Here’s a random collection of movies that might get released in 2009, and some random comments from me. I don’t have any good inside sources so I’m relying on magazines, imdb and other on-line resources to get this list together so I apologise if it’s all bollocks. Plus, this is for UK releases, some of this stuff has already been on in other parts of the universe. Oh and it’s stuff that interests me, so you’ll see a huge genre slant and an absence of high quality drama.
Hmm, I’ve not been impressed with the trailers and the buzz so far. I fear that the style will overcome the substance and The Spirit will be a flop, and I guess the most it can hope for is ‘cult status’. A cop dies in the line of duty and comes back as The Spirit to fight against Central City’s evil underbelly. The only thing I’m looking forward to now is Samuel L Jackson’s performance.
Excitement factor: 5/10
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
I have pretty low hopes for this prequel to the two Underworld movies. I fear low production values and a bad script. I may be wrong, but I just feel the story has been told once already and this is purely a cynical cashing in attempt (yes, most of Hollywood blockbuster material is about cashing in, but sometimes it’s less cynical). It may turn out to be a kick-ass fantasy action movie with witty dialog and solid direction, but …
Excitement factor: 6/10
I am so not interested in this movie. I find it hard to distance myself from Cruise’s personal beliefs and on top of that the source material isn’t something that inspires me either. Combine those things with what I’m hearing about the previews and I think I’ll be giving it a wide berth.
Excitement factor: 2/10
I think this one has potential and may sneak in under the radar. Of course, it may well just suck. It looks like another take on Heroes with some X-Men thrown in and a little bit of Spy Thriller around the edges. The effects on the short trailer I saw look pretty neat. Fingers crossed this turns out to be half decent.
Excitement factor: 7/10
Will it happen or not? There’s legal action going on in the States which may delay the release of Watchmen, one of the most anticipated genre movies in the last two years. I’ve no experience of the comic and I don’t really have any understanding of why comic geeks are so excited by the prospect, but I’ll trust their view that it could be superb. If it comes out in time, it could be the best of the films early next year. Oh, it’s a kind of superhero movie with a group of superheroes trying to find out who killed one of their own – in fact, it’s pretty similar sounding to the Incredibles …
Excitement factor: 7/10
Animated caper that has a chance of being pretty cool. Aliens invade and the only hope for Earth is to unleash a bunch of monsters in defence.
Excitement factor: 6/10
Hmm, hadn’t heard anything about this until I started looking. “U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko (Beckinsale) tracks a killer in Antarctica, as the sun is about to set for six months.” Based on a graphic novel, it should be interesting to look at and it’s got Kate in it. Maybe it’ll be a step up from Underworld.
Excitement factor: 5/10
Hairy biting action if you like that kind of thing. It’s got some ‘almost A listers’ in it.
Excitement factor: 4/10
In case it had failed to come to your attention, there’s a new Star Trek movie coming in 2009, directed by J. J. Abrams, self confessed Star Trek Geek. It’s half reboot, half re-imagining, and the recent trailer sort of looks okay. I’ll probably try and treat it like a sci-fi epic with high quality sets and see if it turns out to be any good. J. J. is well known for Lost, Fringe, Cloverfield, Alias, and Mission Impossible III. He can clearly hold down a big budget movie and can clearly deliver good quality stuff – let’s see if it translates into Star Trek.
Excitement factor: 8/10
This is supposed to be the better of the two Dan Brown books everyone’s heard of, but happens before the Da Vinci Code. I’m not convinced it’ll work considering Robert Langdon spent the Da Vinci Code being ‘surprised’ he was mixed up in everything, despite apparently being mixed up in everything before that, in this. Ah well, we’ll see.
Excitement factor: 6/10
Vin Diesel ‘taking back control’ of his acting career or something. Crazy driving stuns, mad dialog and Vin Diesel? Could be amusing.
Excitement factor: 5/10
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Surely the biggest movie of next year? Eye candy for all genders, action, explosions, robots, more explosions, more robots!
Excitement factor: 8/10
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Without a recent book sale to bolster numbers and having been put back half a year, I do wonder how well this will do. I guess it’s got a free built in audience, and I doubt the book sales have slowed down much over the last few years, but still, it’s not a fresh as it used to be?
Excitement factor: 7/10
Fun family movie from Pixar, when Carl (78) launches his house using balloons he’s surprised to find he has a stowaway 70 years his younger.
Excitement factor: 6/10
A remake of the 1974 ‘Land of the Lost’, I guess it’s a kids movie but maybe it’ll have something for everyone.
Excitement factor: 6/10
Unless you’re American this probably won’t be that well known. The G.I. Joe stuff is a cartoon or a TV series or a set of toys or something in America and this film is based around that. Maybe. Looks a bit ultra-stupid to me, but hey what do I know.
Excitement factor: 5/10
The latest in a line of movies based on kids fantasy books. I’ll probably have a look at some trailers and decide after that if I’m going to bother.
Excitement factor: 6/10
Almost no detail on this one, but hey, the artwork I’ve seen related to this comic book series suggests I’ll be drooling over whoever plays the role so it would be wrong not to list it. No really.
Excitement factor: 7/10
Wow look, an adaptation of a children’s fantasy book coming to the big screen in 2009. Yes, it’s true!
Excitement factor: 6/10
Animated super-hero caper staring a young boy. Only a small teaser trailer online but looks very much in the same mould as The Incredibles.
Excitement factor: 6/10
Two phrases that I never want to hear ever, Nicolas Cage and Superhero Movie. Seriously. Ah well, it might be fun.
Excitement factor: 6/10
Breaking the mould for 2009 we have a movie, based on a set of children’s novels.
Excitement factor: 5/10
Frequently Asked Questions about Time Travel
This one snuck under my sensors as well, but it appears to be a British Sci-Fi comedy about time travel and men’s toilets. Good combination, comes out early in the year in UK, no idea if it’ll be released anywhere else.
Excitement factor: 9/10
Self-titled fan-boy road movie in which a bunch of friends try to give one of the group a treat before he kicks the bucket, so to speak.
Excitement factor: 8/10
Hmm, I’m dubious. Yes sure it’ll be exciting and big screen and loud and hairy, but do we need it? Didn’t we get the origin story in the first three movies already? Isn’t this just a cynical attempt to cash in on the best known and most well loved of the X-Men characters?
Excitement factor: 7/10
Breaking news! Children’s book made into movie in 2009! Okay, it’s probably more like young adult since it’s a horror book in theory, but still. I have a strong sense of where 2009 is going, young adult adaptations, reboots, remakes and sequels. Anyway, it’s animated, it’s Neil Gaiman and it’s probably awesome.
Excitement factor: 6/10
Sam Raimi returns to his horror roots, and I like Justin Long so despite my normal aversion to horror I may give this one a look over.
Excitement factor: 6/10
2009 sees a little sci-fi movie about robots controlled by a giant AI who are trying to destroy all human life so they can listen to their iPod’s in peace. You may have heard of the previous 3? Terminator movies! There’s a lot of secrecy about Arnie’s involvement but let’s face it, he’s going to be the face of one of the Terminator’s, we know that, why try and keep it all secret? Anyway, probably going to be LOUD and BIG and EXPLOSIVE and if Bale speaks in the same voice he uses for Batman I’m going to have to kill him.
Excitement factor: 9/10
Apocolyptic end of the world scenario #127, something to do with the Mayan’s and their Calendar ‘ending’. Maybe they just didn’t print enough pages?
Excitement factor: 5/10
3D space opera type thing from James Camaron. Apparently you’ll need glasses to view it in 3D in the cinema, but I’m not sure if this will ever make it to the UK.
Excitement factor: 6/10
Bit of an odd fish this one. I’ll quote the summary from someone on IMDB, “The film is a split narrative set simultaneously in contemporary London and in a future metropolis ruled by religious fervor. It’s the story of four lost souls, divided by two parallel worlds, on course for an explosive collision when a single bullet will decide all their fates.”
Excitement factor: 6/10
Vikings, dragons and alien visitors. A+++ will use again.
Excitement factor: 8/10
This one sounds intriguing and I do love Bruce Willis, half Blade Runner, half I, Robot.
Excitement factor: 8/10
From IMDB (and some other sources) – “Writers Williams and Hupfield were challenged to think of the dumbest and yet most commercial title possible for a film, Lesbian Vampire Killers was the answer. They then went away and wrote the script.” I’m hoping it brings high production values, a solid screenplay and some serious character acting to a genre that has long been lacking them (lesbian vampire killer flicks).
Excitement factor: 10/10
Cage again! Time capsule buried ages ago is opened and predicts events which have happened or are about to happen and Cage and his little family get dragged in, probably having to save the world as well, or something.
Excitement factor: 6/10
You know from Transformers but not G.I. Joe? US Marketing FAIL.
G.I. Joe was originally (1960’s) a line of military action figures – in fact, the first toy to be called an “action figure”; the term was coined for it (and on your side of the pond the dolls were redubbed “Action Man”; maybe you’re familiar with those?). They were 12″ tall (so Barbie could throw Ken over for Joe if so inclined) and highly posable, with what eventually became a ginormous array of accessories: uniforms, weapons, vehicles. yada yada, all of it realistic modern military stuff. Then in the 80’s G.I. Joe was “reimagined” with more of an SF bent (primarily because you couldn’t make a kids’ cartoon with real guns going bang-bang, but laser guns going zap-zap was fine) as a line of smaller, less posable figures with no less a ginormous array of accessories, with an official enemy organization (the Commies no longer being a PC choice) called Cobra that had plenty of its own figures and vehicles and weapons and accessories. The G.I. Joe toys were, like the Transformers, marketed via a cartoon series – in fact, the G.I. Joe and Transformer series were contemporaneous, one airing after the other in many syndicated markets.
The Mayan calendar thing is, besides the whole mystical pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo, a total misinterpretation, since the Mayans themselves didn’t even believe or claim what folks are interpreting. But Dec 21, 2012 is the big day, so you might want to mark your (regular) calendar. Besides being the Winter solstice, it’s Long Count day 13.0.0.0.0 which some folks think means 0.0.0.0.0 and is therefore some sort of Cosmic Rollover.
And the plot of Incredibles borrowed from Watchmen, rather than the reverse. Also, the Fantastic Four was likewise not a ripoff of the same movie. Chronology. Look into it. 🙂