are more than enough to make Now You See Me worth the 6 bucks it costs to see it OnDemand, especially if there's nothing of interest available. 

Now You See Me 2 is already rumored and I must admit I wouldn't mind spending another 2 hours with these characters. All in all, Now You See Me  is a fun and entertaining twist on the heist genre, despite some rather obvious and silly flaws. **1/2 (Two and Half Stars Out of Four).

More, anon.
Prospero

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