february 2019

February is the year’s first battleground for movie studios and it's all built around love and money. Valentine's Day is the day for dinner and a movie (although I'm a proponent of movie followed by dinner) and this month there is a lot to choose from. I'm not sure what the top Valentine's Day movie will be but I have my predictions.

Released before VDay so probably not:

In the early 00's, Catherine Hardwicke had a good run as a director of Thirteen, Lords of Dog Town and Twilight but has since directed smaller films and TV shows. Gina Rodriguez is the star of Jane the Virgin and future Carmen Sandiego, but before that she will star in the action thriller Miss Bala, a remake of a 2011 Mexican film with the same title. The original was loosely based on a true story and I believe this one strays even farther. Rodriguez stars alongside Anthony Mackie in the story about a woman unwillingly pulled into a drug war between cops and criminals who has to play both sides if she wants to come out alive. This looks like a tense action thriller.

Mads Mikkelsen is about to appear in a TV show called Polar and a movie called Arctic. That is confusing. One is a show that is coming to Netflix soon about a hitman, the other is about a man who crashes his plane in the Arctic. This is another one of those survival films where the director really needs to make sure they have a solid lead and a thrilling environment. Mads and the arctic checks those boxes. This apparently got a 10 minute standing ovation at Cannes, so that's a good sign.

Almost definitely:

Christopher Miller and Phil Lord were on a career high after making 22 Jump Street, a movie no one thought would be funny. Then they did it again with The Lego Movie, a movie no one thought would work. Then they got the opportunity of a lifetime when they were hired to make the Solo movie, a movie no one needed. Unfortunately, that last one went famously bad and they were fired, but I think they'll be all right. Lord wrote the screenplay and produced last year’s Spider-Verse but the Lord/Miller team is back to help write and produced this month’s The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. The first Lego Movie was a blast and used so much licensed material and fun original characters to tell a fun adventure story. It ended with the invasion of the Duplos (which are bigger Legos for younger kids) and that seems to be where this story begins. Expect lots of recognizable comic book characters, goofy jokes and a new song that will be stuck in your head much like 'Everything is Awesome.'

In all of his years of being a famous actor/ controversial figure, Mel Gibson has only starred in one romantic-comedy. It was called What Women Want and he played a jerk who gets conked on the head and wakes up with the ability to hear women's thoughts and become a better person. 19 years later we have the much less controversial Taraji P. Henson as the lead in What Men Want. Henson plays a sports agent up who uses her newfound ability to hear men's thoughts to rise through the ranks after seeing others unjustly promoted above her. Tracy Morgan costars in this fantasy comedy.

What's more romantic than a slasher? Well, lots of things but Happy Death Day is a fun slasher and a perfect popcorn date flick about a college student dying and reliving the same day in a movie clearly inspired by Groundhog Day. Jessica Rothe is great as the lead who starts out unsympathetic, but on her horrifying journey we start to like her more and start rooting for her. In the end she saves the day but it seems this day is not yet over. Happy Death Day 2 U (silly? yes, but at least they got a little creative) continues the worst day ever and throws in a few new twists. I really feel this will be the winner for Valentine’s Day.

Valentine's Day is the perfect day for a formulaic romantic comedy about people meeting, overcoming some obstacle and falling in love. Some viewers may be tired of that and they are the target audience of Isn't it Romantic. Rebel Wilson plays a woman who grew up hating the romantic movies she saw on TV. Knowing that life doesn't work like it does in the movies, she found them more disappointing than entertaining. Then one day she gets mugged, knocked out, and wakes up in a PG-13 romantic comedy where she's the lead - but is limited by the rules of the PG-13 rating. Suddenly she can't use profanity but she has a nice apartment and a boyfriend, played by Liam Hemsworth, who seems to be following in his brother’s comedic footsteps. This looks funny and hopefully it doesn't fall victim to the clichés it is trying to call out.

Wild card:

Some films have the bad luck at coming out at the wrong time. Maybe a January release would have done better in the summer or a fun movie comes out in too close proximity to a similar looking yet lousier movie and sours everyone on seeing it. A few months difference in release date and the fate of the movie could have been different. In the case of Alita: Battle Angel, it is not a matter of months that could make the difference, it is the matter of years. I first started hearing about Alita as early as 2005 when James Cameron stated he would be making a movie based on the comic about a young woman who is made up of spare robot parts and a human brain. If this came out in the early 00's around when Avatar came out (which was what Cameron initially imagined) it might be huge, but he focused solely on Avatar and Alita was forgotten until 2015, when it was announced Robert Rodriguez would be directing. Now all these years later we have a $200 million sci-fi adventure film with a great cast and I think this will come in at least 4th place over Valentine’s Day weekend.
 

A current rule of thumb in Hollywood is that if you have a thriller starring an older gentlemen CALL LIAM NEESON. When the plow operator in a small Rocky Mountain town and Citizen of the Year recipient learns that his son has died, he takes it upon himself to use his plow and the landscape to kill all those he feels are responsible. Cold Pursuit is a remake of a Norwegian thriller In Order of Disappearance that was a pretty popular thriller starring Stellan Skarsgård that I really enjoyed. The film is dark and violent with a Fargo-esque sense of humor and it looks as if the American remake is pretty loyal to the original, with maybe a bit more humor to help the otherwise bleak story of revenge.

Comes out after Valentine's Day :(

I'm usually very entertained by kids cartoon movies, there's usually some fun escapism and humor for an older audience peppered in. When it's also an action movie, well them I'm all in. This is the case with How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, the 3rd in the dragon based adventure series. The first was about Hiccup, son of Stoick - the best Viking dragon fighter. Hiccup befriends a wounded dragon and convinces his people to live among, instead of in fear, and fight the dragons. The 2nd one has Hiccup discover another group of dragons and it turns out his assumed dead mother has been living with and riding dragons for years. This brings us to the 3rd one where a Hidden World of dragons is discovered and creates more reason for humor and excitement. I have early tickets to this one, I'm very much so looking forward to it.