Okay so now that 2013 is dead and buried, we can look forward to a new year of movies. Jan and Feb have seen the likes of Jack Ryan return, Aaron Ekhart playing Frankenstein's monster in the apparently awful I, Frankenstein and Alex Murphy become Robocop in what has turned out to be quite a good remake/re-imaging of the classic 80s Actioner. But we still have ten months of movies to come. Here is my list of my 10 most anticipated ACTION films of 2014....
NEED FOR SPEED
Movies based on
Video games rarely ever work, but for some reason, I have a feeling
that Need For Speed might actually succeed. Let's look at the facts.
The Fast And Furious films are a huge deal in the action genre at the
moment so people are well into cars and car stunts, something which
looks to fill the majority of Need For Speed. From the two and half
minute trailer it looks like NFS has gone for old school stunt
driving instead of using CGI. Looking at the cast, Aaron Paul, coming
off a hugely successful Emmy and Golden Globe wining show like
Breaking Bad, has risen his star up a notch. Also starring Dominic
Cooper and the usually brilliant Michael Keaton. I think Need For
Speed will be a surprise hit.
EDGE OF TOMORROW
Another year,
another Tom Cruise sci-fi film. This one is based on the novel by
Japanese author Hiroshi Sakurazaka called All You Need Is Kill.
Cruise stars as a new recruit in a war between earth and aliens an
gets trapped in a sort of time loop, it's essentially Groundhog Day
with aliens and mech suits. Last year, Cruise wowed me with the
underrated Oblivion and Director Doug Liman hasn't had a decent film
since The Bourne Identity so fingers crossed these two can pull off
the source novel. The trailer looks good and even though Cruise looks
way too old to be a new recruit, i'm quite excited to see how this
goes. Cruise is supported by the beautiful Emily Blunt and The
brilliant Bill Paxton so with a cast like this, fingers crossed Edge
Of Tomorrow will be awesome.
X-MEN: DAYS OF
FUTURE PAST
X-Men 1 & 2
Director, Bryan Singer returns to the franchise he started with what
looks like the biggest most epic comic book movie since Doc Savage
Man Of Bronze. Returning to the fold are the familiar faces of
Patrick Stewert, Ian McKellen and Hugh Jackman along with the newer
X-men family, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Nicolas Hoult.
Joining them are new character that haven't appeared on screen
before, Bishop, Quicksilver and Havok, The plot involves the future
X-men joining forces with their past selves in a battle to save the
future. The trailer looks awesome and we finally get some god damn
sentinals in the film. I was hugely impressed by last years Wolverine
movie and X-Men First Class was grade A awesome so with Singer
returning, fingers are crossed to see how epic the X-Men saga will
get. Someone please put Cable in the movies...
GUARDIANS OF THE
GALAXY
The second of three
Marvel movies appearing on the list had it's trailer premier only
last night and what a trailer. I'm not overly familiar with the
Guardians as i've never read the comics but from what I gather,
they're quite popular. There's a tree, a raccoon, a Bautista, a Na'vi
but green and a dude who likes to listen to cheesy 80s pop music
called Star Lord. The film is directed by James Gunn, Writer and
director of Slither and Super. It's an odd choice for director seeing
Gunn's previous output which also includes the screenplay for Zack
Snyder's Dawn Of The Dead remake as well as Trash classic Tromeo And
Juliet but from the trailer, Guardians looks very good, funny, action
packed and sporting some great looking VFX. I've gone on about my
hate for CGI but I have to say this does look like a lot of fun.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE
WINTER SOLDIER
I wasn't overly
impressed with The Avengers movie but I thought that the first
Captain America film was the best of the lead up films. A great
premise, good old school retro sci-fi and a rousing action romp from
the first minute. Chris Evans was perfect casting when it came to Cap
and he was one of the better characters in the Avengers. This one
picks up after The Avengers with cap trying to adjust to modern
civilization until he's thrust into a mystery that could affect the
whole world and finds he must go up against his most ruthless foe
yet, The Winter Soldier. The trailer for this looks fucking awesome,
great action scenes, Scarlette Johansen in a tight catsuit, cars
flipping over, street gun battle and Anthony Mackie as Falcon.
THE EXPENDABLES 3
Sly and co return
this year with the 3rd instalment in the mercs for hire
action franchise, this time bringing some new blood and some old
blood to the table. The plot finds Barney discovering that a former
colleague and co-creator of the expendables, who he though had died,
has made it his mission to exact revenge for Barney apparently
killing him. Looking at the previous films casts, you know that the
original gang are back but new to the franchise are Wesley Snipes,
Antonio Banderas, Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford, luckily Willis is out
as he apparently asked for $5mil for 4 days work and Sly told him no.
The Younger new blood see's Kellen Lutz, Rhonda Rousey and Glenn
Powell. The third instalment is directed by Patrick Hughes who wowed
me with his film Red Hill two years ago. Expendables 3 is released
stateside in august.
22 JUMP STREET
Jenko and Schmidt
are back undercover in this sequel to the hilarious 2011 hit comedy.
This time the doofus duo must infiltrate a collage campus to take
down a drug ring. Yes it's pretty much the same plot as the first
film but it's the chemistry between Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum
that made the first film work. The Korean's have bought back the
church and Korean Jesus so the Jump street program has moved across
the road to 22 jump street. Ice Cube is still the commanding officer
and the film looks very very funny and very action packed. Whether it
will live up to the success of the fist film, only time will tell but
I enjoyed watching both guys in the first film and hopefully they'll
pull it out the bag for the sequel.
DAWN OF THE PLANET
OF THE APES
Rise Of The Planet
Of The Apes was my top film of 2011, which to be honest should have
been #2 as Super 8 was the better film, but the sequel is upon us
this year. The film takes place 8 years after the uprising, it
plunged the world into chaos which lead to an apocalyptic world. The
apes and the surviving humans come to a short lived peace but both
sides are brought to the brink of war for the battle to see who comes
out as the dominant species. The first film was very well written
intelligent science fiction film with nods to the original Planet Of
Apes so i'm hoping for an intelligent follow up that delves into the
politics of war between the two species instead of an all out CGI
battle ground. Luckily James Franco is out and Jason Clarke is in
with a supporting cast of Keri Russell and Gary Oldman as the humans
and Andy Serkis returning as Ceaser with support from Judy Greer and
Toby Kebble as his fellow Apes. Cloverfield and Let Me In director
Matt Reeves is behind the camera this time around.
SABOTAGE
Originally titled
TEN, this film comes from David Ayer, writer of Training Day and the
man behind End Of Watch and Street Kings. The script was written by
Skip woods, that's a bad sign as Woods is responsible for fucking up
Die Hard with the last instalment and the Hitman movie, but from what
i've heard, Ayer completely re-wrote the screenplay so we may be safe
after all. Sabotage looks fucking insane. It follows an Elite DEA
task force who find themselves getting wiped out one by one by the
cartel they busted. Cue lots of violence and swearing, tattoos and
gun fire and Arnold Schwarzenegger looking like an old ass bad mother
fucker. Don't bother watching the green band trailer, the Red band
trailer gives you the goods, this looks like one hard core action
flick. Ayer seems to be the only one making man movies at the moment,
yeah Expendables has action coming out of it's pores but it has that
comic book campy feel to it, which if you're looking for a good OTT
80s inspired actioner then thats a thumbs up. Sabotage has the gritty
feel of the 70s crime genre and it's one of my most anticipated
action flicks of the year.
THE RAID 2: BERANDAL
This year sees the
follow up to 2011's most bad ass action flick, The Raid. Welsh helmer
Gareth Evans returns to the world of Rama, the hard core Jakata cop
who survived the appartment block raid and puts him deep undercover
into the criminal world of Jakata. Evans has expanded the world of
the raid by not copying the first film but using that film as jumping
off point for his Godfather Pt 2. The Raid 2 follows Rama as he's put
into deep cover to take down the two rival crime bosses of Jakata.
From the reviews i've read coming out of Sundance, The Raid 2 ups the
ante action wise with almost all the reviews praising the film but
warning of it's graphic violence. Now i'm quite hard core when it
comes to violence on screen but I'm mr mcPussy when it comes to real
life violence, I think I could handle anything Evans can throw at me
but it's not the violence i'm especially looking forward to, it's the
expanded world of The Raid, the criminal politics and the more
complex plot. I loved the first film with such a passion and got to
see it at it's U.K premier so i'm unbelievably stoked to see this
follow up. To see Evans up the scale and just to bask in all it's
hardcore action glory....
So there we go,
that' my personal ten most anticipated action films of the year, I
know there's a few that I didn't add like The Amazing Spiderman 2,
Non Stop and 3 Days To kill but they just haven't piqued my interest
as much as these films. Anywho, enjoy the year and lets find out
which films kicked ass and which films sucked ass....Peace Out!!!
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