TOP 12 FAVORITE FILMS OF 2015: #12-10 + Honorable Mentions

Like I’ve said before, I don’t like ending a year of film on a bad note. That’s why I do my Top 10 ‘Worst Films of the Year’ list first; so that I can get that out of the way. The internet may like talking about the bad stuff more, but not me. After all, as I’ve also mentioned before, I’m actually getting really sick of the internet’s constant cynicism, especially towards film (e.g. CinemaSins, Honest Trailers). Hence why I officially dub 2015 as ‘The Year that the Internet Overhyped Everything’. Because if you ask me, 2015 was actually a really great year for film. The main reason why was due to a better variety of films compared to last year, specifically what came out that summer. Sure we got films like ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ but there was actually quite a severe lack of films that were, at the very least, family-friendly. Seriously aside from ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’ and ‘Maleficent’, name me one major film geared towards families that came out that summer that wasn’t rated PG-13 or higher? There wasn’t even a Pixar film that year. This year on the other hand had much more to offer if you ask me. However, this year’s lineup of films also had to endure a lot of hype built up by the internet given all of the major films that were coming. And as evident from the responses towards some of these films, clearly film fans haven’t learned their lesson that overhyping anything is always going to end up backfiring on them. So yes, a lot of the films on this list were controversial amongst film fans in their own unique way. So expect to see me make a lot of arguments against the general internet consensus in favor of these films. I won’t lie… this was a really frustrating year for me in regards to dealing with cynical BS towards a lot of the films that I liked this year so this is pretty much my way of venting against all of that.

For those who are new to this blog, I had originally done a Top 12 list instead of the traditional ‘Top 10’ simply as a joke because I had started this blog in May 2012 and decided to do a 12-film list for 2012. However, that ended up becoming my trademark so that I could talk about as many of the films that I loved each year as possible. Before I begin, I need to lay down my three primary ground rules for this list. First of all, I have to warn you that this will be a SPOILER POST. I will be discussing the key elements of all of these films in heavy detail so if you haven’t seen any of these films, read on at your own risk. Second, like every year, I haven’t seen every single film that has come out in 2015. So you won’t be seeing films like ‘Spotlight’, ‘Ex Machina’, or ‘It Follows’ on this list. With that said, and boy do I hate having to now establish this disclaimer every year, yes my list predominantly consists of blockbusters. So if you’re a hardcore cinefile that immediately disregards this list because I don’t have many indie or award-winning films on this list, as well as the fact that some of these films weren’t very well liked by most people, I’m sorry but that’s just how I roll. I promise that I will try and make a better effort to see more indie fare in the future but for now I have to go with the films that I’ve seen which are, yes, primarily blockbusters. And finally, and most importantly (seriously I cannot stress this enough), please be respectful in regards to both my opinion and the opinions of others. These 12 films are just my personal favorites so don’t go giving me crap just because I liked a film that you didn’t like. Believe me, as I’ve been writing these posts I’ve had to deal with some particularly stingy trolls who have mocked me for liking a certain film and quite frankly it’s annoying as hell. Remember folks, film… is… subjective!! As a way to test whether or not some of you are willing to accept different opinions, I am going to make the following statement;

‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ is not in my Top 12 nor is it one of my Honorable Mentions.

If you’re still here, then let’s start this 4-part retrospective of my Top 12 Favorite Films of 2015. But first, as always, let’s get the Honorable Mentions out of the Way. This year I have six to name.

KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE

The first major ‘Grade-A’ release of the year (at least from the films that I saw), Matthew Vaughn gave us another kinetic and highly entertaining action blockbuster with ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’, based off of the comic book series of the same name (minus the ‘Kingsman’ part) by Mark Millar, who Vaughn of course also worked with on ‘Kick-Ass’. Paying homage to the campier days of the spy genre, this film is full of crazy but awesome moments, like when Harry Hart (Colin Firth) kills a whole hate group in a church to the tune of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Free Bird’ or when the heads of almost all of the henchmen of main bad guy Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) explode in firework-like fashion. Colin Firth shines in an against-type action role as does newcomer Taron Egerton as young Kingsman recruit Eggsy, with Egerton very much holding his own against acting heavyweights like Firth, Jackson, and Michael Caine. With one great film out of the way, it’ll be interesting to see where this film’s sequel is going to go. There’s even talk that Colin Firth may return for the sequel even though his character was killed by Valentine after the whole church sequence. Did Hart fake his death? Did he become a ghost? We’ll just have to wait and see…

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION

Now under the care of producer AKA ‘franchise savior’ J.J. Abrams, the ‘Mission Impossible’ series has really been able to stand out as one of the premier action franchises in the industry. One of Tom Cruise’s frequent collaborators, Christopher McQuarrie, took on directing duties for the fifth film, ‘Rogue Nation’, which is another highly entertaining action thrill-ride full of awesome/practically-done stunts by action superstar Cruise and featuring a particularly standout performance by Rebecca Ferguson as ‘female Ethan Hunt’ Ilsa Faust. My only gripe with the film, hence why I actually still prefer Brad Bird’s ‘Ghost Protocol’, is that this film sort of ignores one of the best elements of ‘Ghost Protocol’; the team dynamic that had been generally missing from earlier installments. While Benji (Simon Pegg) is involved just as much as Ethan Hunt is in regards to the main plot, both Brandt (Jeremy Renner) and Luther (Ving Rhames) are mostly ignored up until the third act. While it may have the advantage of a better villain in Sean Harris’ Solomon Lane, I still prefer ‘Ghost Protocol’ for its stronger balance of the roles of Ethan Hunt’s teammates. However, ‘Rogue Nation’ is easily the series’ second best installment to date and McQuarrie more than proved himself worthy enough to be chosen to helm the sixth film, a first for the series in that no other director has ever directed 2 ‘Mission Impossible’ films.

BLACK MASS

I’ve never really been in the camp who feel that Johnny Depp has been in a slump acting-wise these past few years. To me, it’s just been a case of him picking a few weak projects, some of which unfortunately ended up being major commercial bombs at the box-office like ‘The Lone Ranger’ and this year’s ‘Mortdecai’. However, with ‘Black Mass’, Depp gives one hell of a career-high performance as the legendary Boston gangster Whitey Bulger. Equally terrific, however, is Joel Edgerton as Whitey’s primary ally in the FBI, John Connolly, who orchestrated the FBI’s alliance with Whitey’s gang, the Winter Hill Gang. Admittedly the story may be a bit standard as far as the gangster genre is concerned but Depp more than commands the screen as Bulger to the point where he can be quite terrifying at times. He may or may not get an Oscar nom for his work here, but he’s definitely the highlight of this fascinating true story about one of the most notorious gangsters in U.S. history.

THE MARTIAN

Easily the best film that Ridley Scott has done in years, ‘The Martian’ is a light-hearted but epic space survival story highlighted by Matt Damon’s outstanding performance as stranded astronaut Mark Watney. His journey to get off Mars is a highly compelling one that is very smart from a scientific perspective but smartly executed to the point where it can appeal to those who aren’t familiar with the science that’s explored in this film. In other words, Watney makes science fun. I mentioned earlier that the film is ‘light-hearted’, which to some may sound a bit weird given that it’s supposed to be a survival story. Well that’s because throughout the film, Watney maintains an optimistic and occasionally witty attitude that provides us with quite a lot of funny moments, like when he accidentally causes an explosion while trying to produce water or when he expresses his displeasure with fellow crewmate Melissa Lewis’ (Jessica Chastain) collection of disco music, the only music that he can listen to while trapped on Mars. Though in the case of the latter, it means that the film has a really nice soundtrack as well as one hilariously awesome and very much fitting piece of end-credits music in the form of ‘I Will Survive’. In short, ‘The Martian’ was a really fun entry in the sci-fi genre that, if it ends up getting an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, will definitely be the fan favorite of general audiences against all of the other nominees.

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

Director F. Gary Gray took on the grand story of ‘the world’s most dangerous group’, N.W.A., in the biopic ‘Straight Outta Compton’. While the film is produced by band members Ice Cube and Dr. Dre and stars Cube’s son O’Shea Jackson Jr. in the role of his father, the film actually never feels very egocentric. Obviously some will view the casting of Jackson Jr. as his father as a case of nepotism but he does do a genuinely outstanding job in the role as do Corey Hawkins and Jason Mitchell in the roles of Dr. Dre and Eazy-E, respectively. It admittedly should be noted that these three are the main focus of the film, meaning that fellow N.W.A. members MC Ren and DJ Yella are basically reduced to being side characters here. And as for the film itself, it showcases both the highs and lows of N.W.A. in a solid matter without ever feeling like it’s trying way too hard to over-glorify them. The story of N.W.A. may have been a bit too large for a two-and-a-half-hour film but aside from some slow points here and there, it’s a powerful and emotionally charged biopic highlighting how a bunch of guys from one of the most dangerous cities in America rose up against the oppression they faced in their hometown to become music superstars.

STEVE JOBS

After the Ashton Kutcher-starring ‘Jobs’ turned out to be a critical disappointment, Danny Boyle and Aaron Sorkin found much more success with their take on Apple’s founder Steve Jobs. Their film is a three-act series of events that all take place before Jobs unveils major products like the Macintosh and iMac. The pairing of Boyle’s direction, even if his artistic style is downplayed in this case (which many felt was actually a good thing), and Sorkin’s electric screenplay come together to produce a fascinating look at the legendary Apple founder/personal computer pioneer. Like Mark Zuckerberg in ‘The Social Network’, Jobs is shown to be a person who is impossible to fully love or fully hate due to his tendency to piss off his associates but is clearly a technological pioneer ahead of his time. It’s also very much an actors showcase, with Michael Fassbender shining as Steve Jobs, even if he doesn’t 100% look like him, while being backed up by a terrific supporting cast that also includes Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, and Jeff Daniels. You can definitely expect to see ‘Steve Jobs’ get some attention come awards season.

And now it’s time to begin listing off my Top 12 favorite films of 2015. Kicking off the list at #12 is the unexpected continuation of one of cinema’s most beloved franchises. But under new direction and taking a unique new path that still respects what came before it, this film ends up being another knockout effort from the ‘Rocky’ franchise.

12. CREED

When ‘Rocky Balboa’ was released back in 2006, everyone thought that this would be the end of the ‘Rocky’ franchise, including Sylvester Stallone. One of the reasons why he had done the film in the first place was to give the series a more proper sense of closure after the fifth film turned out to be a disappointment for many. And quite frankly it very much was a fitting conclusion to Rocky Balboa’s time in the ring. But then to the surprise of many, the series made a comeback this year in an arguably unexpected way. Director Ryan Coogler, fresh off of 2013’s indie darling ‘Fruitvale Station’ reteamed with his lead Michael B. Jordan for a new spin on the ‘Rocky’ franchise with ‘Creed’. This time around, the focus shifted to a new character; Adonis Johnson Creed, the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed, who takes up a boxing career just like his father. But while Rocky may no longer be the main character, he still plays a vital role in this film as Donnie ends up seeking him out so that he can be his trainer. Like the previous films in the series, ‘Creed’ really delivers on the franchise’s definitive underdog spirit, though Donnie is an underdog in a much different way compared to Rocky in the first film. In the first ‘Rocky’ film, Rocky was a nobody from Philadelphia who got the chance of a lifetime to fight Apollo Creed, the heavyweight champion of the world. In this film, Donnie also starts out as a no-name boxer but soon enough the world comes to know that he’s the son of Apollo Creed, forcing Donnie to have to live up to his father’s legacy, something that he most certainly didn’t want to have to do at first.

Ultimately Donnie’s rise to fame shares many similarities to what Rocky went through in the first film, right down to how the final fight plays out. Even though Donnie is very much the underdog against the current light heavyweight champion of the world, ‘Pretty’ Ricky Conlan, and he ultimately does end up losing the fight by a split decision, he manages to go the distance and become ‘the people’s champion’ just like Rocky did when he first fought Apollo. So while the film may not add too much to the genre, Coogler’s excellent direction, especially during the fight scenes (particularly the fight between Donnie and Leo ‘The Lion’ Sporino which was legitimately all done in one take), and the terrific performances from its leads are what truly make the film so great. Michael B. Jordan carries quite a bit of the personality that Carl Weathers brought to the role of Apollo and he has terrific camaraderie with Stallone. And as for Sly… well this might arguably be his best performance in what has been the most iconic role of his career. First of all, he once again conveys all of the great personality traits that made Rocky such a lovable character in the first place, like his great comedic timing. This is best exemplified in a scene where Rocky gives Donnie a list of training exercises that he just takes a picture of with his phone and then gives it back to Rocky, telling him that he saved it to the Cloud, to which Rocky, who clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about, confusedly looks up at the sky and asks “What cloud?”

But then Rocky has to deal with a fight of his own in this film, outside of the ring, when he’s diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which forces him to confront his own mortality more than he’s even done before. It gets to the point where he decides not to do chemotherapy and is completely willing to let life take its toll on him, figuring that there’s not much left for him in the world, especially now that both his wife Adrian and brother-in-law Paulie have passed away (in her case before the events of ‘Rocky Balboa’ and in his case before the events of this film). It’s only through encouragement from Donnie that he ‘keeps fighting’ and does go through chemo and by the end of the film when Donnie and Rocky climb the iconic ‘Rocky steps’, Rocky is shown to be slowly but surely getting better. Sly is so great in this film that hopefully he’ll get nominated for Best Supporting Actor at this year’s Oscars. After all he’s already gotten quite a few wins from other award circuits so it would be a genuine surprise if he doesn’t get any recognition from the Academy. And who knows? Maybe ‘Creed’ will get even further attention during awards season. Well, no matter what happens, ‘Creed’ is another excellent addition to the legendary franchise that is the ‘Rocky’ series. It’s a film that both respects what came before and does its own thing, effectively giving the series new life. So with that said, could we end up seeing more of Donnie’s boxing career in future films? Only time will tell…

I only have one thing to say to lead into my #11 pick… ‘Just for Kids’ my ass!

11. THE GOOD DINOSAUR

I really don’t get the argument that ‘The Good Dinosaur’ is the first Pixar film that’s solely intended ‘For Kids’. First off, I thought that ‘Cars 2’ was the first based on the general consensus towards that film though I guess those people have already forgotten about that film. And second, this is a film about dinosaurs (that includes the carnivores) that features a scene where one of the main characters bites the head off of a beetle and another scene where both main characters, for lack of a better term, go on the equivalent of an acid trip after eating some rotten berries. Yeah… totally ‘just for kids’. Clearly in regards to the two Pixar films that were released this year (a first for the studio), this was the lesser positively-received of the two. It may have something to do with the fact that A.) this was the second Pixar film released this year and was following in the footsteps of a particularly critically acclaimed film or B.) the film went through quite a few production issues before it saw release, namely a switch in director that resulted in the film being completely reworked. But despite that supposed setback, which might I add was also a case with previous Pixar films like ‘Toy Story 2’ and yet weren’t as scrutinized by the media, ‘The Good Dinosaur’ is another excellent effort from Pixar that is both beautifully animated and strong in the themes that it conveys. I’ll admit, the story is a fairly simple one; it’s a straight-forward tale of the main character Arlo trying to get home after he ends up falling into the river and gets washed far away from home. But even if the plot is simpler than some of Pixar’s other films, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t strong in terms of its overall messages.

Like ‘Wall-E’, the film doesn’t rely too much on dialogue and instead places greater emphasis on visual storytelling. There’s a scene in here where Arlo tells Spot about how he misses his family and that his dad recently died, to which Spot responds by revealing to him, without saying anything at all, that his family is gone too. While there have been some people who felt that the more cartoony looking characters didn’t mix too well with the film’s more realistic-looking backgrounds, I wasn’t too bothered by this contrast at all. As far as the story and characters are concerned, Arlo undergoes an admittedly simple but terrifically executed arc of overcoming his fears as he tries to get back home, enduring everything from vicious pterodactyls (“The Storm Provides!”) to a flash flood similar to the one that killed his father. But at the same time, the film also shows that fear can also be a good thing. As the ‘rancher’ T-Rex Butch says, “If you ain’t scared… you ain’t alive”. The film is also highlighted by a great friendship that develops between its main characters, the Apatosaurus Arlo and the cave-boy Spot (a reverse ‘boy and his dog’ story where the dinosaur is the ‘boy’ and the boy is the ‘dog’). At first, Arlo hates Spot for inadvertently being responsible for getting him into his current situation. But as time goes on, the two do begin to grow closer to each other… And I dare you not to cry at the end when they go their separate ways, specifically when Arlo nudges Spot towards his new family and when the two share one last hug goodbye. It’s a scene that I’d argue is just as emotionally powerful as anything that came out of Pixar’s other 2015 release.

I made the following argument, which my friend Kyle over at ‘Kyle’s Animated World’ made as well, in my review of the film and I’ll reiterate it here. What’s so wrong with Pixar making a film that’s not a 15/10 masterpiece? Nothing is ever perfect and yet Pixar’s track record prior to 2011 was so successful that a lot of people act like their ‘failures’ (or as I like to put it, films that don’t have at least a 90% score on RT (that includes both ‘Cars’ films, ‘Brave’, and ‘Monsters University’)) are worse than they really are. I’ve gone on record defending ‘Monsters University’ as the studio’s most underrated film to date and will also admit that I warmed up a bit more to ‘Brave’ upon re-watch. ‘Cars 2’ I’ll admit I have not seen since I saw it in theaters but I am willing to give it a second viewing. And as for ‘The Good Dinosaur’, it's definitely another underrated Pixar effort that I fear may have gotten overshadowed by its more critically acclaimed fellow 2015 brother. And unfortunately, at the moment it’s been a bit of a dud at the box-office, having only just recently gotten past its $200 million budget. Hopefully it’ll do better when it gets released in other markets like China but until then it’s currently the lowest-grossing Pixar film to date. And hey, all of you people out there who complain about Pixar doing too many sequels nowadays? Well where the hell were you when this original Pixar film needed it? Sigh… well, like my friend Kyle, I will always defend this film as being yet another terrific outing from one of the best animation companies in the industry, one that sadly hasn’t gotten the attention that it truly deserves. In my book, Pixar went ‘2 for 2’ this year.

WARNING: Hardcore Cinefiles are guaranteed to hate the film I put at #10. Seriously if you didn’t like this film, you’re not going to like what I have to say about it. Because contrary to popular opinion, I really enjoyed this film and am eager to see where the series goes from here.

10. TERMINATOR GENISYS

Yeah… crucify me… I don’t care! I loved this film. I saw it twice in theaters. I got it on Blu-Ray. In fact, it’s the first ‘Terminator’ film that I own on Blu-Ray. I liked it that much. And I recognize that a lot of people didn’t. That’s been the case with the ‘Terminator’ franchise ever since James Cameron’s first two films, after which Cameron was not involved with any of the subsequent sequels. And for the record, yes I will admit that the decision to continue the franchise after ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ was an unnecessary one because that film ended on a pretty damn conclusive note, with the Connors destroying Cyberdyne and getting rid of all traces of Skynet and the Terminators. But Hollywood forged on anyway and then produced two more sequels that pulled one of the biggest retcons ever by saying that the Connors’ efforts to stop Judgment Day in the second film only postponed the inevitable doomsday. But you know what? I actually really like ‘Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines’. Was it unnecessary? Hell yea it was. But even with that in mind, the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger and some really solid action sequences at least made it a fairly entertaining sci-fi action blockbuster. ‘Terminator Salvation’, the first of the films that was actually set in the post-Judgment Day world, admittedly was quite a disappointment, primarily due to the lackluster writing, but I didn’t ‘hate it’ that much either. And now we come to ‘Terminator: Genisys’. This was one of those films that just couldn’t catch a break in the months leading up to its release.

First off, there was all the mockery directed towards the title. Yes, that’s not how you spell the word ‘genesis’. Apparently the title is a combination of that word and the computer term ‘sys’ (system). Yeah it still confuses me a bit but you know what, why complain about a film title when it has no impact on the quality of the film whatsoever? But probably the biggest controversy surrounding the film came as a result of the second trailer. Even director Alan Taylor himself was displeased with the trailer as it revealed one of the big twists of the film; that John Connor had been compromised by Skynet and turned into a Terminator. But as someone who doesn’t really get too worked up over trailers ‘giving away’ too much, it didn’t bother me too much. In fact, I was actually quite happy with the reveal because it meant that one of my favorite underrated actors working today, Jason Clarke, was going to have a much more substantial role in the film than what the first trailer for the film had suggested. But obviously, I was clearly in the minority when it came to actually liking that trailer and even though James Cameron himself stated that he did like the film (which, unlike some people, I didn’t view as a marketing ploy at all because he wasn’t involved with the film’s production whatsoever), the film did pretty badly with critics. It even has a worse RT score than ‘Salvation’. In that case, allow me to retort…

‘Genisys’ took the same route as the recent ‘Star Trek’ films, which is fitting seeing how both series are currently owned by Paramount/Skydance, by setting up a new alternate dimension. As Kyle Reese is sent back in time to the year 1984, a mysterious figure (later revealed to be the physical embodiment of Skynet) attacks John Connor, setting off a chain of events that lands Kyle in an alternate timeline. And in this timeline, the scared and vulnerable Sarah Connor that he thought he was coming for has instead changed into a badass warrior with the help of her guardian T-800. But all of that change to the series’ canon has been one of the primary sore spots for many people in regards to this film, with their argument being that the creation of an alternate timeline does away with all of the awesome stuff that happened in the previous films. I’ve even seen a few people refer to this film’s plot as being nothing more than ‘Terminator fan-fiction’. Well here’s where I debunk that myth saying that ‘alternate universe’ storylines are a bad idea. Because I can still go to Best Buy and buy both of James Cameron’s Terminator films on Blu-Ray without any trouble. For you see, folks, no matter what happens next for this series, those original films are still there for you to enjoy. It’s only in the series’ current ‘timeline’ that the events of those previous films have been ‘erased’. And hey, at the very least this film made the smart move of ignoring the retcon of the third and fourth films, re-establishing the original Judgment Day date of 1997 and not 2004. Though seriously, ‘Star Trek’ did the same thing and you don’t see anyone complain about that… oh wait, bad example, a lot of hardcore Trek fans complained about it.

Well regardless of what others say, I personally really like this idea of taking a pre-existing storyline and spinning it into a new timeline. That is because in doing so, it allows the filmmakers to explore the series’ lore and characters from a different perspective. And yes, sometimes that will result in some familiar story/character motifs reoccurring from time to time but these instances can be still be done in a different context and done really well, like in ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ with the whole Khan scenario (again, contrary to what some people might claim). I am legitimately interested in seeing where the ‘Terminator’ series continues from this point on as Sarah, Kyle, and ‘Pops’ traverse through this new timeline together, especially now that the latter has basically become a T-1000 after getting thrown into a vat of mimetic polyalloy. Because while they believe that they’ve taken down Skynet, represented in this film as the A.I. behind a new operating system in the alternate timeline version of 2017, Genisys (hence the title of the film), the mid-credits sequence shows that Skynet’s system core is still running even after the Cyberdyne facility was destroyed so it’ll be interesting to see how Skynet will reemerge as the threat that it is as the series continues. And I think it’s safe to say that Matt Smith’s character, the aforementioned physical embodiment of Skynet that is basically responsible for setting up this new timeline, will be involved in some way.

If you ask me, Alan Taylor deserves a lot of credit for being able to almost completely recreate the opening scenes of the first ‘Terminator’ film in both look and feel, save for a few re-castings (sorry folks, there ain’t no Bill Paxton in here to tell the Terminator ‘F*** you asshole!’) and the whole alternate timeline thing. And yeah, the fight between old Arnold and young Arnold was easily one of the best moments of the entire film. But to me one of the absolute best elements of the film that actually did make it work so well was the strong camaraderie amongst the main trio of Sarah, Kyle, and ‘Pops’. Emilia Clarke does a fantastic job stepping into the shoes of one of cinema’s most iconic action heroines, Sarah Connor, and Jai Courtney isn’t too far behind taking on the role of Kyle Reese. Yes, you just read that right. I actually thought that Courtney, who’s quickly become one of the most despised actors working today amongst film fans (up there with people like Shia LaBeouf) primarily for being a part of a few famous franchises’ most critically-bashed entries (e.g. ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’, this), actually did a really nice job as Reese. I’m not saying that he was better than Michael Biehn in the first film but he did his job serving as the audience avatar trying to navigate through this strange new alternate dimension. And while he isn’t in the film that much, J.K. Simmons is a major scene-stealer as O’Brien, a detective who first comes across the group in LA in 1984, nearly gets killed by the T-1000, and then comes across the trio again many years later in 2017 San Francisco and helps them out there completely accepting of what they tell him about them trying to save the world.

As for Jason Clarke as John Connor, I noted before how I did like that he had a much more substantial role in the film than I had initially thought. At first I thought that he was only going to be in the scenes set in the Judgment Day timeline before Kyle goes back in time but nope, he’s in the film more than that and yes, he plays the main villain. It’s revealed that after he was attacked by Matt Smith’s character, he was transformed into the T-3000 to ensure Skynet’s survival and sent into the future to the year 2014 to help develop its ‘cover’, Genisys. Here’s the thing… Ignoring the whole controversy regarding this reveal being shown in the second trailer, I was totally fine with this twist. Not only that, but Clarke’s become my new favorite John Connor after it had been Nick Stahl in ‘Terminator 3’ for a few years now. Clarke does a really great job in making the Terminator John Connor a pretty darn charismatic and badass villain, who’s like a more advanced version of the T-1000. I have the feeling that some viewed this as a ‘betrayal’ of the character given the fact that he’s always been portrayed as one of the series’ main protagonists. But really that’s far from the case here. See, if the scenario was that Connor was revealed to have been a villain the whole time, without having been turned into a Terminator, then I’d be more likely to say that it ‘betrayed’ everything that the character was in the other films. But instead it’s just a case where John was only turned into a villain by Skynet, which obviously works much better.

But of course I can’t talk about this film without mentioning the best part about it; ARNOLD! Whether you like the film or not, you cannot deny that the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger to the most iconic role of his career was very much welcome. This was the first time that he’s been in the role since ‘Terminator 3’ 12 years ago. He wasn’t in ‘Terminator Salvation’ (not counting his CGI double in that film) and after watching this film, I have come to the conclusion that this was arguably the biggest flaw of ‘Salvation’, even more than the writing. Simply put, you can’t have a ‘Terminator’ film without Arnold. Though with that said, I’ve heard rumors that the next film is going to be the last ‘Terminator’ film that he’s going to do which means that if that ends up being true, then the planned third film of this new trilogy is going to have one hell of a chip on its shoulder in regards to having to move on without the series’ biggest star. But anyway, back to his role in ‘Genisys’. Even though he’s now 68 years old, he still manages to kick major ass and is once again excellent in the role of the T-800, especially when it comes to his great comedic timing. Just try and tell me that you didn’t laugh at least once when he tries to smile, a nice little nod to a deleted scene from ‘Terminator 2’. And despite the occasional bickering that goes on between him and Sarah, specifically in regards to the fact that she is destined to ‘mate’ with Kyle in order to give birth to John Connor, you can actually sense that he’s developed a pretty solid father-daughter esque relationship with her. I’ll admit that on repeat viewings of the film, the scene at the end where he tells Kyle to ‘protect my Sarah’ right before he nobly sacrifices himself to destroy the T-3000 was actually a really effective emotional moment.

So yeah, that’s my whole spiel on ‘Terminator: Genisys’. Clearly I’m in the minority when it comes to liking this film and the general discontent towards it definitely showed from a commercial standpoint when this film was released this past July. Domestically it only grossed about $89.7 million, a total that was way below the film’s budget, which put Skydance’s plan of producing two more sequels to the film in jeopardy. But then in came the foreign box-office to save the day, specifically in China where it grossed over $112 million. Overseas the film managed to gross over $350 million which helped the film breakeven (I think… I’ll admit I don’t know much about this whole ‘budget’ and ‘breaking even’ process) on its $155 million budget. The planned trilogy is still up in the air but at the very least, this film was saved from being a box-office bomb by the overseas market (Thank you China!). And while obviously not too many people are keen on seeing the series continue on at this point, I am very much eager to see where it decides to go next now that it has established a new alternate reality a la ‘Star Trek’. In conclusion, I had a lot of fun with ‘Terminator: Genisys’. Is it as good as the two Cameron films? No, but obviously those two films are one hell of a tough act to follow, though that doesn’t mean that I’m holding that against the sequels that came after it. At the very least, this film does feel like a proper sequel to those films without pulling a major retcon that goes against everything that happened at the end of ‘Terminator 2’, effectively making it the best of the sequels after that film. Many of you will argue that this isn’t saying much but it is to me.

And that’s the end of Part 1 of my ‘Top 12 Favorite Films of 2015’ list. Check back tomorrow for Part 2 where I’ll be listing films #9-7.

The Good Dinosaur (2015) review

What’s this? Two Pixar films in one year? Yes folks, for the first time ever, the animation giants have achieved the feat of having two new films open up in the same year. Of course back in June we got the truly amazing ‘Inside Out’, which was easily the company’s best film of the past few years, and now here in November, we have Pixar’s second 2015 effort, ‘The Good Dinosaur’. However, the reason why this film ended up getting released the same year as ‘Inside Out’ could be regarded as a rather troubling one. For you see, this film was originally supposed to be Pixar’s 2014 release directed by Bob Peterson AKA the voice of Dug the talking dog in ‘Up’. However, in August of 2013, it was announced that Peterson had been removed from the film and that it was being completely reworked after he had been having trouble with the final act, with fellow Pixar employee Peter Sohn (AKA Emile from ‘Ratatouille’) taking over as the new director. Now for the record, this isn’t the first time that this has happened with Pixar. Production of the first ‘Toy Story’ was briefly shut down after the edgier take on the story suggested by Disney’s then-chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg proved to be a disaster. Its first sequel, ‘Toy Story 2’, was not only reworked from its initial direct-to-video state but the final product was completed in just nine months. But from today’s perspective, pair all of that production turmoil with the middling reception of Pixar’s post ‘Toy Story 3’ run and basically you have a lot of people predicting that this film was going to be a disaster. But in the end, ‘The Good Dinosaur’ very much proves its critics wrong because while it may end up being one of Pixar’s simpler stories, it’s still a very charming and beautiful effort from the studio.

‘The Good Dinosaur’ sets up a world in which the infamous meteor that resulted in the extinction of all dinosaurs ends up missing Earth entirely, allowing the dinosaurs to live on and further evolve. 65 million years later, a young Apatosaurus named Arlo (Raymond Ochoa) lives on a farm with his family; his father Henry (Jeffrey Wright), his mother Ida (Frances McDormand), and his siblings Buck (Marcus Scribner) and Libby (Maleah Padilla). But because of his fearful nature, Arlo continually finds it difficult to help his family around the farm so that he can truly earn his ‘mark’ (a mud-print on the farm silo). His father tries to help him overcome his fears by giving him the job of dealing with pests that try to steal their food. But after a flash flood in which Henry is tragically killed, Arlo ends up getting washed far away from home when he falls into the river right next to the farm. Remembering what his father told him about ‘using the river to find his way home’, Arlo soon comes across a feral cave-boy who he names ‘Spot’ (Jack Bright), who ironically happens to be the same pest that Arlo was trying to stop and was inadvertently responsible for the events that led to Arlo’s father’s death and Arlo getting swept away from his home, and the two become friends as they brave the wilderness and all sorts of potential threats, including a group of carnivorous pterodactyls, as they try to get back to Arlo’s home.

To be perfectly frank, ‘The Good Dinosaur’ is a much simpler story compared to some of Pixar’s other films. It’s basically just a story about the main character trying to get home. But even with that said, I feel that there’s much more to this film than just that. For one thing, it genuinely is a very unique take on the classic ‘boy and his dog’ story, except in this case the boy is ‘the dog’ and the dog, in this case a dinosaur, is ‘the boy’. But then it also carries some really strong themes, mainly the idea of being able to overcome your fear, resulting in a great character arc for Arlo as he very much finds himself outside of his comfort zone. Though at the same time, the film also stresses that fear is a natural thing and as one character puts it, “If you ain’t scared… you ain’t alive.” There have been some who said that the film is too ‘kiddie’, that it’s the first Pixar film that’s ‘just for kids’ (which therefore gives me the assumption that they apparently forgot about ‘Cars 2’, which was the ‘real’ first Pixar film to get that ‘description’ by critics). But quite frankly that’s far from the truth as this film is a great ‘coming-of-age’ story that gives us a great friendship between the two main characters, Arlo and Spot, even though it starts out with Arlo being angry at Spot for getting them lost in the first place. But as time goes on, the two grow closer as they look out for each other in this dangerous world of dinosaurs and, without giving anything major away, this leads to some very emotional moments as one would normally expect from Pixar films.

This film feels very much like ‘Wall-E’ in that it focuses more on visual storytelling than it does with dialogue, especially in a great scene in which Arlo and Spot lament about their lost families. And of course, the animation is the usual Pixar level of excellence, even though there have been some who felt that the more cartoony characters don’t mix very well with the photorealistic environments, something that I didn’t really have any major problem with. The film’s voice cast was another element of the film that got redeveloped along with the story. Initially, the film was going to star, among others, John Lithgow, Neil Patrick Harris, Bill Hader, and Judy Greer. But from this initial cast, only Frances McDormand stayed on as the voice of Arlo’s mother while Lithgow was replaced by Jeffrey Wright as Arlo’s father and Harris, Hader, and Greer’s characters, Arlo’s original three siblings, were replaced in favor of just two siblings, his brother Buck and his sister Libby. But just like how the film works great without a whole lot of dialogue, the film’s small voice cast is, in a way, able to stand out more because of it. Arlo was originally voiced by Lucas Neff before the filmmakers switched him with Raymond Ochoa to give Arlo a younger voice and that’s definitely a good idea because it better reflects how the character matures over the course of the film. Wright and McDormand are great as usual in their small roles as Arlo’s parents and the film features some very memorable side characters, including director Peter Sohn as a Styracosaurus named Forrest Woodbush who ‘owns’ a bunch of animals that reside on his horns and Sam Elliott, Anna Paquin, and A.J. Buckley as a trio of T-Rex ‘ranchers’.

Given the film’s current rating of 78% on RT, this is definitely going to be one of the more polarizing entries in Pixar’s lineup alongside films like ‘Brave’ and ‘Monsters University’. Some have accused this film of being ‘simplistic’ and that it’s only ‘for kids’, which is an argument that unfortunately has been made from time to time over the years by certain people when it comes to animated films. But I’m going to concur with an argument made by my friend Kyle over at ‘Kyle’s Animated World’; what’s so bad about Pixar making a film that isn’t a complete masterpiece? I’m not afraid to admit that I don’t ‘hate’ ‘Cars 2’ and feel that both ‘Brave’ and ‘Monsters University’ are solid efforts from the company even if they aren’t amongst their absolute best. ‘The Good Dinosaur’ is another fine case of that. Yes it’s one of the simpler affairs from the studio but there’s more to it than what some may claim. As a film that’s more about visual storytelling than dialogue-based storytelling, it perfectly executes its themes of courage and friendship through the main character Arlo’s main story arc and his overall relationship with the feral cave-boy Spot. And of course like many Pixar films, it features amazing animation and some genuinely emotional moments that I guarantee are going to make you tear up. Similar to how Marvel managed to overcome some production troubles with this year’s ‘Ant-Man’, ‘The Good Dinosaur’ managed to overcome its initial production troubles to become yet another great effort from Pixar that’s great for the whole family and not just for kids as some of its critics claim it is.

Rating: 4.5/5

For those who have already seen the film, please check out my friend Kyle’s ‘spoiler’ review of it in the link provided below;

http://kylesanimatedworld.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-great-dinosaur-pixar-does-it-again.html

2015 Preview: November

November 2015… the month of James Bond, the Hunger Games, Rocky Balboa, Peanuts, and Pixar. A lot of big-name films are hitting theaters during the month of Thanksgiving so let’s highlight them here today. Welcome back to Rhode Island Movie Corner’s year-long preview of the films that are set to come out in 2015. This is Part 11 of 12 and today we come to the penultimate month of 2015; November.

NOVEMBER 6- The first weekend of the month is highlighted by the one-two punch of 007 and the world of Charles Schulz’ iconic franchise, the Peanuts.

*After 2012’s billion-dollar hit ‘Skyfall’, Daniel Craig returns as James Bond in Sam Mendes’ second Bond film, ‘Spectre’. This new film, as the title suggests, will re-introduce the classic villainous organization known as Spectre that had been absent from the franchise since the 70’s due to legal issues. The film also stars Christoph Waltz as main villain Franz Oberhauser, Lea Seydoux as lead Bond girl Madeleine Swann, Monica Bellucci as secondary Bond girl Lucia Sciarra, and Dave Bautista as the film’s primary henchman Mr. Hinx. Alongside them, Ralph Fiennes (M), Naomie Harris (Moneypenny), Ben Whishaw (Q), Rory Kinnear (Tanner), and Jesper Christensen (Mr. White) all reprise their roles from previous Bond films.

*The classic world of Charles Schulz’s ‘Peanuts’ franchise comes to the big screen (for the first time since 1980) in ‘The Peanuts Movie’. Produced by Blue Sky Studios and co-written by Schulz’s son Craig and his son (Schulz’s grandson) Bryan, this new film sees Charlie Brown and his loyal dog Snoopy go on life-changing quests, as Snoopy takes on his arch-nemesis the Red Baron and Charlie Brown tries to woo the Little Red-Haired Girl.

NOVEMBER 13­- Out this weekend are a true story and an ensemble comedy.

*Antonio Banderas stars in ‘The 33’, which tells the true story of the 2010 Chilean mining disaster in which 33 miners ended up getting trapped for over two months in the San Jose mine when a cave-in occurs. The film also stars Rodrigo Santoro, Juliette Binoche, and James Brolin.

*A major ensemble cast headlines ‘Love the Coopers’, a Christmas comedy that follows four generations of the titular Cooper family as they unite for their annual Christmas Eve party; John Goodman, Diane Keaton, Amanda Seyfried, Alan Arkin, Olivia Wilde, Ed Helms, Marisa Tomei, June Squibb, and Anthony Mackie.

NOVEMBER 20- While the big draw this weekend is the finale to the ‘Hunger Games’ saga, there’s also a Seth Rogen comedy and an adaptation of an Argentinian novel for the non-Hunger Games crowds.

*After four years, the ‘Hunger Games’ series finally comes to an end with ‘Mockingjay Part 2’, the immediate follow-up to last year’s ‘Mockingjay Part 1’. This final film sees Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) leading the districts of Panem in a final showdown against President Snow (Donald Sutherland) and the corrupt Capitol. Lawrence is once again joined by, among others, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Julianne Moore, Elizabeth Banks, Jeffrey Wright, Sam Claflin, Jena Malone, Stanley Tucci, and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.

*Seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Anthony Mackie headline ‘The Night Before’, in which they star as a trio of friends who seek to have one last great Christmas Eve hurrah. The film also stars Jillian Bell, Michael Shannon, and Mindy Kaling.

*Screenwriter Billy Ray (‘The Hunger Games’, ‘Captain Phillips’) helms the American remake of the 2009 Argentine thriller ‘The Secret in their Eyes’, which in turn was based off of the 2005 novel ‘La pregunta de sus ojos’ by Eduardo Sacheri. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Julia Roberts star as a pair of FBI investigators, along with Nicole Kidman as their D.A. supervisor, who are severely affected by the tragedy of the death of one of their children.  

NOVEMBER 25- Opening early on Wednesday before the Thanksgiving Holiday are a spin-off to the Rocky franchise, Pixar’s second animated film of the year, and a new take on the classic story of Frankenstein. I’ll also add in one noteworthy limited release.

*Ryan Coogler, director of 2013’s critically acclaimed indie drama ‘Fruitvale Station’, teams up again with Fruitvale star Michael B. Jordan for ‘Creed’, a spin-off to the iconic ‘Rocky’ franchise. Jordan stars as the son of the late Apollo Creed, who begins training to become a boxer with the help of his father’s old friend, the ‘Italian Stallion’ himself, Rocky Balboa, once again played by Sylvester Stallone.

*Pixar achieves a company first this year with ‘The Good Dinosaur’, their second release in a single year. Their newest film explores a world in which the dinosaurs were never killed by the asteroid as a young Apatosaurus named Arlo tries to get back home along with his new friend, a human cave-boy named Spot. The film’s voice-cast includes Sam Elliot, Anna Paquin, and Jeffrey Wright.

*Daniel Radcliffe and James McAvoy star in ‘Victor Frankenstein’, a new take on the classic story of Frankenstein as told from the perspective of Dr. Frankenstein’s (McAvoy) assistant Igor (Radcliffe).

*And finally, debuting in limited release on Friday the 27^th is ‘The Danish Girl’, directed by ‘The King’s Speech’ and ‘Les Miserables’ director Tom Hooper. Eddie Redmayne stars as Lili Elbe, who became one of the first major recipients of sex reassignment surgery in the 1930’s. Alicia Vikander co-stars as Gerda Gottlieb, who was married to Lili back when she was Einar Wegener, and the film also stars Ben Whishaw and Matthias Schoenaerts.

And those are the films that are hitting theaters this November. Check back next month for the final part of this year-long preview as we close out 2015 with the films of December, which includes a small sci-fi film you may have heard of… ;)

Top 10 Most Anticipated Films of 2015

2015 is almost upon us and as many of you know by now, it’s looking to be quite a year for movies. So much so that by the end of last year, it was hyped up so much that pretty much everyone overlooked 2014, which I do feel was a little unfair given some of the great films that have come out this year like ‘Gone Girl’, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, and ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’. Still, I can’t deny it… it really does look like 2015 is going to be one of the biggest years in movie history as there are quite a lot of exciting upcoming releases next year; too many to count, really. So today, I give you my list of my personal Top 10 most anticipated films of 2015.  Now of course, most of the films on this list are still many months away from being released so at the moment we don’t know that much about them. So that means that there is going to be quite a lot of speculating in this post which may or may not end up being true when these films are officially released. But before we get into the official Top 10, I’ll just go through my 7 honorable mentions.

PIXELS

Now on the surface, this film could go either way. That’s mostly because it’s an Adam Sandler comedy and as we all know, they can be hit or miss and unfortunately, there have been quite a lot of misses recently like ‘Jack and Jill’ and ‘Grown Ups 2’. But ultimately the main reason why I’m looking forward to this is quite simple… it’s about video games. And really, when it comes to films about video games, the best films are the ones that aren’t primarily based on a certain game like ‘Tron’ and ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’ which are instead inspired by video games. So because of that, I’m curious to see what (if any) famous video games/characters will be featured in the film. Plus, Sandler does have a pretty nice supporting cast backing him up, including Josh Gad, Michelle Monaghan, and Peter Dinklage with a badass mullet. How could you go wrong? The film is directed by Chris Columbus, a director that I do like having done the first two ‘Home Alone’ films, the first two ‘Harry Potter’ films (See a pattern here?), and ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’. Again, because this is an Adam Sandler film, it may ultimately end up not being that good. However in this case, I’m going stay very optimistic about it if only for the fact that I love video games. Sure, video games and movies haven’t fared well when combined together (in either direction) but who knows? Given that there are adaptations of ‘Assassin’s Creed’, ‘Warcraft’, and ‘Ratchet and Clank’ (just to name a few) currently in production, maybe the trend could change.

GOOSEBUMPS

Like many 90’s kids, I grew up reading the ‘Goosebumps’ books by R.L. Stine and I did watch many episodes of the TV show (albeit when I was a little older but that’s beside the point) so I’m interested in seeing how this film plays out, especially considering that apparently it is going to have a fairly meta story. The film centers a kid who moves to a town in Maryland where he meets a girl who lives next door to him. It turns out that her father just so happens to be none other than R.L. Stine himself (who will be played by Jack Black) and the boy ends up releasing the various monsters and creatures that have been featured in Stine’s book series. While I will admit that I haven’t read all of the Goosebumps books, I am actually rather interesting in seeing what famous characters from the series will be making an appearance in this movie. It’s been nearly more than two decades since the original series of books were released so hopefully this film will do a good job at paying tribute to this iconic kid-friendly horror franchise.

THE MAZE RUNNER: THE SCORCH TRIALS

If I hadn’t seen ‘The Maze Runner’, I wouldn’t have listed this film in this post but I did see ‘The Maze Runner’ and as you know from my review, I really liked it. It had an incredibly compelling story, a really nice production design and pretty top-notch special effects, and a terrific cast. Overall, it was one of the better films of the Young Adult Book-to-Film genre up there with ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘The Hunger Games’. So in short, I’m really looking forward to learning where this story is heading next. The first film did end on one of the more obvious ‘sequel-baiting’ lines in recent history (and to my knowledge, the big reveal at the end of this film didn’t actually happen until the second book) but I’m still interested in this franchise. While the Young Adult Genre dominates Hollywood right now (and most of the time to rather mediocre results), I’m glad to see that one of the better franchises from this genre is doing pretty well both critically and commercially.

THE JUNGLE BOOK

There have been quite a lot of ‘copycat films’ that have come out in the last few years. In 2012, there were two ‘Snow White’ films. In 2013, there were two ‘Invasion of the White House’ movies. And this year, there were two ‘Hercules’ movies. As for the next major pair of ‘copycat films’, one is hitting theaters next year while the other one comes out exactly one year later in 2016. Both of which are adaptations of Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Jungle Book’. First out of the gate is Disney’s take on the book (their second after their 1967 animated version, which was notably the last Disney film produced by Walt Disney before his death) directed by Jon Favreau. The film features a prime ensemble cast, even though most of them are only doing voice work while Neel Sethi is the only major human character as the man-cub Mowgli. He is joined by Bill Murray as Baloo, Idris Elba as Shere Khan, Scarlett Johansson as Kaa, Christopher Walken as King Louie, and Ben Kingsley as Bagheera. This film will be followed in 2016 by the Warner Bros. film ‘The Jungle Book: Origins’, directed by Andy Serkis, who will also be playing Baloo. This film too has a great ensemble cast; Christian Bale as Bagheera, Cate Blanchett as Kaa, and Benedict Cumberbatch as Shere Khan. Since it won’t be released until October 2016 (again literally just a year after Favreau’s film in October 2015) I won’t go too much in trying to predict which film will be better. It’s looking like Serkis’ version will be better, but even with that said, I’m still interested in seeing Favreau’s version.

PEANUTS

When the first teaser for this film was released, I heard a lot of negative reactions towards it. That surprised me because my reaction was the polar opposite towards this teaser for the latest adaptation of the ‘Peanuts’ comic strip created by Charles M. Schulz. The animation looks really nice as it looks like they’re going for a combination of the 2D animation that has defined the ‘Peanuts’ TV specials and 3-D animation; in other words a 2.5-D animation style. This film will be hitting theaters in the year where the comic strip celebrates its 65^th anniversary. I’ve watched a lot of the specials multiple times since I was young so I am interested in seeing this new film and I am pretty confident the filmmakers are going to do the franchise justice with their take on these iconic characters.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 5

The ‘Mission Impossible’ film franchise has been on a really good run recently. The first film may not have been perfect but it was still a pretty solid spy thriller. As for the second film, well… not so much. Thankfully, the franchise got back on the right foot when then first-time film director J.J. Abrams helmed the third film, which finally started to move away from having the films primarily focus on Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt. Then things got even better when Brad Bird made his live-action film debut with ‘Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol’, which featured phenomenal action sequences and a great group of lead characters that were each given solid amounts of character development… again, it wasn’t all about Tom Cruise. So now we come to Mission Impossible 5. This time Bird isn’t directing due to his work on another film (which, (Spoilers!), you will see in the Top 10) and instead Christopher McQuarrie steps in to direct. This is only his third film as a director but he has worked with Tom Cruise multiple times before on films like ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ and ‘Jack Reacher’ so it’s clear that they do work well together. This film will also feature the primary cast of the last film returning (except for Paula Patton… for some as of yet undisclosed reason) so while this may not be directed by Brad Bird, things still look good for the franchise that has gotten better with every film (save for number 2).        

THE GOOD DINOSAUR

2014 was the first year since 2005 where we did not get a new Pixar film. Originally, this film, ‘The Good Dinosaur’, was supposed to come out in 2014 but it ended up getting pushed back. The reason for this? Well that was because the film’s director, Bob Peterson, was taken off of the project due to story problems and he has since been replaced by members of the ‘Pixar Brain Trust’. That is ultimately why this film didn’t make the Top 10 because compared to the other Pixar film coming out this year, this one seems like somewhat of a risk. Apparently the film has been ‘dismantled and completely reimagined’, according to John Lithgow, who is part of the film’s voice cast along with Frances McDormand, Neil Patrick Harris, Judy Greer, and Bill Hader. Now for the record, this isn’t the first time this has happened to Pixar; it also happened on some of their other films like ‘Toy Story 2’ and ‘Ratatouille’. Then there’s also the fact that Pixar has not exactly been on the best run in recent years. Still, this is a Pixar film (1 of 2 coming out this year, a first for the company) so I’m hopeful that this will be the year that Pixar officially returns to its position as the ‘kings of computer animation’.

And speaking of Pixar, starting things off at Number 10 is the other Pixar film hitting theaters this year, which comes out five months before ‘The Good Dinosaur’.

10. INSIDE OUT (JUNE 19TH)

As I just noted, Pixar has not been on the best run recently. I didn’t think ‘Cars 2’ was as bad as most critics were saying it was but even then I still felt that it was Pixar’s weakest film to date as it was primarily geared towards kids and not to adults, whereas the other Pixar films were able to appeal to both kids and adults with not just their terrific animation but well-written stories and characters. As for their next film, ‘Brave’, it started out great but then sort of became your average family film, resulting in a rather disappointing entry in Pixar’s prestigious filmography. Thankfully, I feel that Pixar did manage to get back on track with last year’s ‘Monsters University’. Sure, it may not have been the absolute best Pixar film, but it was much more in line with the previous Pixar films with its solid writing, memorable characters, and great amount of heart. That is why I’m hopeful that ‘Inside Out’ will continue this solid trend. The premise for the film is pretty interesting; it revolves around the ‘emotions’ within the mind of a little girl as they try to keep everything under control when she moves to a new city with her parents. The film is directed by Pete Docter, who directed two of Pixar’s best films in ‘Monsters Inc.’ and ‘Up’ so it looks like we’re in good hands with this one. Ultimately though, the main reason why I picked this over ‘Good Dinosaur’ is because overall I think this film has a slightly more interesting premise.

My number 9 pick is the next entry in a hugely popular film franchise though in the case of this film, it has had quite a few hurdles to overcome.

9. FAST AND FURIOUS 7 (APRIL 3RD)

Looking back at my 2014 most anticipated list, I realize that I might have posted it just a little bit too early. I posted it in September 2013 and just a few months afterwards, two films that were I my Top 10 list for most anticipated for this year ended up getting pushed back to 2015; this is one of those films though in this case, it was for tragic reasons. On November 30^th, 2013, series star Paul Walker died in a car accident while filming was on break for the holidays. Since then, the filmmakers have spent a lot of time reworking the film so that the character of Brian O’Connor could be retired instead of killed. So like Heath Ledger in ‘The Dark Knight’, this film will forever be haunted by the loss of Walker. But aside from that, there’s another big question mark regarding this new film and that is in regards to director James Wan taking over directing duties from Justin Lin. Wan has mainly been known for his work in the horror genre with films like ‘The Conjuring’, ‘Saw’, and ‘Insidious’. This is his first foray into the action genre so it’ll be interesting to see how Wan fares in this genre. Regardless though, the ‘Fast and Furious’ franchise has been on a really good run recently following the commercial and critical (the latter of which was actually rather surprising given the general critical reception to the previous four films) success of ‘Fast Five’ and ‘Fast and Furious 6’. I think it’s safe to say the seventh film will at least be a commercial hit and also due to the death of Walker, this film is going to be one to focus on.

While I might be in the minority when it comes to liking ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’, I feel that 2014 has been the best year for comic movies to date and while ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ may not have fared well with everybody, the other comic book films of this year, ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’, ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’, and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ were all very well-received by both critics and audiences. One thing they all had in common? They were all based on Marvel properties and this year will see three more Marvel films. My Number 8 film is the first of these that you’ll be seeing on this list.

8. THE FANTASTIC FOUR (AUGUST 7TH)

While superhero film franchises like Spider-Man, X-Men, and The Avengers have been able to be successfully both critically and commercially, other franchises haven’t had the same luck. One of those franchises is the ‘Fantastic Four’. While many people are familiar with the 2005 film adaptation and its 2007 sequel, there was actually another Fantastic Four film in 1994. Never heard of it? Well, that’s for good reason as it was actually never released. This is due to the fact that while Marvel did let it get made, they never actually intended to release it. So that went nowhere and instead we got 2005’s ‘Fantastic Four’ and 2007’s ‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer’. These two films are not as well-regarded amongst comic book fans. Now I will admit that I don’t think they’re absolutely terrible (in fact, you could say that I sort of actually… like them) but at the same time they’re not perfect. There were some genuinely solid bits of casting, including Chris Evans (who later took on another famous superhero role, Captain America, in, let’s be honest, far better movies) as the Human Torch and Michael Chiklis as the Thing but it also cast Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman and in the sequel made the character of Galactus a cloud… to put it bluntly, epic fail.

So hopefully this new ‘Fantastic Four’ film will manage to be the first great film in the series. It does have a really nice cast and crew attached to it. The film is directed by Josh Trank, who had previously directed the excellent found footage film, ‘Chronicle’, a film that may not have been based off of anything but was, technically speaking, about kids with superpowers so he’s definitely a good choice for the job. The film is produced by Simon Kinberg and Matthew Vaughn, both of whom had helped resurrect the X-Men franchise with ‘First Class’ and ‘Days of Future Past’ so I have the feeling that they will be able to do the same thing with the ‘Fantastic Four’. Finally, the film has a great group of leads to play the Four; Miles Teller as Mr. Fantastic, Kate Mara as Invisible Woman, Michael B. Jordan as the Human Torch (haters, you can shut up about the fact that he’s black… get over it!), and Jamie Bell as The Thing. As the backlash against Jordan’s casting shows, this film hasn’t had the best publicity as not everyone is too positive about the cast (you know, like pretty much every other frigging superhero film ever made?!). I for one am not one of those people and I’m eager to see Trank’s take on these iconic characters.

A lot of famous film franchises are making a major comeback next year. My Number 7 pick is one of those films.

7. JURASSIC WORLD (JUNE 12TH)

Here we have ‘Jurassic World’, the fourth film in the ‘Jurassic Park’ film franchise, originally based off of the 1990 novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. This time, newcomer Colin Trevorrow takes over as director for this film which is set to take place a little more than two decades after the events of the original film. It will be returning to the island of Isla Nublar, where InGen CEO John Hammond had previously attempted to build a theme park called ‘Jurassic Park’ which featured real dinosaurs cloned from fossil DNA, which ultimately ended up going wrong. In this new film, a new theme park has been built under new ownership but when the park’s attendance starts to decline, a new attraction is created in order to drum up interest for the park, which is where things start going wrong… again. I haven’t seen Trevorrow’s previous film, ‘Safety not Guaranteed’, so I’m curious to see if he’s the right choice to follow in the footsteps of Steven Spielberg. Still, Spielberg is an Executive Producer so it does look like we’ll be in good hands with this one. Plus, Trevorrow has stated that the film will be utilizing practical effects, which is somewhat of a rarity in today’s Hollywood, so fans of old-fashioned special effects (which were used in the original ‘Jurassic Park’ even though the Dinosaurs were created via CGI) should be satisfied with certain aspects of the film. So while this film has been in development hell for quite some time and is coming off of two sequels that weren’t as well-regarded as the first, it’s time for the dinosaurs to make a major comeback.

Closing out the first half of this Top 10 list is the finale to what is currently the most successful book-to-film franchise at the moment.

6. THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 2 (NOVEMBER 20TH)

We’re still a few weeks away from the release of ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1’ so the big question about these last two ‘Hunger Games’ at the moment is whether or not the decision to split the final book of the series these films are based off of into two separate films was a good idea. Pretty much every major studio with a popular film franchise based off of a best-selling book series has been doing this to fairly mixed results. ‘Harry Potter’ of course started the trend with ‘Deathly Hallows’ but that was a case where it did work because there was enough material for two films. ‘Twilight’ then split ‘Breaking Dawn’ into two films and while I haven’t seen those films, I can already tell that it was unnecessary. And just a month after ‘Divergent’ was released, the final book in that series was announced to be split into two films. Thankfully, this will not be the case with ‘The Maze Runner’ when that series gets to its finale. But anyway, back to ‘Mockingjay’. Given that ‘Mockingjay’ wasn’t as big of a book as something like ‘Deathly Hallows’, I’m very much fairly hesitant about the decision to split it into two films. However, recent reports have given some insight onto why this might actually be a good move.

Apparently, author Suzanne Collins was forced to condense a lot of the story that she was planning into just one book. So it looks like because of this, these two films will be able to go more in depth into the story, in which Katniss Everdeen finds herself right at the front of the revolution of the districts of Panem against the Capitol. I’m aware that the last book wasn’t as well-received due to its ‘fast-paced’ tone so hopefully that means that these two films will be able to fix that problem, again due to the fact that it looks like there will be more time for character and story development. But if anything, I think that we are in good hands with these last two films. I do stand by the first film as being a really good film despite some issues (namely shaky cam work and editing). But like everyone else, I do agree that ‘Catching Fire’ was a superior sequel (ironically the book wasn’t as well-received) in pretty much every way. Director Francis Lawrence did a great job at expanding the world of Panem, which we didn’t really see much in the first film, and avoided using shaky cam and quick editing once we got to the actual Hunger Games. He was definitely the perfect choice to take over the franchise so I’m pretty certain that both ‘Mockingjay Part 1’ and ‘Mockingjay Part 2’ will be just as good as ‘Catching Fire’. But then again, at the time I’m currently writing this, Part 1 isn’t even out yet so we still have to see if the two-film split is going to work.

At Number 5, I have the superhero film that probably has the biggest hurdle to overcome compared to the other two coming out this year.

5. ANT-MAN (JULY 17TH)

Out of all of the films on this list, ‘Ant-Man’, the first film of Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has the biggest chip on its shoulder. Originally the film was one of the first major projects that Marvel Studios had in development with director Edgar Wright attached to do the film. However, back in May, a bombshell was dropped when it was announced that Wright was walking away from the film due to creative differences on account of Marvel rewriting the script against his own will. Thankfully, it didn’t take too long for Marvel to find a replacement as Peyton Reed was hired to direct the film, which will star Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, a criminal who acquires technology that allows him to shrink down in size but also increase in strength with the help of his mentor Hank Pym, played by Michael Douglas. But even though the film is back on schedule, it’s still a major risk for the studio to the point where a lot of people are predicting that this is going to be Marvel’s first major flop. Plus, unfortunately it seems that not everyone has gotten over the fact that Wright left the project. I previously did a post on this matter where I stated that I’m not at all worried about this film even with Wright’s departure.

Yes, it does suck that Wright is no longer attached to direct the film. I’m certain his take on the character would’ve be amazing, just like his other movies. But really… it’s time to get over it guys. Marvel moved on from it, they found someone to replace him, and it looks like everything’s smooth sailing from here. Yes, Peyton Reed is not exactly the absolute perfect choice to take over for Wright but as proven earlier this year by the Russo brothers’ work on ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’, it’s not like comedy directors can’t do action movies. There has also been some doubt about this film, not only because of the Wright controversy but also due to the fact that ‘Ant-Man’ seems like a pretty hard comic book franchise to adapt onto film. Well, in regards to the latter, I got four words to respond to that… Guardians… of… the… Galaxy! Remember when we all thought that was going to be a flop (myself included)? Well, at the time I’m writing this, it is currently the third highest-grossing film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe so yeah… it wasn’t a flop. The bottom line is that Marvel Studios has yet to make a bad film. Even their weaker entries like ‘Thor: The Dark World’ and ‘The Incredible Hulk’ are still very entertaining and as ‘Guardians’ proved, they can do some more obscure franchises (unlike DC). So in short, I’m not at all worried about ‘Ant-Man’… I think it’s going to turn out good. Again folks, ultimately it’s just that it’s time that we got over the Wright situation. Like they say in ‘Frozen’…

I tell you, I cannot wait for my Number 4 pick to come out, the latest film from one of my all-time favorite directors.

4. TOMORROWLAND (MAY 22ND)

This was the other film that I mentioned earlier that got pushed back from its original 2014 release date. The good thing is that now that’s it been about a year, we’ve learned a little bit more about the newest film from one of my absolute favorite directors, Brad Bird. For the record though, we still don’t know that much about the film but the first trailer was just recently released so now we’re starting to get an idea of what this film is going to be about. So according to the plot synopsis, it’s about a ‘grizzled’ inventor (George Clooney) and a teenaged girl (Britt Robertson) who travel to a mysterious world known as ‘Tomorrowland’ where they are able to have a direct impact on changing the world. Now something that I’ve been wondering about in regards to this film since it was renamed from ‘1952’ to ‘Tomorrowland’ is if this film was going to be connected in any way to the section of Disney Theme Parks of the same name. Well, based on the first trailer, I’m guessing it only shares the name of Tomorrowland and will not actually focus on the park, which to be honest I think is actually a much more intriguing premise. Then again, apparently there have been some scenes shot at the parks (according to IMDB) so who knows? There’s also been speculation regarding a ‘mystery box’ of items that has been a big part of the film’s marketing campaign. This box contains various items such as old archive photos of Walt Disney, a copy of an old Sci-Fi magazine and old plans for park attractions among other things. I’m guessing that perhaps Bird and co-writer Damon Lindelof are using these items as elements of the story. For example, at the end of the trailer, someone flies across the screen in a jetpack and sure enough, one of the items in the box is a set of plans for what would have been a jet pack ride at the theme parks. Really though, I don’t know what this film is going to be like. But what I do know is that it’s a Brad Bird film and he’s made some of the best films of the last few years. Consider me extremely excited for this film.

My Number 3 pick may not have an official title yet but I still can’t wait to see it.

3. BOND 24 (OCTOBER 23RD)

In the months before the release of the 23^rd Bond film, ‘Skyfall’, I watched all of the previous 22 Bond films and I became a major Bond fan. Then ‘Skyfall’ came out… and it was phenomenal; definitely one of the best films in the entire series. So of course, I cannot wait for the next Bond adventure, which will once again be directed by Sam Mendes coming off of his fantastic directing efforts on ‘Skyfall’. But like with ‘Tomorrowland’, not much is known about the overall plot. Actually to be more precise, we don’t anything about the plot yet. I’m not going to try and speculate what it might be but I’m kind of hoping that sometime soon (if not in this film), the franchise is going resurrect the character of Ernst Stavro Blofeld and his terrorist organization SPECTRE. After all, the rights to both Blofeld and SPECTRE were recently acquired by MGM, the studio behind the Bond films, so who knows? But for now, let’s look at the current cast. Of course, Daniel Craig will return as Bond along with the newest iterations of M, Q, and Moneypenny, as portrayed by Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, and Naomie Harris, respectively. Lea Seydoux (‘Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol’, ‘Blue is the Warmest Color’) has been cast as one of the Bond girls and while it’s not officially been confirmed, Dave Bautista (fresh off of his great turn as Drax the Destroyer in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’) is being considered for the role of the film’s main henchman in the same veins of classic henchman like Oddjob and Jaws. As for the main villain, Chiwetel Ejiofor is reportedly the top contender for the role though like with Bautista, nothing’s been confirmed yet. All in all, this looks like this is shaping up to be a nice return to the style of the old-school Bond films (e.g. the Sean Connery/Roger Moore eras). Simply put, I can’t wait to see what happens next for 007.

For Number 2, I have what is very much shaping up to be the biggest film of 2015 given how much hype there has been surrounding it.

2. STAR WARS: EPISODE VII (DECEMBER 18TH)

AKA what is sure to be almost everyone else’s most anticipated film of 2015; seriously, the hype for this film is frigging insane. I can only imagine what the midnight premiere for the film’s going to be like having already been to a huge premiere with ‘Deathly Hallows Part 2’. So with that said, why is this only my second most anticipated film of the year? Well, there are two main reasons for this; the first is that in recent years I’ve become more of a ‘Star Trek’ fan, mostly due to the excellent reboot films; ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’. Don’t get me wrong, I still like ‘Star Wars’; heck, I even like the much-maligned prequels, which as I’ve said before seriously aren’t as bad as the internet has put them out to be. But it has primarily been due to the frequent changes that George Lucas has made to the original ‘Star Wars’ films and his ignorance of the original unaltered cuts of the film that have driven me more towards ‘Trek’. But the biggest reason for this is because I’m actually kind of worried about how this film will fare amongst audiences. I feel that the hype for this film has gotten a bit out of hand and I have a feeling we might have another case like ‘The Phantom Menace’ in which the amount of hype surrounding the film will ultimately be its downfall. Now I’m not saying this won’t be like ‘The Phantom Menace’ in regards to the film itself but I’m still very much worried that not everyone’s going to like the film. Seriously, didn’t we learn anything from the prequels about getting up our hopes up way too high for one of these films?

Ultimately there is one major reason why I’m excited the film and it’s not just simply that ‘there’s going to be a new Star Wars film’. In reality, it’s because it’s being directed by one of my top five favorite directors currently working today in Hollywood; J.J. Abrams, who has directed two of my favorite films of all time; ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Super 8’. I’m confident that Abrams will do justice for ‘Star Wars’ and bring it back to top form just like he did with ‘Star Trek’. Heck, you can sort of view both of Abrams’ ‘Star Trek’ films as his audition tapes for ‘Episode VII’ due to the fact that they have a ‘Star Wars’ vibe to them. And while there have been quite a lot of ‘Star Trek’ fans who have been against this, I for one am not one of them as I felt like this gave the series new life and infused some much needed energy into the series. So overall I feel that this will translate well to ‘Episode VII’. Ultimately though, there is quite a lot riding on this film and as I just noted earlier, all of the hype surrounding this film might have a very negative effect on the film. But I still have faith in J.J., who has stated that he actually is a bigger ‘Star Wars’ fan than he was a ‘Star Trek’ fan so if anything, at least we have someone who does understand the franchise quite well helming this film. Still, while this is my 2^nd most anticipated film of the year, I’m not even going to attempt to hype it up any farther because that’s already being done quite a lot. I think the film’s going to be good but in regards to the hype, to quote… well, many of the characters in ‘Star Wars’, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

And finally we come to Number 1 which, given my praises towards the franchise this film is a part of, many of you probably already know what it is. So let’s not waste any more time; my most anticipated film of 2015 is…

1. AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (MAY 1ST)

Yeah, I know it’s obvious, but really can you blame me? I’m a huge fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and I cannot wait for the follow-up to 2012’s epic superhero team-up; ‘The Avengers’. But before I start raving about how much I’m excited about ‘Age of Ultron’, I just want to get something out of the way first. The first trailer has just recently been released for the film; originally it was supposed to debut during tonight’s episode of ‘Agents of SHIELD’ but unfortunately that plan got screwed up when someone leaked the footage just a day after the announcement. Now, I do salute Marvel for how they handled this situation by just deciding to go ahead and release the trailer immediately but I’m still very much pissed at the jackass who decided to ruin everyone’s fun and post the trailer before its debut. Now I know that not everyone’s as big a fan of ‘Agents of SHIELD’ as I am and you could sort of view that plan as a marketing ploy to get more viewers for the show (which in all seriousness has really been fantastic recently) but in all seriousness this is another case of how it’s really hard these days to keep anything about a film secret because these days the internet can find out pretty much almost anything about any film due to leaks.

Anyway, back to the film; ‘Age of Ultron’ is really looking like it’s going to be a big one for the MCU as the Avengers face their toughest enemy yet in Ultron, played by James Spader. Based on this first trailer, it really looks like Ultron is going to be a really intimidating villain, which is good considering that most people feel that most of the MCU villains (AKA anyone not named Loki) have been rather weak. I’m not really one of these people but it looks like Ultron is going to end up being one of the best villains of the MCU. Not only that, but it’s looking like the film is going to be taking a much darker route than anything we’ve seen from the MCU so far which is very exciting. It’ll be interesting to see how this film will affect the MCU as a whole; ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ already dropped a bombshell with the reveal that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been taken over by HYDRA so what about this one? Could one of ‘The Avengers’ actually be killed off? Joss Whedon has been known for killing off major characters in his films/TV Shows and while Phase Two of the MCU has been dominated by characters who were seemingly killed off but ultimately brought back to life, it’s looking like someone could really bite the dust in this one. But in the end, I just can’t wait for this one. DC and ‘Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice’, you are going to have one hell of a tough act to follow with this one.

So those are my Top 10 most anticipated films of 2015. But there are still quite a few more films that are coming out next year that I didn’t list here. So with that said, what are your most anticipated films of 2015? Be sure to sound off in the comments.