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

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 review

Director: Marc Webb

Starring: Andrew Garfield, Dane DeHaan, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Colm Feore, Sally Field, Campbell Scott, BJ Novak, Felicity Jones, Denis Leary, Paul Giamatti, Chris Cooper

It’s fair to say that 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man so that Sony could keep the rights to the character. Although it wasn’t terrible, it was genuinely below the quality we expected, seemed wildly unnecessary and under-grossed Sam Raimi’s superior trilogy. It was still successful enough to confirm numerous sequels however and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 comes with the promise that they’d learned from their previous errors.

In New York, Peter Parker (Garfield) is living a double life: one as the crime fighting vigilante Spider-Man and the other as a graduating student. Both lives are haunted by the death of Captain Stacy (Leary) and are turned upside down by the arrival of angered young billionaire Harry Osborn (DeHaan), who’s set to take over his sick father’s (Cooper) genetics empire. Meanwhile, lonely Oscorp, the Osborn’s company, employee Max Dillon (Foxx) suffers a severe accident at work, giving him the power to manipulate electricty. All of these events cause a rift in his relationship with the Captain’s daughter Gwen (Stone) and his Aunt May (Field), who may just hold the answer to his parent’s disappearance.

It’s a shame to say that this sequel doesn’t seem to have learnt from its predecessor. Its attempted to be much lighter but that’s ended up with some poor dialogue, particularly Spidey’s sluggish quips. We don’t exactly get a balance of this and the more horrifying sequences. There’s a constant lack of terror without and becomes hard to take the ludicrous action seriously. The reinvented Green Goblin and Electro were well designed but lacked the terror of Evil Dead’s horror maestro Sam Raimi’s trilogy and its villains.

We can accept the bonkers action in The Avengers and its likes because we better understand the bridge between the heroes and their alter-egos. In this, Spider-Man is a completely different person to Parker and I don’t think there’s one transformation scene. The deactivation of Spidey’s web shooters ends up with an uninteresting physical comedy sequence and some remarkably poor exposition.

There are few technical issues too. There’s an attempt to introduce a new heroic main theme that doesn’t quite mix with Electro’s numbing dubstep, despite boasting The Dark Knight’s Hans Zimmer. The CG in Spider-Man’s breathtaking swinging endeavourers is of great quality but the numerous slo-mo scenes, rather than increasing both detail and awe, take the life out of the action.

There are numerous highlights amongst the messy plot however. Emma Stone is greatly entertaining as Gwen as she continues to bemuse Peter. With their excellent and believable dynamic, he and the charismatic Garfield form the most convincing couple there’s been in a superhero movie but the 25 year old Stone and 30 year old Garfield still aren’t convincing as newly graduated students, and that is a huge issue with the film’s credibility.

Jamie Foxx meanwhile fantastically judges his performance as (not literally) invisible tech nerd and Spider-Man fanatic Max. His horrific accident is well handled and Electro is initially frightening in the Times Square set piece but after that he lost his sense of presence in the film.

Without trying to give much away, the film’s other villain is Dane DeHaan’s Osborn who’s desperate for the cure for his fatal disease and that desperation leads to a horrifying step into villainy. While DeHaan is both engaging and believable, he seems to have been typecast in the same neglected angst-filled role he did in Chronicle. With all of these villains, the film struggles to find a defining closing action sequence and in the end settles for three, dragging out the thin, scattershot plot even further.

Annoyingly, the film’s two most esteemed actors, Paul Giamatti and Chris Cooper, are reduced to cameo-like small roles. Giamatti plays Russian mobster Aleksei, a character with a tonne of cheap lines in the cartoonish opening sequence and likely less than three minutes’ screen time. Cooper meanwhile seems as if he’d appeared in multiple deleted scenes; his sinister motives are never fully explained and the mystery of his and Richard Parker’s work has been given a dissatisfying end to focus on Sony’s developing superhero world.

That could be a step in right direction however. Spider-Man’s read a page of Captain America: The Winter Soldier’s book; it certainly knows how to get the Marvel super-fans incredibly excited and so to reel them in for future instalments. Sadly a little too much of these in-movie teasers are in the actual trailers but that’s no reason to not let the endless hidden references, chiefly the brewings of The Gentleman and The Sinister Six, get you in the mood for more Marvel.

6/10

“Everyone has a part of themselves they hide, even from the people they love most. And you don’t have forever, none of us ever do.”

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit review

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Starring: Chris Pine, Kiera Knightley, Kenneth Branagh, Kevin Costner, Lenn Kudrjawiziki, Nonso Anonzie, Gemma Chan, Elena Velikanova, Colm Feore, Mikhail Baryshnikov

Esteemed director Sir Kenneth Branagh, a legend multiple Shakespeare adaptations, see Henry V and Hamlet, who more recently had a fairly succssful stab into action with Slueth and Thor, steps into what should be his breakout action role. Picking up from a well established series and signing an all star cast including the ever charismatic Chris Pine (Star Trek), you’d think this’d be a lot more fun than it was.

Based upon the series of novels by the late Tom Clancy, the Jack Ryan series might be America’s closest franchise to James Bond, although Jason Bourne may protest that. It began with The Hunt for Red October, a tense submarine based thriller, which actually won an Oscar, in which Sean Connery’s potential villain takes the lead over Alec Baldwin’s Ryan. Harrison Ford then took up the mantle with less successful Patriot Games, 1992, and Clear and Present Danger, 1994. The series went further downhill when Ben Affleck attempted the role in The Sum of All Fears, 2002. Being a reboot of these big box office hits, you’d hope Shadow Recruit would perhaps be a huge success but, while it’s not a flop by any stretch of imagination, it’s barely scratched its way past the $100 million mark.

Jack Ryan (Pine) is an ex-marine turned CIA analyst who’s now a covert in Wall Street. He’s assigned for a mission in Moscow to investigate the suspicious dealings of tycoon Viktor Cherevin (Branagh). However, things turn violent: Cherevin’s shocking plot is uncovered; Ryan’s former mentor Jack Harper (Costner) is called in; Ryan’s girlfriend Cathy (Knightley), who has no idea of his true job, gets suspicious and is on the scene.

There’s multiple key issues with the film. Firstly, the excessive opening tries to give Ryan as many backstories as possible. First he’s an honest American, studying economics in London, who’s inspired to search for justice after 9/11. Then he’s a heroic marine. Then he’s crippled man in therapy. Then he’s a spy in Wall Street! Seeing as this is a franchise, why not just carry on from where we know Ryan to be. Or just pick one of the above.

By the time every inch of Ryan’s back-story is covered, there’s little time for the actual plot, which fairly unconnected to the opening minutes.The plot’s remarkably thin, perhaps unadventurous, and never allows any space for humour,  shame as that is one of Pine’s strong suits (see Into Darkness – Never Trust a Vulcan). The dialogue’s pretty un-energetic which, when mashed with the gaping lack of chemistry between Pine and Knightley – and Pine and Costner – , leads to some dull and distancing sequences.

Additionally, the plot is hugely outdated. Lazily chucking in references to 9/11 doesn’t modernise the story and Cherevin is a poorly constructed character. While Branagh does put in some amounts of menace and passion into the villain he never fleshes him out or layers Viktor enough to constitute the permanent steel faced businessman look. Also, a Western actor as the Russian, power hungry, world-domination lusting bad guy is a long lost relic of the Cold War era of films. It has no place in the modern spy thriller. If Bond and Bourne can move on, why can’t Ryan?

The film does display a lot of themes and aspects well though. Pine’s portrayal certainly conveys Ryan’s sickening of the death around him. Plus the action is crackingly good entertainment. The excellent cinematography adds to Branagh’s brilliant build up of tension for some electric fights and chases, the highlight being the brilliant final sequence. It’s easy to criticize but but there’s an awful lot to like.

7/10

“You Russians like to think you’re poets. Perhaps you’re just touchy.”