2013: Movies of Interest

The first of the two big Movie Seasons is almost upon us… indeed I daresay it starts rather soon. Last year, I wrote about the upcoming flicks that had captured my interest. I thought it would be a fine idea to do so again. In fact, if I can remember in time next year, maybe this’ll be an annual feature.

Here are the movies that have caught my interest this year, in a sort-of-order of my interest:

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug With a few relatively minor caveats (Storm Giants, anyone? What the Helsinki was that, and how, exactly, was it even remotely necessary for the movie?) I thoroughly enjoyed the first of the planned Hobbit trilogy, as I had expected to. Being a huge fan of both the Lord of the Rings books and movies, I’m sure it comes as no surprise that the next Hobbit movie is my top flick-to-see in 2013.
Man of Steel Only one comicbook superhero ranks higher on my all-time favorite list than Batman, and that is his boyscout, super-powered, primary-color-clad sometimes friend and rival Superman. So yes: I plan to see the latest incarnation of the cinematic Superman, and I have very high hopes.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Dear Wife and I quite enjoyed first Hunger Games movie (well, I did; I can’t really speak for Dear Wife, but it is my belief that she enjoyed it). I finished reading all three books last year, and I’m quite looking forward to the second installment in the film franchise.

Those are the movies that I expect I’ll actually see in the theaters. After that… there’s a big drop in the likelihood that I think I’ll manage to catch anything else on this list.

Pacific Rim I think I’ve mentioned before how much of an anime geek I am. Not the hugest one around, but still… enough of one that I totally grok where this movie is going. Giant Robots (called “Jaegers“, no less) versus Giant Monsters (“Kaiju“). This is totally live-action anime. And so, I’m excited for this movie. I figure, though, that this could go one of two ways: this could be this year’s Inception… or this could be this year’s Prometheus. With Guillermo Del Toro directing, I’m hopeful it’s more like the latter… but then again, Ridley Scott carried a lot of cache into Prometheus… Assuming the sci-fi and fantasy community tends to lean more toward the former than the latter, then you can be sure, even if I miss this in theaters, I’ll queue it up on DVD as soon as I’m able.
Star Trek: Into Darkness I saw and enjoyed 2009′s Star Trek reboot – although a few things about it left me unsettled. (Red Matter? And really, [Spoilers] did you need to blow up Vulcan? And with all that time-traveling going on, you really couldn’t, you know, travel back in time and save the planet? The last fact really miffed me fiercely. Once you’ve established that time travel is an option, you better have a dang good reason why it can’t be used again to undo later events in the story.) Regardless of those snafus, I enjoyed the Star Trek reboot enough that I’m very interested to see the next in the new series. Added to that the mystery of who, precisely, Benedict Cumberbatch is playing – is it Kahn Noonien Singh? Is it Gary Mitchell? Is it some other dude who combines the attributes of Kahn and Mitchell? – adds to the intrigue and interest in this film. As I expect this movie will skip the time travel plot problems of Star Trek, I expect this will actually be a better movie. Still… I figure I’m unlikely (all things considered) to catch this in theaters. So, as with Pacific Rim, I’m sure I’ll be queueing this up on DVD as soon as available.
Oblivion The trailer for this flick has at least intrigued me – it’s hinted that not is all as it seems for Tom Cruise’s character, nor for desolate planet Earth in the far future. But what really catches my interest: Morgan Freeman as some sort of Resistance/Rebel leader. Is there any role that is not automatically cooler when played by Morgan Freeman? That gives me promise that this film can live up to the ideas presented in its trailers.
After Earth ‘Tis the Year for “In the Future, Earth has been abandoned by Humans”, isn’t it? The attraction of this particular version of that story is in having real-life father-and-son acting team Will and Jaden Smith play a father and son stranded on an inhospitable future Earth struggling to survive. The downside? It’s directed by M. Night Shyamalan (whose last few movies have not exactly been great, and who lost whatever remaining goodwill he had left as a director when he miscast and ruined the fundamentally un-ruinable big screen adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender) – so don’t expect the trailers to pint that little fact out. The possible saving grace? This is Will Smith’s baby more than it is Shyamalan’s. Regardless, I’m interested, but I’ll see what the critics have to say.
Ender’s Game This one very nearly snuck up on me. There’s very little buzz about Ender’s Game that I’ve seen so far. Many, many years ago I read (and enjoyed) the novel as well as the companion novel (Ender’s Shadow). I have yet to read (and not a terrible great interest in reading) the supposed sequels to Ender’s Game. (My understanding, for the most part, is that they diverge in some pretty radical ways from the story, characters, and world presented in Ender’s Game.) Anyway… I’m interested to see and hear more about this before casting judgment.
World War Z Funny… I think I saw this title on a list of movies I made somewhere, once before. Oh yeah: It was last year’s list. Obviously, World War Z didn’t make it out in 2012. But I find myself more interested now than I was then, thanks to several trailers that have given me a better idea of the film. On the other hand… long delays and changes in release dates usually don’t bode well for a film.
Elysium What was that I said above about the year for desolate or abandoned future Earths? Okay, so the Earth of Elysium isn’t really desolate or abandoned, but it may as well be: it’s a place where the poor and downtrodden are confined while the rich live high above. (And the meek shall inhereit the Earth?) What Elysium has going for it is a top-calibre cast, including Matt Damon and Jodi Foster. Again, however, other than this, I know relatively little about the movie. So I’ll take the wait-and-see approach.
The Wolverine Remember when I said Superman was the superhero who ranked just above Batman at the top of my personal superhero pantheon? The guy right below Batman is Wolverine. And yet… I did not see the X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie. I heard the reviews were pretty bad. But I’m open-minded. I’ll wait and see what the buzz says about Logan’s second solo-outing. On a semi-related note… I’m still keen to catch X-Men: First Class on DVD some time.

Honorable Mentions:

These are the movies I feel like I want to see (in theaters, where possible). But a few other movies have hit my radar, too. Some of these I have no interest in seeing theaters, but may be interested to catch on DVD later, some it’s practically too late to catch in theaters, and some I just don’t know enough about.

Oz the Great and Powerful There’s no way I’ll find the time to see this before it makes its way out of theaters. I’m interested in it, but not enough to try to make the time, and especially not enough to to press the issue when there’s a brand new wee bairn at home.

Frozen Frankly, I don’t know enough about this movie yet. I think it’s an animated Epic Fantasy sort of movie. But… I’m not really sure I’ve read about it right. If and when I hear more, I’ll make a judgment at that time.

Monster’s University It’s Pixar and it’s not Cars. So that’s a good thing. On the otherhand, while I enjoyed the previous Monster’s Inc., I didn’t love it enough to want a sequel. This movie seems… I dunno… gratuitous. But because it’s Pixar and, Cars and Cars 2 notwithstanding, Pixar has a lot of goodwill with me, I can almost garauntee I’ll watch it on DVD at some point.

The Lone Ranger I was convinced, when I heard about this, that it had “Epic Flop of John Carter Proportions” written all over it. I thought: Johnny Depp (no matter how good an actor he is) in a racially insensitive portrayal of Tonto? This thing is going to get cremated in the blogosphere! Now I’ve seen the trailers and I’m… less convinced. And the buzz is actually pretty decent. And word is Disney has done a lot of legwork (enough? I don’t know) to make good with Native Americans over the casting and portrayal of Tonto. (I’m that mythical “1/16th” Native American, which basically doesn’t mean anything, except that a deep respect for Native American peoples has been passed down in my family, owing to that ancestry as told in family legend. I haven’t done the genealogy work to back up that claim. But the end result is that I’m a little sensitive to the question of how American Indians are portrayed in stories.) So… If all that holds true… well… you can expect The Lone Ranger to do bonzo at the Box Office.

Iron Man 3 I have not seen Iron Man 2 (nor, for that matter, The Avengers). So I know there is Zero Percent chance I’ll make it out to see Iron Man 3. I at least owe it to the movie to see the two preceeding flicks (even if I still manage to avoid Thor because I think the idea of “Thor” as a superhero character is basically a bit cheesy and overwrought). I did see and enjoy the first Iron Man movie, though, and I enjoyed Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of Stark. So, whenever I get around to picking up Iron Man 2 and The Avengers, I’ll eventually follow that up with Iron Man 3.

What happened to 2012′s Movies?

As for the 2012 movies that I had listed previously? As alluded above, I did see the first Hobbit movie and the first Hunger Games movie. I also caught Dark Knight Rises and Brave at the theaters. I did not get a chance to see The Secret World of Arietty, but that’s okay, because I’ve always consumed anime on the small-screen in the past. (I love Hayao Miyazaki, but I’ve never seen a Miyazaki movie in theaters.) Prometheus was… well… based on all the reviews I heard, it wasn’t what I wanted it to be. And life’s too short to waste a few hours on a basically dumb movie. The Amazing Spider-Man, as predicted, I did not see. I still expect I’ll see it on DVD eventually. Also didn’t see The Avengers, so no, I did not contribute to that massive box office haul. John Carter, I heard, was actually better than many gave it credit for. But, again… well… my own sense of it was not super-positive from the trailers. (I said it looked “vistual-tastic”, but I also worried, based on the trailers, that there wasn’t much “there there”. I still sort of feel that way.) Again, life’s too short.