The Films of 2015: Ant-Man, Avengers, Star Wars, Bond, Terminator, Mad Max, etc

[Barry the Nomad]

Don't hate, but I want to see Strange Magic. Mainly because the movie has had such a long history at Lucasfilm, first conceived as being titled "Primrose" in 2012. Despite Disney shutting down Lucasfilm Animation, Lucasarts, The Clone Wars, and many other projects, Primrose continued to be produced. I actually learned that development of the movie finished up in Lucasarts' old offices.

Might not be good, but I really am interested in seeing the final pre-Disney project from Lucasfilm.

[inthesky]

Oh, I forgot to mention this, but I saw "The Gambler" last week. It's a pretty interesting and solid movie. I think it very well captures a modern state of being human, what it's like for a lot of people today, on an emotional level. Put aside the intellectual talk and the relationship stuff - it's really about Mark Wahlberg's struggle to cope with loss and the compulsive gambling habit (also manifest in his propensity to go too far - bet more than he should, take money than he should, not pay debts)

Nothing too amazing, just a solid movie and worth seeing. This is not a thriller movie, as the ads might've suggested. I will say though that the ending left me ambivalent - Mark Wahlberg's last lines were great, but then the ending sequence was kinda lame. Plus he did something incredibly risky for his final bet which is strange because...of reasons

Trying to avoid spoilers in this post so it all sounds very awkward =P

[Nathan Dunsmore]

Don't hate, but I want to see Strange Magic. Mainly because the movie has had such a long history at Lucasfilm, first conceived as being titled "Primrose" in 2012. Despite Disney shutting down Lucasfilm Animation, Lucasarts, The Clone Wars, and many other projects, Primrose continued to be produced. I actually learned that development of the movie finished up in Lucasarts' old offices.

Might not be good, but I really am interested in seeing the final pre-Disney project from Lucasfilm.

Not hating, but I'm unable to muster much enthusiasm for the movie. While Lucas's involvement does give it some interest, the animation looks very unappealing to me and it reminds me of those Tinker Bell movies. Coming out in January also isn't a good sign. I'm trying to think of other animated films that have come out in Jan that were good. Happily N'ever After was awful and I turned off The Nut Job after less than 10 minutes. Yuck.

[Barry the Nomad]

Caught an early showing of Strange Magic, my thoughts:

I enjoyed this movie far FAR more than I thought I would after reading several negative reviews. I really don't care about explaining why reviewers hated this *COUGH*Lucas bias*COUGH*

I'd best describe the movie as a children's adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream taking place in a land of fairies, trolls, and other small forest creatures with an animation style similar to Shrek, but minus the fairy tale satire and pop culture references with a dash of Willow, Labyrinth, and told via Moulin Rouge's melding of music from various decades. The characters are aware they are singing, but where the songs come from isn't explained (thankfully) and the music selection was great for the most part. To compare, before the movie there was a trailer for Dreamworks' Home which used Sean Paul's Get Busy. Like, why use such an awful unmemorable song from 2003?

Unlike a majority of the reviewers, I found the first half very easy to follow and I did not get lost in a sea of characters. The movie has a large cast, but each character plays their part and everybody gets enough screen time. The intro does a good job laying out the schism between lands, and I thought the filmmakers did a fantastic job throwing conventions out the window. I honestly did not see the twist, but looking back I can't see the movie working without it. 

I was actually reminded of Studio Ghibli films when watching the movie, with a large cast of eccentric characters, surprisingly no onscreen deaths or true villians. I also saw a bit of George and Katie Lucas (his daughter) in the design of the king and his daughter, and the literal yin yang at the end of the movie reminded me of The Clone Wars Mortis arc and Star Wars general light and dark themes. 

Overall, a good film. Not perfect, but a real surprise and the first movie of 2015 that I can say I genuinely enjoyed.

---

Disney really dropped the ball with the marketing and the release. With the strong love themes, this should have been released around Valentine's Day and the focus for the ads should have been on the romance and the lead characters.

[Regis]

Great expectations for the new Mad Max and the Avengers ...

but I am a little skeptical with Terminator and Jurassic World ... So far, so it was revealed in the trailers, the plot seems kinda dumb

[max_cady]

I saw the Super Bowl teaser for Jurassic World and I'm a little more interested now. And I unfortunately, cannot say the same thing about that new Terminator movie.


I also saw that Fantastic Four teaser. It's OK for what it is. Maybe some fanboys will get a little less angry. Me, personally? I had a neutral/bad vibe from this movie ever since it was announced. The teaser did very little to change my feelings towards it.

[Nathan Dunsmore]

Saw the trailer for Tomorrowland during the Super Bowl (great game, by the way) and it's easily my most anticipated film of the blockbuster season. Brad Bird is one of the best directors of our time and one of the few whose involvement makes me instantly want to see a movie.

[MadeManG74]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HELfuiarPpo

I couldn't even make it past the 'interrogation room' scene.

Fuck this movie with a concrete dildo.

[Nirmugen]

I watch Avengers: Age of Ultron....a superb  and so much needed to do "remade" of the first one. It improves the best parts of the last movie and make it more entertaining and spectacular than never, although I think the action sometimes was too much for a short time when thingd happen. Absolutely recommmended

[pirovash88]

I watch Avengers: Age of Ultron....a superb  and so much needed to do "remade" of the first one. It improves the best parts of the last movie and make it more entertaining and spectacular than never, although I think the action sometimes was too much for a short time when thingd happen. Absolutely recommmended

How in the world did you get to see it already?

[Nirmugen]

I was lucky enough that my country already made a deal to have the movie in selected theathers which put a pre-release window a week before the official International release.

The same happen with Furious 7 and now that movie is already one of the most watched movie in all Argentinian cinema history (2.6 million viewers in 3 weeks!!), beating Oscar-winning El Secreto de sus Ojos ,award-winning Metegol/Foosball and almost reaching the same amount of views for the Oscar nominated / Multi-Award Winning Relatos Salvajes / Wild Tales ( 3.5 million viewers ).

Yeah, my country is crazy with pop culture xD.

[Aki-at]

How in the world did you get to see it already?

The film's been on release since yesterday here in the UK with special screenings last Wednesday : >

[TimmiT]

Yeah, I saw it as well. I thought it wasn't as good as the first movie, but still alright. It felt like it repeated too many things from the first Avengers, mainly [spoiler]the villain manipulating the Avengers into being angry at eachother and the finale mostly being them destroying cannon fodder in a city[/spoiler].

The pacing also felt like it went too fast at times. It'd just go "Okay this plot point happened, time to go to the next" without really spending enough time on the plot point that just happened. Maybe it could have spent enough time on them if it focussed less on setting up sequels. Also: Ultron kinda sucked as a villain during the finale.

That being said, I did enjoy a lot of the movie. The characters are great and it was nice to see Hawkguy being less bland. And Iron Man vs. the Hulk was a great fight scene. But overall, I think it's slightly better than the less good movies (Iron Man 2, Thor 2, Incredible Hulk) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.


EDIT: I just realized that the pacing could probably be fixed with a Director's Cut, so hopefully that happens.

[MadeManG74]

Strangely I'm not hyped at all for Avengers 2. I don't know why, I guess I'm a bit tired of the Marvel movies? I was far more hyped for Guardians of the Galaxy, I feel much less interested in seeing the Avengers crew again.

[Barry the Nomad]

I'm not hyped either, but I'll be going this weekend because it has been a pretty dry last few months for movies. To me, it looks very samey and Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch don't at all excite me.