2015 Movies

[Deckard]

Films that I was waiting for 2015:
Star Wars: The Force Awakens this nearly goes without saying the anticipation was palpable

Avengers: Age of Ultron as Marvel can do no wrong

Spectre looked like it was going to be a proper Bond movie including Blofeld

2014 in retrospect (shorter than normal as I'm trying to catch up to live - also tenses are all over the place)

The Excellent:
Fury is excellent, best film of the year and one of the best WW2 films of all time, a must see!

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a solid addition to the franchise, it's a very tight story that interplays with all the previous acts excellently

The Good:
The Expendables 3 is exactly what an Expendables movie should be, big fights, hammy villains (Mel Gibson as a bad guy was inspired casting) and a lot of banter between classic action hero stars

If you haven't seen Edge of Tomorrow yet there is probably a reason, but for a film where the principle draw was finally getting to see Tom Cruise die, multiple times, it was actually pretty good, there were some great scenes - I thought the ending was a bit too light and Hollywood but beside that it was a good film. July and August have a lot of watchable movies on the cards.

I really enjoyed the Dawn of the Planet of the Apess movie, I think they did a great job of humanising the apes and I liked the nods they gave to the cult classics of the 70's. Glad to have seen it in the cinema

Guardians of the Galaxy was a bit underwhelming (it had been hyped a lot) I felt it started brilliantly but went a bit soft late on, it's the first Marvel movie that I have thought 'I wonder if Disney has tried to make this play better for kids'. Still enjoyable just not what I had expected (and in 2017 I now think of it very fondly having watched it again)

Catching up on 2013 The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was more of the same but a nice twist building on the previous movie positively

Catching up on 2013 Thor 2: The Dark World is much better than the first one as the Asgard sequences aren't terrible, fits nicely into the universe

Godzilla is a nice movie because it goes about the normal Godzilla trope but in a different way, following the humans more than the 'monster'

The OK:
X-Men: Days of Future Past movie is reasonable but I'd say it's for real X-Men fans only, you need to have watched all the films to appreciate it. As always with Marvel stay until the end of the LONG credits

Hercules turned out to be a nice surprise (only because I expected it to be absolutely awful) it wasn't a 12 tasks movie and that made it better, kind of reminded me of 13th Warrior, a watchable film

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is sadly not quite as good as the first movie, it does have good moments (though an awful beginning) best not to watch the first one beforehand as it will highlight the weaknesses even more.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a good laugh though not particularly deep

The Equaliser had a very deliberate, which meant it never felt like it "got going"

Dracula Untold, this is the first in universal's attempt to creation their own 'cinematic universe' it was a clever if uninspiring  retelling of a well known tale

The Bad:
300: Rise of an Empire, in truth I can't really remember much about it but I seem to recall the only positive was Eva Green and she hammed it up as the villain brilliantly

A Million Ways to Die in the West, just a very average comedy no better than watching an episode of Family Guy but where the only character is Brian

The Disappointing:
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies was actually ok but I'd hoped for so much more, compared to Lord of the Rings it just felt like this was one film too many

Transformers: Age of Extinction was senselessly long and had the basis for two plots but failed to resolve either, it does have a lot of explosions. However, even as a Transformers fan, I cannot recommend seeing this

Films I missed but want to watch:
The Raid 2 The Amazing Spider-Man 2, I, Frankenstein, RoboCop, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Interstellar, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1

Films I own but have yet to watch:
Clash of the Titans, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Prince of Persia The Sands of Time and Shutter Island

Not Seen!
2013 Oblivion, The Lone Ranger, Elysium, American Hustle
2012 Life of Pi, Ghost Rider 2, Wrath of the Titans, The Amazing Spider-Man & Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
2011 Priest, Conan: The Barbarian, Death Race 2 & True Grit
2010 Daybreakers, Universal Soldier 3, Percy Jackson, Green Zone, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Centurion
2009 Angels & Demons, WALL-E, Avatar, Dorian Gray
2008 Transporter 3, Death Race, Saw VI & VI