The Best Films of 2014 – the Half-Way Point

Looking at any annual film schedule, its evident that the first half of the year can never quite live up to the second and 2014 is no exception. This year really did get off to a rotten start with 47 Ronin, The Legend of Hercules and I Frankenstein dragging their heals at the box-office but this did pave a way for others; The Wolf of Wall Street and Ride Along both enjoyed three consecutive weeks at the top of the UK and US box-office respectively. Following that came some genuine surprises. Wes Anderson’s ensemble comedy The Grand Budapest Hotel reached 1st and 3rd in the UK and US against all odds and The Lego Movie, one of the most poorly marketed films in recent years, was an unexpected treat and certainly and future cult classic.

The biblical format seemed to increase in popularity around Easter with the low-key Christian dramas Heaven is For Real, Son of God and God’s Not Dead taking nearly thirty times their micro-budgets but these religious flicks aren’t proving successful outside of America, besides Aronofsky’s star-driven epic Noah. The “Katniss-effect” of The Hunger Games has evidently given studios the faith to put stronger female characters into the fray of action and adventure with Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent and Shailene Woodley’s Divergent winning out over Johnny Depp’s Transcendence or Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Sabotage financially. Edge of Tomorrow even managed it to the extent of Tom Cruise needing saving from Emily Blunt’s ultimate warrior.

In the last six months, certain individuals are lighting up the box-office left, right and centre. Former comedian Kevin Hart has lead a trio of success, Ride Along, About Last Night and Think Like a Man Too, while the Jump Street quartet (director Phil Lord and Chris Miller/stars Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill) have a cinematic Midas-touch. It’s evident that Lego’s Chris Pratt can do no wrong and, with Jurassic World and Guardians of the Galaxy coming soon, he’s well on his way to man-of-the-year status. The biggest winners of the year have to be Marvel. Even though their heroes are divided across Sony, Fox and Disney, Stan Lee’s creations of Spider-Man, Captain America (kind-of) and the X-Men are currently the three biggest films of the year so far and they’ll only continue to grow bigger.

Below you can find the international box-office top ten followed by our own personal picks of the year so far as well as the ten to look for in the rest of 2014:

International Box-office Top 10:

1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Director: Anthony and Joe Russo – Starring: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Robert Redford, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo, Emily Van Camp, Samuel L Jackson, Hayley Attwell, Toby Jones – Box-office: $710.8 million
2. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – Marc Webb – Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Dane DeHaan, Jamie Foxx, Colm Feore, Felicity Jones, Paul Giamatti, Sally Field, Chris Cooper – $703.3 million
3. X-Men: Days of Future Past – Bryan Singer – Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, Peter Dinklage, Ellen Page, Evan Peters, Shawn Ashmore, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Josh Helman, Omar Sy, Fan Bingbing, Adan Canto, Booboo Stewart, Lucas Till – $700 million
4. Maleficent – Robert Stromberg – Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Lesley Manville – $531.8 million
5. Godzilla – Gareth Edwards – Aaron Taylor Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe, Bryan Cranston, Sally Hawkins, Juliette Binoche – $478.7 million
6. Rio 2 – Carlos Saldanha – Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Leslie Mann, Bruno Mars, Jemaine Clement, Jamie Foxx, will.i.am – $469.4 million
7. The Lego Movie – Phil Lord, Chris Miller – Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Alison Brie, Nick Offerman, Charlie Day, Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Cobie Smulders – $467.2 million
8. Noah – Darren Aronofsky – Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Douglas Booth, Anthony Hopkins – $356.2 million
9. 300: Rise of an Empire – Noam Murro – Eva Green, Sullivan Stapleton, Lena Headey, Jack O’Connell, Rodrigo Santoro, Callan Mulvey, David Wenham – $331.1 million
10. Edge of Tomorrow – Doug Liman – Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson, Jonas Armstrong – $298.8 million

Tuorhoth’s Top 10:

1. X-Men: Days of Future Past – Bryan Singer – Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, Peter Dinklage, Ellen Page, Evan Peters, Shawn Ashmore, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Josh Helman, Omar Sy, Fan Bingbing, Adan Canto, Booboo Stewart, Lucas Till
2. Godzilla – Gareth Edwards – Aaron Taylor Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe, Bryan Cranston, Sally Hawkins, Juliette Binoche
3. The Lego Movie – Phil Lord, Chris Miller – Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Alison Brie, Nick Offerman, Charlie Day, Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Cobie Smulders
4. Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Anthony and Joe Russo – Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Robert Redford, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo, Emily Van Camp, Samuel L Jackson, Hayley Attwell, Toby Jones
5. Edge of Tomorrow – Doug Liman – Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson, Jonas Armstrong
6. The Two Faces of January – Hossein Amini – Viggo Mortensen, Oscar Isaac, Kirsten Dunst
7. Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom – Justin Chadwick – Idris Elba, Naomi Harris
8. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit – Kenneth Branagh – Chris Pine, Keira Knightley, Kenneth Branagh, Kevin Costner, Nonso Anozie, Gemma Chan
9. RoboCop – Jose Padilha – Gary Oldman, Joel Kinnaman, Abbie Cornish, Michael Keaton, Jay Baruchel, Jennifer Ehle, Jackie Earle Haley, Aimee Garcia, Michael K Williams, Samuel L Jackson
10. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – Marc Webb – Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Dane DeHaan, Jamie Foxx, Colm Feore, Felicity Jones, Paul Giamatti, Sally Field, Chris Cooper

Top 10 Anticipated:

1. Interstellar – Christopher Nolan – Matthew MacConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Topher Grace, Casey Affleck, David Oyelowo, John Lithgow, Matt Damon
2. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies – Peter Jackson – Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Evangeline Lilly, Luke Evans, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Aidan Turner, James Nesbitt, Ken Stott, Sylvester McCoy, Lee Pace, Manu Bennett, Benedict Cumberbatch, Hugo Weaving, Christopher Lee
3. Gone Girl – David Fincher – Ben Affleck, Neil Patrick Harris, Rosamund Pike
4. Kingsman: The Secret Service – Matthew Vaughn – Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Michael Caine, Samuel L Jackson, Mark Hamill, Mark Strong
5. Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn – Chris Pratt, Bradley Cooper, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Vin Diesel, Lee Pace, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, John C Reilly
6. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – Matt Reeves – Jason Clarke, Andy Serkis, James Franco, Judy Greer, Gary Oldman, Toby Kebbell, Kodi Smit McPhee
7. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 – Francis Lawrence – Jennifer Lawrence, Donald Sutherland, Woody Harrelson, Julianne Moore, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Jena Malone, Sam Clafin, Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci, Toby Jones, Natalie Dormer, Philip Seymour, Hoffman
8. Fury – David Ayer – Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, Jason Isaacs, Michael Pena, Shia LeBeouf
9. Exodus: Gods and Kings – Ridley Scott – Christian Bale, Aaron Paul, Sigourney Weaver, Joel Edgerton, Ben Kingsley
10. The Judge – David Dobkin – Robert Downey Jr, Robert Duvall, Billy Bob Thornton, Vera Farmiga

RoboCop review

Director: Jose Padhila

Starring: Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Abbie Cornish, Michael Keaton, Samuel L Jackson, Jennifer Ehle, Jay Baruchel, Jackie Earle Haley, Aimee Garcia, Michael K Williams, John Paul Ruttan, Marianne Jean Baptiste, Patrick Garrow

The 1987 sci-fi action flick RoboCop has as big a cult following as I think is possible. The gritty, satirical and notoriously gruesome film is a fan favourite. Any attempt to reboot or remake was always going to be not the one fans wanted, with studios convinced that a 12A certificate was needed for a major audience. However, this has much more of a punch than you’d expect.

The year is 2028. Tycoon Raymond Sellars’ (Keaton) robotics business Omnicorp are establishing a war free third world with the power of robotic soldiers, who prove to be frighteningly good at their job, yet his, and media mogul Pat Novak’s (Jackson), dream is to bring his technology into American law enforcement and so he recruits scientist Dennett Norton (Oldman) to aid him. Meanwhile in Detroit,  detective Alex Murphy (Kinnaman) is a loving husband to his wife Clara (Abbie Cornish) and father to his son David (Ruttan) as well as a hard working detective. He finds himself devastatingly injured, after suffering a vengeful attack from mob boss Antoine Vallon (Garrow), and in Omnicorp’s custody: they are to put his body into a machine to create the ultimate cop. However, Norton’s moral conflicts lead to disastrous events.

There are numerous strokes of genius in this remake, Jackson’s Novak being the most noteworthy one. His seemingly minor character gets some brilliant laughs and, at the end, brings a brilliantly sinister tone into what could have easily been a dull, flag-waving and overly patriotic ending. It’s not quite mockery or parody but rather a slight exaggeration of the media dependence of the west.

One of the other notable intelligent turns of the film was the underlying drone politics which make for an intriguing discussion – this film does convey an actual political message, whether you agree with it or not.

Despite this, the quality of the acting varies dramatically; the two ends of the spectrum are Abbie Cornish’s excellent portrayal of grieving wife Clara to Kinnaman’s remarkably uninspiring turn as Murphy himself. The Killing star overcooks the emotionless Alex and never gives any kind of development. Meanwhile, Oldman captures the essence of a gradual slip into corruption, becoming the most engaging of the lot.

Some of the cast seem a little lost though; Michael Keaton in particular doesn’t supply any identifiable energy and Michael K Williams, Jennifer Ehle and Aimee Garcia never really provide much to the plot. On the other hand, the partly humorous effort of Jay Baruchel, Omnicorp’s charming but ultimately scheming head of marketing, is vastly entertaining and Jackson has his deadpan role to perfection.

Some of the action itself is blisteringly brutal but the occasional shot of iffy CG detracts from it while the weight of the political themes reinforce it. Many scenes, chiefly the one in which Alex realises the extent of his injuries, are incredibly profound and subduing. The rare but evident substance-lacking performances don’t quite match with it leading to a loss of mobility and life. It doesn’t have the gory heft of Verhoeven’s original either but, when viewed as a new piece of grounded sci-fi action, it’s extremely more bold and daring than a lot of the dull remakes today brings us.

7/10

“Forget the machines. They want a product with a conscious. Something that knows what it feels like to be human. We gonna put a man inside a machine!”

RoboCop poster, Pattinson goes to Lost City of Z, Michael Fassbender’s Magneto costume revealed for X-Men 7 and Marvel plans more TV with Netflix

Crime has a new enemy in next year’s action reboot RoboCop. We’re starting this week with a bang and who better to do that than the Digital Detective himself. Joel Kinnaman (The Killing) stars in the title role with Samuel L Jackson, Abbie Cornish, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Doug Urbanski, Jay Baruchel and Jennifer Ehle as well as director Jose Padilha.

Our next epic new image is of Michael Fassbender playing the young Magneto (Ian McKellen) in a brilliant new outfit. This is of coarse for Bryan Singer’s (The Usual Suspects, X-Men) superhero time travel sequel X-Men: Days of Future Past.  It’s awesome stuff but you have to ask where’s the helmet?

The first of today’s full articles is casting rumours for the British Twilight, Harry Potter and Remember Me star Robert Pattinson. As well as being a teen idol for the aforementioned Twilight, he’s proved himself to critics with the recent David Cronenberg drama Cosmopolis. He could be on for the new action/adventure/biography in The Lost City of Z.

If so, he’ll be joining it’s star Benedict Cumberbatch as well as director/writer James Gray (We Own the Night) and Brad Pitt’s company Plan B. Z is the true story of explorer Percy Fawcett who left to the Amazon rainforest but never returned.

Finally, we’ve confirmation that Disney and Netflix will be teaming up for a whole load of live-action Marvel TV series after Joss Whedon’s gradual success with Agents of SHIELD. Agent Carter was one of the potential series that we’ve talked about on this blog but Marvel’s TV quartet have been revealed. It’s Daredevil, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage.

Here’s Empire’s guide to these heroes and who should play them!

RoboCop – February 7th

The Lost City of Z – 2015?

Marvel’s Daredevil – 2015 on Netflix

Marvel’s Luke Cage – 2016? on Netflix

Marvel’s Jessica Jones – 2016? on Netflix

Marvel’s Iron Fist – 2016? on Netflix

RoboCop trailer, DeHaan is James Dean, Will Smith back for ID 2 and new Terminator director

Joel Kinnaman (The Killing), Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight, Harry Potter) and Samuel L Jackson (Star Wars, Snakes on a Plane, Jurassic Park,  are showed off in the first trailer for the new remake of Robocop. Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 original, and it’s disappointing sequel and it’s horrific third instalment (3.7/10 on IMDB), will be remade and the trailer can be seen here. Set in 2028, it tells the story of Alex Murphy (Kinnaman), a good cop with a loving wife and son. In an explosive attack, he’s left practically paralysed so technology giants Omnicorp fit him into on of their crime fighting robots to make him both a fighting and strategic master of the law.

The new trailer promises something with plenty of action of and something similar to Karl Urban’s Dredd. I’m still not sure if the films will go for a mainstream 12A audience or a more gruesome tale. The latter didn’t work for Dredd. It fell flat of it’s $45 million budget disappointingly. One problem I currently have is Robocop’s voice. The electronic hints make him sound like will.i.am will be patrolling the streets defeating evil. Despite this, it’ll likely be a fun, star driven and exhilarating thriller with the cast of Abbie Cornish, Jennifer Ehle, Michael Keaton, Aimee Garcia and Jay Baruchel bulking up the cast alongside Kinnaman, Oldman and Jackson. Here’s a series of stills from the film to get you in the mood.

Dane De Haan has taken on numerous roles in the last few years. He was the brilliantly nerdy apex predator in Chronicle and gave a small but intriguing role in Lincoln. He’ll soon be seen as Harry Osborn, later the Green Goblin, alongside Andrew Garfield, Chris Cooper, Paul Giamatti, Felicity Jones, Sally Fields, Jamie Foxx and Emma Stone in The Amazing Spiderman 2 but another of his portrayals is the focus of the next couple of paragraphs.

He will play James Dean in Life where Robert Pattinson (Twilight, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Cosmopolis) will lead as Dean’s friend Dennis Stock. “Finding the right actor to play James Dean was a big responsibility,” producers Iain Canning and Emile Sherman but Dane’s body of work has proved what a chameleon he is and what he will contribute to the role.”

Will Smith initially denied having any connection to Roland Emmerich’s confirmed Independence Day sequel (Independence Day 2 or ID: Forever Part 1) but it seems that there’s been a U-turn in production. After disappointing many in his son, Jaden Smith’s, sci-fi vehicle After Earth, he’ll be reinstating his interest in the genre with this space adventure. He’s in talks to star now in a secretive plot that’ll most likely see another invasion from the iconic aliens or humans taking the fight to them. There’s still no word on Jeff Goldblum, Brent Spiner, Bill Pullman or Adam Baldwin returning to reprise their roles.

Roland Emmerich has also expressed interest in returning to Stargate. He says that his original was first thought of as a trilogy but any new advances will be based upon the many years and series of canon created on TV

Alan Taylor will be best known for HBO’s Game of Thrones and the upcoming Marvel epic Thor: The Dark World. He’s now in talks for directing the new Terminator reboot which may have Arnie himself onto star. Terminator will be the fifth instalment in a stalling franchise after McG’s efforts with Sam Worthington and Christian Bale in Termintor Salvation failed to start the new trilogy they hoped for. The new film will hopefully do that bringing Terminator right up to speed with the current hits of Marvel, Avatar and Star Trek.

RoboCop is out February 7th 2014

Life‘s release or production date is unknown

ID Forever Part I could be out July 3rd 2015 but could be pushed back to 2016

Terminator 5 is out June 26th 2015