Most Anticipated Movies of 2017

Happy New Years! It's time for end of the year posts. Sometime in January, I'll be posting a list of my top 10 movies from 2016. However, I wanted to wait and get the chance to catch up on a couple of films I've missed before finalizing that list. So instead, I thought it might be fitting to make a list of the movies I am most looking forward to in 2017. Note that I might not end up seeing all of them, depending of course on the kind of content that ends up in those movies.

Split
Split is a horror/thriller movie directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Is this going to be a return to the acclaimed thriller style of Shyamalan or a continuation of his current streak of terrible movies? So far critics who've seen it at festivals have been somewhat favorable, but we'll find out when it comes out in theaters in January.

The Circle
A movie that casts Tom Hanks, Emma Watson, John Boyega, and Kristen Gillian already has my attention. Add the fact that it's a sci-fi dystopia story is even more interesting. It looks like it's going have a social media as Big Brother kind of focus, but I'm not really sure from the trailer. Anyways, it comes out in April.

Beauty and the Beast
This will be the next installment of Disney's quest to make live action versions of all their classic films. Beauty and the Beast is a great story with brilliant music, courtesy of Alan Menken of course. This is another Emma Watson movie, starring as Belle. Do I need to say more? Beauty and the Beast comes out in May. Also, check out the trailer below. Am I the only one getting Sound of Music vibes (see 1:00 in the video)?

Marvel
I'll admit it. I've loved every movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe except The Incredible Hulk. And maybe love is too strong a word for Iron Man 2, although I still liked it. The point is, they have a system and it seems to work. So I'm looking forward to all of them. And this year for the first time, we get three in one year. As much as I'm looking forward to seeing Thor and the Hulk team up in Thor: Ragnarok and seeing Iron Man and Spider-Man team up in Spider-Man: Homecoming, the one I'm looking forward to most is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. I might write a review in the near future of the first Guardians movie, but it is one of my favorites in the series; it might even be my favorite. The trailer looks like it's got the same quirky sense of humor that doesn't take itself seriously (at all) and Chris Pratt being himself. And of course the music, which was such a major factor in the first Guardians. Once the trailer came out, I've had Sweet's "Fox on the Run" in my head ever since.

Ghost in the Shell
Ghost in the Shell is apparently based on a manga, but I don't know anything about the story there. But the trailers show a dingy cyberpunk dystopia that looks great. The aesthetics remind me of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, one of my favorite video games.  Judging from the trailer, it could either be really great or really inappropriate. It comes out in March.

Dunkirk
Christopher Nolan is my favorite director, so I was already onboard with Dunkirk. But then I saw the trailer and it looks great. Plus, the story of the British retreat from Dunkirk is such an moving story; it will interesting to see how much Nolan turns the patriotism up in the movie. As I've said before, I don't really enjoy war movies, but if anyone can convince me, it's Nolan.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Original science fiction is rare these days and much appreciated. Valerian is based on a French comic series and will be the biggest budget French film in history. It looks promising from the trailers and hopefully the French influence will shake up American sci-fi with some different perspectives. It comes out in July.

Murder on the Orient Express
Ever since seeing The Force Awakens, I've been interested in anything that has Daisy Ridley in it. So when I heard that she was going to be in an adaptation of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, I got onboard that hype train. There's not a lot of details about it yet, but it comes out in November.

Coco
Also coming out in November is Pixar's movie about Mexico's Day of the Dead celebration. Once again, I know next to nothing about this film. What I do know is that original Pixar movies are usually pretty good. Hopefully this will be more like Inside Out and less like The Good Dinosaur.

Star Wars Episode VIII
Disney has apparently decided that what everyone wants for Christmas is a new Star Wars movie and they plan to deliver. The Force Awakens was so brilliant. It will be exciting to see where the francise is headed. And with Carrie Fisher's passing, it is going to be so much more poignant for fans. R.I.P., Carrie Fisher.

Black Hawk Down

I want to preface this by saying this: I don't like war movies. It isn't the violence that really bothers me; I just can't get into them. So anything negative I have to say about Black Hawk Down can probably be chalked up to that. I'm sure it really is a fine film.

Black Hawk Down tells the story of the American special forces soldiers who fought in Somalia. What started out as a quick mission to grab some high-ranking members of a Somalian militia went sideways after a helicopter was shot down. This lead to a number of American soldiers being killed and their bodies dragged through the streets for the entire world to see. What was supposed to be a quick mission turned into an all day battle. Black Hawk Down chronicles the heroism that the members of the Delta squads and Ranger teams showed (although it minimizes the heroism of the Pakistani and Malaysian troops who, along with the10th Mountain Division soldiers, eventually went into the city as well to rescue the pinned-down soldiers. In addition to many wounded, seventeen Delta and Ranger soldiers died as well as two 10th Mountain Division soldiers and one Pakistani and one Malaysian soldier.)

My biggest problem with the movie was that it was so tedious. Of course, that was probably the point; it was more than tedious for the men involved. But this kind of movie just does not resonate with me. Of the 2 hours and 24 minutes of the movie, I would guess close to 2 hours of it involve constant gunfire. At some point, I just kind of get numb to all the shooting and wish that something would happen or the movie would end. In addition, all the guys look pretty much the same in their combat gear. It just ends up (to me at least) being a movie of a bunch of nameless guys fighting a bunch of other nameless guys. I just had trouble latching onto any of the characters and even keeping them straight. However, I did appreciate that the fighting was not a glorification of war, a "look-how-cool-these-guys-are" kind of movie. I don't mind that kind of film (see every Marvel movie ever made) but it would be completely out of place in a serious war film like this.

There were some pretty great moments in the movie that did not involve gunfire, however. My favorite scene was at the end of the movie where the general who commanded the mission goes into the hospital where the wounded are being treated. One man is bleeding so profusely, the blood is running across the floor. The general picks up some rags and kneels down to try to clean up the blood. It's clear that he feels responsibility for what happened and he just wants to do something, since he couldn't go out in the field to try to rescue them. But instead of cleaning up the blood, all he ends up doing is smearing it around, emphasizing just how ineffectual he feels. It's a great touch.

Rating: 3 stars

Overall, if you like war movies, then Black Hawk Down will probably be just right for you. Like I said before, I don't really, so your experience will probably be better than mine. If you don't, this one isn't going to be any different and I'd give it a miss. I read the book a few years ago and found it to be a fascinating story – definitely better than the movie.

Caveat Spectator

It's an R-rated war movie, so it has pretty much the kind of blood that you should expect. The characters don't get a lot of lines, but most of those are profanity. Fortunately, a decent amount is almost unintelligible given the amount of gunfire going on.

Rogue One

Like every American, I saw Rogue One this week. And while I enjoyed it quite a lot, there were also some things I was mixed on.

First, let's talk about the good. Felicity Jones was very capable in her role as heroine. Jones, who by the way also starred in ITV's adaption of Northanger Abbey, plays Jyn Erso, a reluctant member of the rebellion. But over the course of the movie, her commitment grows and she comes to lead a ragtag group of rebels to steal the Death Star plans (spoilers, but come on, we already knew that's what happened in this movie). This group includes a rebel spy who has done "terrible thing" in the name of the rebellion, a sarcastic droid, an ex-Empire pilot, a blind Force monk (he's the coolest part of this movie), and his machine-gun toting sidekick. While we don't really get to know any of these characters as well as we want, that isn't really the point. One of the things I loved about Jyn's character is that she is a true feminist heroine; she doesn't need a man and is able to take charge of a combat mission. Like Rey from The Force Awakens, she is never objectified by the camera (or anyone else). Her clothes completely make sense for the combat mission she is leading – no metal bikinis here.

Second, as I already alluded to, the Rebellion is not portrayed as completely noble. Of course, the Empire is still portrayed as evil. But at the start of the movie, the Rebel Alliance is really more factions than alliance. There's Saw Guerrera and his militia, fighting a guerrilla war in Jedha, where the Empire is trying to harvest crystals for the main gun on the Death Star. They aren't afraid to use extreme tactics and it's clear that the other rebels see them as little more than terrorists. Then there's the Rebel Alliance, which is conflicted about whether the rebellion should take the form of open conflict with the Empire or continue the current strategy of sabotage, assassination, and espionage combined with resistance in the Senate. The discovery that the Death Star is being made, however, forces the Alliance to come together and fight.

Third, Rogue One did a great job of filling plot holes from A New Hope. I don't really want to get into this because I want you to go see it and have the joy of discovering these for yourself. But I'll give you a clue – there's a reason the Death Star could be destroyed by a single well aimed torpedo shot.

Now, I want to talk about what didn't work for me. This really comes down to one thing – Rogue One  just didn't feel like Star Wars to me. Right from the start, the score set me off on the wrong foot; it sounded like those scores you hear on YouTube that are trying to remind you of Star Wars but carefully avoiding actually playing the music so that they don't get slapped with a copyright violation. So from the beginning, I already started to get the feeling that I was watching some extremely high-quality fan fiction. As the movie went on, I found myself being reminded more and more of the Star Wars novels, some of which were really good, but which, again, I always considered as officially licensed fan-fiction. After I got home, I tried putting my finger on what bothered me about this movie and I think it comes down to the genre. To me, Star Wars is really fantasy masquerading as science fiction. It's about a peasant boy who becomes a knight with a sword and magic powers on a quest to defeat the dark lord and save the world. There's none of that in Rogue One besides the monk who is trying to connect to the Force. But Rogue One is really an action spy thriller in a science fiction setting; the fantasy is nowhere to be found. This is partly where the new trilogy went wrong – they tried to take the magic out of the Force and replace it with science mumbo-jumbo about midichlorians living in the bloodstream. While Rogue One is back seeing the Force as religion, the movie is more about blasters and plans for giant space stations than it is about the Force.

Rating: 4 stars

I know it sounded at the end like I was hating on Rogue One, but I really wasn't. I would definitely recommend it. There's a twist at the ending that I didn't see coming but really liked. The film is really beautiful and I think it works as an action thriller. I completely agree with Christopher Orr from The Atlantic's summary: "Rogue One is neither as good as a good Star Wars movie nor as bad as a bad one."

Also, I spent most of the movie waiting for my favorite lines from the trailer, none of which ever showed up. This isn't really a negative because it turned out that those scenes weren't really needed. But still, what version did all those scenes in the trailer come from?

Caveat Spectator

I can't really think of anything. There's plenty of violence, but it's the kind found in superhero movies where wounds mysteriously don't really bleed.