2015 is primed to be one of the most exciting years in movies in a long time. Star Wars is making an epic return and other classic franchises are featuring new installments as well. While the summer boasts a prolific cinematic line-up, one that features Avengers: Age of Ultron and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, the real gems might be showing up later this year. Here is part two of my 2015 movies preview.
Mad-Max: Fury Road
Mad-Max: Fury Road is the latest installment in the revolutionary Mad-Max franchise. The series began in the late 70's and had its most recent entry in the mid 80's, with Mel Gibson playing the title role. The setting was a post-apocalyptic world, one that has been scorched by fire and was ruled by psychotic road warriors. But now the franchise has a new Max. Tom Hardy is now the face of the franchise, and this seems to be a fine casting decision. Hardy's star is rising fast after he starred in commercial and critical smashes Inception and The Dark Knight Rises. Director George Miller made a wise decision in tabbing Hardy for the lead role, but this film has still given me reasons to be skeptical. The trailers released so far look bland despite all of the explosions and the vibrant color palette. The movie seemingly lacks intelligence and comes off as a lazy summer blockbuster. Maybe I'm wrong, but this movie has a vibe that critics will unlikely adore. The raging tornados and the spiky death machines racing on the road come off now as over the top, rather than revolutionary or edgy. The original Mad-Max films were indeed original and off-beat for their time, and were a refreshing breath of air in the sci-fi/action/post-apocalyptic/dystopian world genre. But its now 2015, and movies have found a way to be just as far-fetched and crazy, but also maintain control over themselves. This self control is something that these bloated and excessive trailers seem to lack. The marketing team is probably going for this, but it does not come off as interesting in the slightest. Now as for how this film might do in the box-office, it will likely suffer due to its R rating. To put it into perspective, of the top ten highest grossing R rated films of all time, four are comedies (The Hangover 1&2, Ted, Beverly Hills Cop), three are war movies (Saving Private Ryan, 300, American Sniper), and the highest grossing film overall, The Passion of the Christ, was successful almost solely for hits large religious significance. Mad-Max-Fury Road is none of those things. However it is worth noting that he Matrix Reloaded, the second highest grossing film on the list, is also the latest installment of a revolutionary sci-fi/action/post-apocalyptic/dystopian movie franchise, and both movies have by far the largest budgets of any movie on the list. This movie will probably succeed in bringing back old fans and intriguing new ones, but will unlikely wow anyone. So maybe Mad-Max: Fury Road can benefit from the Matrix's success, I doubt it. Hit, sort of
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation:
Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible are back again for the fifth installment of the franchise. Following the 2013 installment, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, I have high hopes for the newest entry. The film thrived under the sure-fire direction of Brad Bird and with the additions of a fresh supporting cast that included Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner and Paula Patton. A few new faces will be entering the fold again this time around, with Alec Baldwin and Rebecca Ferguson, who seems to be replacing Patton, joining the cast. But the most important new face in the project will not be on screen at all, and that is new director Christopher McQuarrie. With the daunting task of succeeding Brad Bird, McQuarrie comes into the film having worked as an experienced screenwriter, but is relatively new to the directing scene. He is known for writing, and winning an oscar for, The Usual Suspects and the surprisingly good Edge of Tomorrow, but is also responsible for the screenplays behind The Tourist and Jack the Giant Slayer. I don’t hate The Tourist as much as Ricky Gervais does, but lets just say McQuarrie’s career has been a mixed bag up until this point. But he has worked with Tom Cruise before, on the mediocre Jack Reacher, so here’s hoping their familiarity leads to good chemistry this time around. There are reasons to be optimistic, one of which being that the franchise has not missed a beat after switching directors for each movie, save for maybe Mission Impossible II. I predict that the upcoming film will be very good, as the trailers have given viewers reason to be excited. Smash Hit
Star Wars: The Force Awakens:
In what might just be the most anticipated movie of the last 5 years, Star Wars is back! With a fresh new cast and director, and some awesome teaser trailers, the franchise has the entire world buzzing. I understand how revolutionary a producer and director George Lucas is, as well as his large contributions to film technology, but this franchise badly needed to be taken out of his hands. He didn’t even direct the best film of the franchise (Empire Strikes Back) and was responsible for ruining the series with the disastrous prequel trilogy. But now J.J. Abrams is at the helm, so lets hope his track record and love of science-fiction translate into a return to form for Star-Wars. Abrams has done a marvelous job reviving the “other” immensely popular sci-fi franchise Star-Trek and should transition seamlessly into Star-Wars, but hopefully not too seamlessly, as this movie runs the risk of being too similar to Abrams’ Star Trek, with lens-flares and all. I have faith in Abrams to make sure the series’ are differentiable and not similar. I predict that Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be the highest grossing film this year and an overall smash hit.
Spectre:
In one of the year’s later gems, Spectre arrives as the anticipated latest installment in the Daniel Craig James Bond era. Director Sam Mendes returns following the resounding success of 2012’s Skyfall. The trailer released does not reveal much, but gives us the first glimpse of Christoph Waltz as the new Bond villain. Waltz has quickly become one of Hollywood’s finest supporting actors following his oscar winning roles in Django Unchained and Inglourious Basterds. He has proven that he can be a harrowing villain and has helped build up a lot of the hype for this movie, at least for me anyways. A Bond movie is always going to draw a large crowd, but as of late the quality has spiked along with the commercial appeal, and this latest entry will hopefully continue the upward trend. Without Judi Dench in a Bond film for the first time in what feels like forever, the franchise is taking a turn with Ralph Fiennes assuming the role of “M”, but it shouldn't shake things up for the worse. The new Bond series continues to delve into 007’s dark past, and the films are getting more interesting and intriguing as a result. I predict that Spectre will be a critical and commercial smash, and one of the best movies of the year, it looks that good on paper.
Avengers: Age of Ultron (I unfortunately couldn’t finish the article before the release of the movie but I plan on reviewing it after I see it. This movie will likely be a smash hit).