january

Last January I noted how this month belongs to the action genre and January 2018 is no different. It's also when the Oscar nominated movies that premiered in December get wide releases, so there's that too.

Since restarting his career in his mid-50's and becoming an action star Liam Neeson has made about a dozen thrillers and The Commuter will be his fourth from director Jaume Collet-Serra. Unknown is very twisty and Run All Night is very violent but Non-Stop is great. The deliberately ridiculous story can be a bit much at times but it's played seriously and the acting is great. Fortunately The Commuter looks to have a similar tone. When Neeson, a commuter, boards his train he meets a stranger, Vera Farmigia, who asks if he could spot a person on the train who doesn't belong. Uninterested he ignores her, until a random passenger is killed. Now that he knows the stakes he's a bit more interested in the game he's been pulled in to. If this plays out anything like Non-Stop it will be an over the top, well-paced thriller that is very fun and exciting.

Having an assassin protecting a child is a pretty common trope in the realm of action cinema. It's been done before and it'll be done again, but Proud Mary is about a female assassin protecting a child. The action genre is short on female leads and even shorter on African American female leads, so having Taraji P. Henson playing the titular Mary makes this film a bit of a triumph before it has even premiered.While not a regular in action films Henson did have a pretty substantial role as a sniper in the uneven but entertaining hitman actioner Smokin' Aces, so this isn't entirely new material to her. It's from the London Has Fallen director, which has some impressive, and wildly violent, action sequences, so this should be entertaining for action fans while also serving as a call back to the days when Pam Grier was starring in movies.

London Has Fallen appears to have been a good career jumping off point for more than just the director. One of the writers is making his directorial debut with Den of Thieves which features London star Gerard Butler as a brutal cop after a group of bank robbers. The robbers are played by 50 Cent, Pablo Schreiber (half-brother of Liev) and O'Shea Jackson (son of Ice Cube) and this looks to be a bit more action packed than last January's cops and robbers movie Triple 9 (although in that the cops were the robbers). The trailer makes this clear with lots of machine gun fire and Butler, the cop, stating that he's worse than the robbers he's chasing down. This looks to be the type of thing that would pop up in Redbox had it not pulled together a decent cast. Perfect for a January release.

For all of the action films producer Jerry Bruckheimer has under his belt (like all of the Pirates and Transformers movies), he hasn't dabbled that much in the war genre. The war films he has made vary in terms of quality and pace but not in star power, the cast is always stacked. Crimson Tide is a tense, submarine-based cold war thriller, Black Hawk Down is a thrilling true story that has more character development than you'd expect and Pearl Harbor is a shameless attempt to shoehorn in a romantic subplot to cash in on the Titanic craze from years earlier. 12 Strong is another true story and, much like those other war films, the cast is loaded with recognizable faces. After the 9/11 attacks, a group of soldiers are quickly sent over to Afghanistan where they team up with local militia to do battle with the Taliban. Due to the terrain, the soldiers are forced to abandon contemporary methods of transportation and have to rely on horses (hence the title of the book - it's based on 12 Strong: The Declassified True Story of the Horse Soldiers). Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Michael Pena and Rob Riggle (who, despite being recognized as a big goofy comedian, is probably one of the only actors in the film to serve as a Marine) star. 

There are quite a few dystopian film series based on young adult novels and the one I've enjoyed the most so far has been the Maze Runner series.The first was about a group of kids trying to make it past several deadly traps in a maze they've awoken in. They then realize they're test subjects under the control of an evil corporation known as WCKD (a bit on the nose) who's pretty much destroyed the world. The second one has them try to survive a burnt out city while WCKD soldiers and a horde of zombies hunt them down. Maze Runner: The Death Cure, will again put the group through another maze created by WCKD as they try to stop the zombie outbreak and hopefully never have to go through another maze again.

These movies about Paddington, the adorable British talking bear, look incredibly charming and Paddington 2 looks no different. In his second adventure he picks up odd jobs so he can buy someone a gift for their 100th birthday. I mean how cute is that? Then the gift gets stolen and that takes him on a whole new adventure. Not exactly the highest of stakes but I imagine this will be a fun family film.

I didn't see Insidious 3 but I really enjoyed the first two. The first two are about a family haunted by an evil entity so they contact paranormal investigator Elise Rainer. She brings with her two assistants and they're kind of like indie-film Ghostbusters whose casual attitudes towards dangerous and evil situations brings a levity to an otherwise pretty dark series. Spoiler alert: Insidious: The Last Key

is a prequel since Rainer dies at the end of the first movie. In this Rainer does battle with an evil entity at her own home. Lots of jump scares to be expected, maybe even a few laughs. 

Happy New Years folks! If you brave the cold and see a movie I hope you enjoy it!