Top 10 WORST Films of 2015: #10-5

Well here we are at the end of the year so you know what that means… it’s time for the annual lists of our favorite and least favorite films of the year. Of course I’m starting off with the ‘Worst of the Year’ list simply because I want to end the year on a good note and talk about the good stuff. However, I’m fully aware that at the end of the day, this list is going to be the more popular of the two because the internet just LOVES to talk about the bad stuff. But not me; in fact, I’m kind of getting tired of the internet’s constant cynicism and mean-spirited nature. Right now online film culture is dominated by things like Honest Trailers and CinemaSins. And while I’ll admit to being a ‘fan’ of them in the past, nowadays I feel like these shows only ruin the reputations of perfectly good films. So with that said, don’t expect to see me rage that much about these films no matter how bad they are. I’m just going to be straight and to the point when it comes to talking about these films and their issues. Because this is the ‘End of the Year’ list, I will be discussing some of the more spoiler-y details of these films. But because this is the worst list, I’m not even going to bother to warn you guys about it because obviously I can’t recommend any of these films in the first place. So with all that said, here is Part 1 of my Top 10 list for the Worst Films of 2015. Today I’ll be listing films 10-5.

Kicking off this year’s list is a film that I had originally given a 3/5 rating to when I reviewed it this past April. However, as time has gone on, my opinion of the film has changed quite a bit. It is by no means the worst film that I’ve seen this year but it’s also one that I’m not keen on re-watching anytime soon.

10. UNFRIENDED

In the months since I saw this film, I realized that I appreciate it more for its technical merits than I do as far as it being a horror film is concerned. To its credit, it does have a pretty novel idea for a horror film. The film is set entirely within the confines of the computer of the main character Blaire and she and the other main characters communicate with one another via Skype. The terrors that they go through all occur as a result of a mysterious source that ‘hijacks’ their conversation whom they can’t remove no matter what they try. Again, to the film’s credit, I haven’t really heard of any other horror film like this before and the film definitely succeeds in sticking to its internet based setting, right down to the lag issue that can plague Skype conversations, something of which I’m familiar with through the podcasts that I have recorded with my friends. Obviously just having the whole film take place on Skype would’ve been rather boring so the film interjects these scenes with moments of Blaire using other applications like Facebook and Instant Messaging. And in certain parts, there is some genuine tension that comes from Blaire frantically trying to do something on her computer before something bad happens, like downloading virus removal software whose installation process is momentarily halted at one point due to some other application that is running at the same time or not showing a note that came from her printer that reads that one of her friends will die if she shows the message. And while not a ‘horror’ moment, I have to say that my favorite scene in the film is when the friends all get into an argument over secrets that are being revealed during a forced game of ‘Never Have I Ever’ and the killer trolls them by playing a song about lying on Spotify. Now that was hilarious!

However, those are really the only major positives that I can give this film because as an actual horror film, it’s rather subpar. The deaths are very traditional and the jump scares are, as usual, annoying. As for the characters, they’re both incredibly stereotypical and really, really unlikable. For you see, the main plot of the film revolves around an incident a year before where one of their classmates, Laura Barns, killed herself after receiving endless abuse from her classmates over an embarrassing video of herself drunk and passed out at a party that was posted online. And as we learn over the course of the film, the main characters all had a hand in her torment so it’s pretty much impossible to sympathize with any of them. So that would mean that we root for the killer, right? Well yes in this case we do but even then we actually never learn who the killer really is. I mean, I guess you can say that the killer is meant to be the ‘ghost’ of Laura but the film never explicitly states that this is the case. In fact, at one point during the film, Blaire messages her boyfriend Mitch and tells him that Laura had an uncle and when I saw that, I thought that this was the give-away; that Laura’s uncle was the ‘killer’ looking to enact revenge upon his niece’s classmates for causing her death. However, that’s not the case and we’re left to assume that it is the ‘ghost of Laura’ that’s haunting her classmates. So in short, ‘Unfriended’ is a fairly original horror film as far as its concept is concerned. However, in execution, it ends up being another fairly clichéd entry in the genre.  

My Number 9 pick is a film that I really wanted to like. I didn’t care that it was a prequel, which many argued was unnecessary, but ultimately the film ended up being a fairly disappointing take on a classic story.

9. PAN

Like I said, I really wanted to like this film. Given the fact that, nowadays, most big-budget live-action films are usually rated PG-13 or higher, I was happy to see that we were getting a PG-rated big-budget fantasy film, one that the whole family could see. And despite my overall thoughts on this film, at the end of my review I still recommended it to families as I felt that, at the very least, kids might enjoy it for the colorful visuals and stuff like that. But as for adults, their mileage will vary on this, unfortunately, misguided attempt at telling the prequel story to Peter Pan. Again, I didn’t judge this film too much for being a prequel nor did I judge it for its heavy use of CGI. At the end of the day, this film’s biggest problem is the writing. There are two main reasons as to why this is. First off, the references made to ‘future events’ in regards to the story of Peter Pan are very obvious and lack subtlety. When Peter talks to one of the fairies during the finale, of course it has to be Tinker Bell. And when Peter, Hook, and Tiger Lily are rafting down a river of crocodiles, Hook notes his dislike of them, obviously referencing the crocodile that would end up taking Hook’s hand, hence the name ‘Captain Hook’. But then another issue is the fact that the plot feels rather rushed as it feels like the film is trying to breeze through moments that would constitute any sort of character development in favor of zany visuals. And while the film’s visuals are rightfully surreal in design, as one would expect from something like Peter Pan, the pacing is still very messy and the characters are very dull and underwritten. There’s also quite a few weird things in this film as well, like scenes where a bunch of characters, for no real reason, start to sing Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and the Ramones’ ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’. Simply put, Baz Luhrmann’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ this isn’t…

Peter himself probably gets the worst of the general lack of character development as he spends most of the film rather cowardly not wanting to live up to the prophecy about him saving Never Land from Blackbeard. Thankfully, Levi Miller sort of manages to get around this when he does have the chance to convey the playful and cocky attitude of the character. As for Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily, I didn’t pay much attention to the controversy over casting a Caucasian actress in the role of the native American character and to her credit, she’s the most straight-faced and down-to-earth of the four main leads; in other words, not over-the-top. But in a film like this that is very much over-the-top in tone, maybe this wasn’t such the best idea. By contrast, Hugh Jackman is incredibly over-the-top as the main villain Blackbeard. In my review I actually pinned him as the ‘weak link’ of the cast but looking back on it, I do realize that Jackman’s ridiculously campy turn is very fitting for the film. And with that said, while Garrett Hedlund might have been a bit too over-the-top as the Han Solo-esque Hook (and yes, this is a very fitting reference because the film very much feels like ‘Star Wars’ in both plot and characters as far as the main trio of Peter (Luke), Hook (Han), and Tiger Lily (Leia) are concerned), I still thought he was fine. But despite the best efforts of the four main leads, ‘Pan’ ultimately feels like a weirder and campier version of the ‘Star Wars’ prequels, even though I will give this film credit in that its heart definitely was in the right place.

Speaking of the ‘Star Wars’ prequels, my Number 8 pick is another film that feels a bit too reminiscent of those prequels. It’s another film that I didn’t want to dislike but unfortunately it didn’t do much for me.

8. JUPITER ASCENDING

I think it’s safe to say that as soon as this film’s first trailer was released, many people were expecting the film to bomb, even after it got moved from its initial Summer 2014 release to February of this year. And ultimately it did bomb, making that three in a row for the Wachowskis, whose careers have been in steady decline since hitting big with ‘The Matrix’ in 1999 and will probably now hit a major wall, in terms of films, after this box-office bomb. In other words, who knows when they’re going to get another chance to direct a big-budget film? Like ‘Pan’, this film feels very much like the ‘Star Wars’ prequels in terms of its overall tone and while I’ve admitted in the past to actually liking the prequels, I don’t view other films being like that as a ‘good thing’. As I noted in my review for the film, this was basically the 2015 equivalent of ‘Attack of the Clones’; a sci-fi film with minimal action that’s pre-dominantly exposition-based. In other words, this film really does drag at times. And the sad thing about all of this is that, despite the film’s shortcomings from a writing perspective, the film’s visuals are genuinely amazing. Clearly a lot of effort went into the art design of this sci-fi world. After all, that was the main reason why the film got pushed back from its original summer 2014 release date; so that more time can be given to finish the effects. But at the end of the day, that’s all for nothing as a result of a plot that’s pre-dominantly dialogue driven and fairly messy.

The film’s main character, Jupiter Jones, is a pretty poor sci-fi female lead. Literally all she is in the film is a damsel in distress, despite the fact that she’s supposed to be the reincarnation of the matriarch of the most powerful alien dynasty in the universe. To her credit, Mila Kunis at least does her best even though she has very little to work with. By comparison, Channing Tatum and Sean Bean, the latter of whom actually doesn’t die for once in a film (in fact he also doesn’t die in the next film on this list), both get more to work with as soldiers Caine Wise and Stinger Apini, respectively. And then there’s Eddie Redmayne as the main villain; Balem. It’s a good thing that Redmayne did win the Oscar for his work in last year’s ‘The Theory of Everything’ because his performance here is likely going to get him a Razzie nomination. There are two levels to his performance here; either he’s whispering in a raspy Voldemort-like voice or he’s RANDOMLY YELLING AT SOMEONE! Thankfully he actually isn’t in the film that much. Seriously, he actually disappears for the entire middle half of the film while his character’s siblings, played by Douglas Booth and Tuppence Middleton, basically take his place as the ‘villains’. Though I use that term loosely because, when their scenes are over, they’re never seen again. Nothing is ever done about them by the end of the film which is, again, a sign of the messy nature of the screenplay. Like Joe Wright with ‘Pan’, I can clearly see how passionate the Wachowskis are about their work but in the end they all ended up biting off more than they can chew as both of their films ended up being major commercial flops. Yeah aside from ‘Fury Road’ Warner Bros did not have a really good year at the box-office.

My Number 7 pick is a film that I was actually looking forward to despite the various aspects of the film that would make others not want to go near it with a 10-foot pole. But in the end, it’s another dud for its lead star.

7. PIXELS

Oh Adam Sandler… here you are again in another one of my ‘Worst of the Year’ lists. As I’ve stated before, I don’t hate Adam Sandler. He seems like a really nice guy in real life and I do like his earlier films like ‘Happy Gilmore’ and ‘Billy Madison’. But as many of us know, he’s been experiencing a lot more duds recently; ‘Jack and Jill’, ‘Grown Ups 2’, and now ‘Pixels’. As strange as it may sound, I actually was looking forward to this film but not because of Sandler. The main reason why was due to the film’s video-game based storyline. And while most video-game based films tend to be terrible, that usually isn’t the case for films that only have a storyline inspired by video games like ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’ and the ‘Tron’ films. As many of you know I’m also a big fan of video games, especially retro games, so I was intrigued by this film’s use of classic characters like ‘Pac-Man’ and ‘Donkey Kong’ in the context of aliens using these characters as weapons against the Earth after an intended message of peace sent by us in 1982 was misinterpreted by them as an act of war. And for once it wasn’t a Sandler film that wasn’t directed by one of Sandler’s regular directors like Dennis Dugan. Sure Chris Columbus hasn’t had a hit in years but I will always remember the great films that he has made in the past; the first two ‘Home Alone’ films, ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’, and of course the first two ‘Harry Potter’ films. 

I’ll just be perfectly blunt here; this film’s biggest weakness is that it isn’t funny. Almost all of the jokes fall flat. There’s been a lot of talk about the film’s poorly written female characters and I must say that this is very much true. Michelle Monaghan is severely underused in the main female role and is constantly being called a ‘snob’ by Sandler’s character basically because she doesn’t accept any of his romantic advances on her (at first). Jane Krakowski literally has nothing to do in the role of the First Lady (and yes Kevin James plays the President… I was never bothered by this so moving on…). And as for Ashley Benson in the role of the warrior Lady Lisa, a character from an in-universe arcade game, she may be touted as a badass warrior but ultimately she’s just the love interest for Josh Gad’s character. But at the end of the day, this is far from being my ‘worst’ of the year because there are still a few redeeming qualities to this film. While I may not have grown up during the 80’s, the filmmakers clearly have a lot of affection for the era and that’s clear through the film’s many, many 80’s references. The pixel-like visuals for the alien creatures are pretty cool as are some of the action set-pieces that pay homage to these classic games. I won’t lie… the ‘Donkey Kong’ finale was actually pretty cool. And despite the fact that his character is really nothing more than just a jerk to the other characters, Peter Dinklage is easily the most memorable part of the film. So that’s ‘Pixels’ in a nutshell for you. If you’re still a fan of Sandler’s films, you’ll probably like this. But as for me, this was quite a bit of a disappointment. Though considering that this is a Sandler film, I guess you could say that I should’ve known better at this point.

(P.S. And no I did not even bother with his Netflix film ‘The Ridiculous 6’)

It may surprise some of you to see this next film ranked as low as #6. While it definitely is bad, it’s actually not the worst film I’ve seen this year.

6. FIFTY SHADES OF GREY

Well this isn’t that much of a surprise for some of you, is it? I mean seriously, who out there was actually expecting anything good out of this? However, I’m not here to complain about how this film ended up being a big commercial hit when it was released in February, grossing over $500 million worldwide. I don’t complain about that kind of stuff given all the talk about the film industry’s declining ticket sales, regardless of the quality of films that are either commercial hits or duds. And as you can see, this isn’t even my #1 worst of the year. But don’t worry, that doesn’t mean that I’m going soft on this film… far from it. As you all know, this film was based off of a book that was fan-fiction spawned from ‘Twilight’, so you can get an idea as to how poorly written it is. But at the very least, ‘Twilight’ at least had a few vampire/werewolf action sequences to kind of (though not really) hold the attention of non-fans. ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ doesn’t have that same luxury. It’s just regular people doing regular things and speaking horrible, horrible dialogue, from ‘Laters Baby!’ to ‘I’m 50 shades of f***ed up!’. Though I will say that the one line in the film that had me laughing the most was when Christian tells Anastasia that “I don’t make love… I f*** hard!” If any of you internet people recall the scene in the Nostalgia Critic’s review of ‘Saved by the Bell’ where the Critic goes on an epic laughing fit after seeing Zack Morris dressed up like, as he put it, ‘Vanilla Ice’s bitch’, that’s how much I was laughing at that line.

But it’s not just the dialogue that’s bad. Another noticeable thing about the writing is how indecisive the characters are, specifically Anastasia. Sometimes she loves Christian, other times she doesn’t, and so on and so forth for pretty much the entirety of the frigging film. At the end, even after all that he had put her through to make her question why she’s with him, she still tells him that ‘she’s fallen in love with him’. And as for Christian, it seriously raises the question of why any girl would fall for someone like this; a total psycho/sadist/any other similar word you can think of that frequently stalks his romantic interests and tries to control their lives; how much they eat, how much they exercise, etc. So even though this film has terrible dialogue and characters, you’d think that it’d at least deliver on the one thing that made the books so controversial; the BDSM sex scenes. And believe it or not, it doesn’t. I’m guessing this is due to the film trying not to go as far as an NC-17 rating but aside from the fact that sex/nudity actually shouldn’t be that much of an issue for MPAA ratings, the sex scenes in this film are extremely bland for what was an extremely controversial and ridiculous book. At the very least, Dakota Johnson at least tries her best with the terrible material she has to work with as Anastasia, though I can’t say the same for Jamie Dorman as Christian. There’s no denying that ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ is exactly what you’d expect from something that originally spawned from another terrible book/film franchise… nothing more, nothing less.

That’s the end of Part 1 of my Top 10 Worst of the Year list. Check back tomorrow for Part 2 and my Top 5 worst films of 2015.

Jupiter Ascending (2015) review

The Wachowskis haven’t really been on that great a run this past decade in regards to the films that they’ve directed. Of course as we all know, the sibling directing duo first made headlines in 1999 when they made ‘The Matrix’, which is now regarded as one of the ground-breaking films of its time. But pretty much everything else after that has not fared as well either critically or commercially. First there were the two Matrix sequels, ‘Reloaded’ and ‘Revolutions’, which were both released in 2003. Both films fared pretty well commercially but for the most part they’ve been universally bashed by fans of the first film. All of their directorial efforts after that have been even less successful and have bombed at the box office. There was their 2008 adaptation of ‘Speed Racer’, which I’ll admit that I do remember liking when I first saw it. And then that was followed up by 2012’s ‘Cloud Atlas’, which was easily one of the most polarizing films of that year, and I for one was among those who weren’t that enthusiastic about it. Sadly it seems that this streak of box-office bombs is set to continue with their latest film, and first original directorial project since ‘The Matrix’, ‘Jupiter Ascending’. And unfortunately, the fact that the film itself is quite a mess in terms of its story doesn’t help it either.

The film takes place in a world where the planet Earth is actually under the control of a powerful alien dynasty known as the House of Abrasax who harvest the planet’s living creatures every few millenniums in order to produce a special serum that basically makes them immortal. When Abrasax’s matriarch dies, her three children; Balem (Eddie Redmayne), Kalique (Tuppence Middleton), and Titus (Douglas Booth) come into conflict over the ‘inheritance’ AKA Earth. However, they soon learn of another ‘heir’ to the throne who comes in the form of Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), a young, unsuspecting, and unlucky Earth woman who spends most of her time working as a caretaker along with her mother. She soon learns that she possesses the same genetic signature as the former matriarch of the House of Abrasax and is the true heir to the throne. When Balem puts a bounty on her head so that he can collect the inheritance for himself, a genetically-engineered ex-military hunter named Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), along with the help of his old military ally Stinger Apini (Sean Bean), comes to her rescue so that she can probably collect her inheritance before Balem ends up harvesting Planet Earth.

One thing that you can always expect from the Wachowskis is that their films will be full of eye-popping visuals and that is definitely the case here. This film was pushed back a few months so that they could have more time to work on the visuals and in that regard, that extra time did pay off. True the visuals can sometimes be a major eyesore at times due to the occasional visual overload but they’re still quite visually appealing. The world-building of this original story is pretty impressive and the action sequences are also pretty solid, especially a key chase sequence in the beginning in Chicago. However, the story is where the film really starts to come apart. The best way I can describe it is that it feels just a bit too overly complicated at times when in reality it’s sort of a fairly simple story. There are quite a lot of twists and turns but not in a good way. In fact, if you’re going into this expecting an action packed sci-fi film, then prepare to be very disappointed because there actually really isn’t that much action in this; it’s more dialogue-based and that does get rather boring after a while. Not only is the story dull, but a lot of the characters aren’t that interesting either. Heck, some don’t even get much development at all, like the two other Abrasax heirs who disappear from the movie entirely by the end of the film and the alleged ‘motivation’ that I read about online about how Stinger was looking for a cure for his daughter’s illness, which for the record is never explored once in this.

Jupiter herself is also a conundrum of a character. While she does serve her purpose of being the ‘avatar’ for the audience in this strange sci-fi world, she doesn’t have that much of an arc in this and we really don’t see her grow that much; for the most part she’s just a damsel in distress. While the character is a fairly weak female lead, Mila Kunis, to her credit, does a good enough job with the limited material that she has to work with. Channing Tatum and Sean Bean, on the other hand, do have a little more to work with, though still not that much, and they do have some pretty solid camaraderie with one another. But as for Eddie Redmayne as the main villain Balem, the poor guy’s lucky that he has that Oscar nomination for ‘Theory of Everything’ because let me tell you, this performance is more than likely going to be amongst next year’s Razzie nominations. Most of the time he whispers his dialogue sounding like Lord Voldemort from ‘Harry Potter’ in need of a throat lozenge and other times he suddenly shouts at the top of his lungs a la Michael Shannon or Gary Oldman. It’s an incredibly awkward performance but thankfully he’s not in the movie too much. Seriously, he disappears for at least about 30-40 minutes in the middle of the film before resurfacing for the finale. Though in the end, I think this is more a case of bad direction than it is the fault of Redmayne.

For the record, I didn’t ‘hate’ ‘Jupiter Ascending’ as there are good things in it, like the visuals, the action sequences, and some of the performances. But for the most part, it’s just a mess and that’s mainly because of the story being more complicated than it really needed to be. Not only that, but some plotlines are never fully resolved and the film is actually rather boring at times due to the fact that a lot of the film mostly consists of scenes of dialogue instead of action sequences, which is even more disappointing given the fact that this was being referred to as a mix between ‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Matrix’. That and, well, there’s also one of the biggest acting misfires in recent history in regards to Eddie Redmayne’s turn as the main villain Balem. Hopefully this won’t be a case of the supposed ‘Norbit’ curse that ‘supposedly’ plagues any Oscar-nominated actor who has a critically maligned movie come out in the weeks before the Oscars. In the end, it’s pretty much certain that ‘Jupiter Ascending’ is going to be a box-office bomb which is sad because A.) It’s clear the Wachowskis are really passionate about their work and B.) It just sucks in general whenever a film bombs. But unlike a film like ‘Jack the Giant Slayer’, ‘Jersey Boys’, or ‘Warrior’, there’s not much about this 2015 equivalent of ‘Attack of the Clones’ that I can defend.

Rating: 2/5

2015 Preview: February

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 2 of 12 and today we’ll be looking at the films that will be hitting theaters this February. Now that we’ve gotten out of the ‘dead month’ of Hollywood known as January, I believe that we’ll have plenty more noteworthy films to talk about this month than we did last month. We’re still a few months away from the Summer Blockbusters but hey, who knows? There may be some gems amongst this month’s lineup. So let’s get started as we look into the films of February.

FEBRUARY 6- The month starts off with three new releases the first weekend, two of which finally see a release after both were pushed back from previous release dates.

*After being pushed back from its original July 2014 release date in order for there to be more time for post-production work, the Wachowskis’ latest film, ‘Jupiter Ascending’, finally comes out. Mila Kunis stars as the titular Jupiter, a young woman from Earth who learns that she has the same genetic signature of a powerful alien dynasty that controls the planet and that she is an heir to the throne. But when one of the other potential heirs, Balem (Eddie Redmayne), puts out a bounty for her, a genetically engineered hunter by the name of Caine Wise (Channing Tatum) comes to her aid to protect her. The film also stars Sean Bean and Douglas Booth.

*The other major ‘finally getting released’ film this weekend is ‘Seventh Son’, which got pushed back multiple times mainly due to the film’s production company Legendary Pictures signing a new contract with Universal last year after having worked with Warner Bros. since 2005. Based on the book ‘The Spook’s Apprentice’ by Joseph Delaney (the first book in the ‘Wardstone Chronicles’ series), the film centers on a young man Tom Ward (Ben Barnes) who learns that he is the ‘seventh son of a seventh son’ which grants him special powers as he becomes the apprentice of a Spook (Jeff Bridges), who trains him in the art of fighting supernatural evil. The film also stars Julianne Moore, Kit Harington, and Djimon Hounsou.

*More than a decade after the release of its previous film, the hit Nick TV show ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ returns to the big screen with ‘The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge out of Water’. In this film, SpongeBob and his friends find themselves having to travel to the surface, where they acquire superpowers, when a pirate by the name of Burger-Beard (Antonio Banderas) steals the Krabby Patty formula.

FEBRUARY 13- One of the most talked about films of the year comes out around a ‘fitting’ time (Valentine’s Day Weekend, though I use the term fitting loosely) along with the latest from director Matthew Vaughn.

*Based off of the first entry in the best-selling erotic romance book series, ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, centers on a young literature student named Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) who falls in love with wealthy business magnate Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) after first meeting him during an interview. As they grow closer, Anastasia soon learns of Christian’s ‘tastes’ (BDSM, for the record, in case any of you haven’t heard of the book).

*Director Matthew Vaughn takes on his second major adaptation of a Mark Millar comic (following 2010’s ‘Kick-Ass’) with ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’. Colin Firth stars as a veteran secret agent who recruits a young juvenile delinquent (Taron Egerton) into the Secret Service. The film also stars Michael Caine, Samuel L. Jackson, and Mark Strong.

FEBRUARY 20- Two comedies and a sports drama come out this weekend.

*In ‘The DUFF’, based on the book of the same name by Kody Keplinger, a high-school senior initiates a new social pecking order after learning that she has been deemed ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’ by her more popular friends. The film’s cast includes Bella Thorne, Robbie Amell (Firestorm from ‘Flash’), and Mae Whitman.

*The sequel to the 2010 comedy ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’, the main cast (save for John Cusack, who is replaced here by Adam Scott) returns for ‘Hot Tub Time Machine 2’, in which friends Nick and Jacob (Craig Robinson and Clark Duke, respectively) use the same hot tub time-traveling machine that previously sent them and their friends back in time to the 80’s to go back in time when their friend Lou (Rob Corddry) gets shot. However, they end up going a decade into the future instead.

*Disney’s newest true story sports drama, ‘McFarland, USA’, is based on the true story of a Latino cross-country team from McFarland, California who overcame numerous social issues in the 1980’s to achieve championship glory. Kevin Costner stars as the team’s coach.

FEBRUARY 27- Finally we have a Will Smith comedy and a new horror film from Blumhouse Productions coming out to close the month.

*Will Smith and Margot Robbie star in ‘Focus’, directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. Smith stars as a seasoned con-man who recruits, and becomes romantically involved with, a young woman (Robbie) into the business. But soon they start to come into conflict with each other when the woman becomes involved with a billionaire (Rodrigo Santoro (‘300’)) who Smith’s character is planning to steal from.

*Finally we have the newest film from producer Jason Blum, ‘The Lazarus Effect’, which centers on a team of medical professionals who discover a way to bring the deceased back to life via a serum known as ‘Lazarus’. They first use it on a human when one of their own (played by Olivia Wilde) dies in a lab accident but soon they start to experience some trouble once she starts acting strange. 

    

And those are the films that will be hitting theaters this February. Check back next month for Part 3 of this Year-Long preview as we’ll be looking at the films coming out this March.