Fault In Our Stars Director To Tackle X-Men Spin-Off, The New Mutants!

As the X-Men cinematic franchise prepares to expand next year, hopes are high for this 15 year old film series. In addition to a new X-Men feature (Apocalypse) due out next May, new spin-offs centered on Deadpool and Channing Tatum as Gambit will help take advantage of all the storytelling possibilities this universe has. Now a new project has emerged; a film centered on The New Mutants!

A Look At The Various Superhero Movie Universes

There's about four superhero cinematic universes running around right now, each with varying degrees of success and potential. Since two of them unleashed trailers of their newest features onto the world in the past month, I thought it was time to look at each of these four superhero universes and analyze how well they're doing currently and what ventures they have planned for film and television in the future.

Oscar Isaac Cast As Villain Apocalypse In Next X-Men Movie!

If you told me back in early January when I saw Inside Llewyn Davis that Oscar Isaac would have been cast in two of the biggest franchises by the end of the year, I'd have said you were crazy. But the actor has fared well indeed by winding up in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and now has been cast as the major antagonist Apocalypse in X-Men: Apocalypse.

Bryan Singer Will Return To Direct The Merry Mutants In X-Men: Apocalypse

I was a huge fan of X-Men: Days of Future Past, and have been eagerly awaiting the next X-Men feature which arrives in 2016. The forthcoming film, entitled X-Men: Apocalypse, doesn't have concrete plot details yet, but it seems it will primarily involve the characters from the X-Men: First Class films. Now a director has been placed in charge of the upcoming X-Men film, a very familiar name to those as invested in the franchise as I am.

Box Office Analysis: 2014 Has Been Rough For Family Movies

A lot of things have gone over spectacularly in 2014 cinema, but weirdly, family movies have been having one of their worst years in recent memory. It's not that any of them are tanking in a "Lone Ranger" style, it's just that they're certainly underwhelming mightily compared to years past. The main problem is the huge amount of lazy sequels made this year.

Summer Movie Memories: All It Took Was Time Travel To Revive The X-Men Movies

Over the next seven days, I'll be looking at seven different summer movies from Summer 2014 and analyzing what really made them stand out this summer, for reasons both good and bad. Obviously, SPOILERS for X-Men: Days of Future Past lie ahead. 

Editorial: Why The Inevitable End of Home Video Is Good For Fans of Home Video

SO HIDEOUS

For years now, people have been calling out home video as something that's on its last leg, just gasping its last breath before being replaced by Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and the like. Unlike other similar declarations, that actually does seem reasonable, considering how much home videos sale have dipped in recent years. And interestingly, studios seem to have also gotten the memo things are gloomy for the home video department, because their upcoming home video releases for their numerous summer blockbusters are...unique, let's say.

Box Office Analysis: Let's Predict The Rest of The Summer!! (PART ONE)

Eight weeks into the summer, we've seen hits (Godzilla, X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Fault In Our Stars) and duds (Blended, A Million Ways to Die In The West). Utilizing the performances so far, I've decided to take a gander at the upcoming features coming out between now and Labor Day and predict their opening weekend and final grosses, and sprinkle some analysis in there too. Not every movie is covered (I'm sure some sleeper hit that'll eventually make big bucks isn't on here), but regardless, here's my predictions for the tidal wave of notable releases left this summer, split into two parts. I'll be bold and daring and put up a Box Office Analysis article on a Tuesday, in order to cover all the releases coming out in August.

Edge of Tomorrow Review

Those Mech-Suits they're wearing are awesome by the way

Few times in my life have I been more surprised then when I heard the good buzz for Edge of Tomorrow. Critics were loving the film, which looked like a Source Code knockoff. And yet, the buzz kept mounting, making its disappointing American box office all the more surprising (internationally, it's in much better shape) Plopping into my seat of my Monday night screening of the film, I was intrigued; would the film truly live up to it's lofty reputation?

Box Office Predictions: Can Tom Cruise Conquer The Stars?

In Box Office Predictions, I take a look at the forthcoming weekend and see how new releases and holdovers will fare.

As late as 10 years ago, a summertime Tom Cruise tentpole could be guaranteed to be one of the biggest films of not just the season, but also the year. Since those days, he's been extremely more hit and miss, with his only $100 million features coming from Mission Impossible and a (hilarious I might add) cameo in a Ben Stiller film. Edge of Tomorrow has been dogged by both the press and audience members ever since it's first trailer came out, but extremely positive reviews seem to be turning the tide for the movie. I doubt it can all of a sudden churn even an Oblivion sized opening, but I'll be daring and say this thing just barely cracks $30 million.

X-Men: Days Of Future Past Review

Welcome to The Future

The X-Men face their most terrifying threat yet; Sentinels...and bad photoshop

The future is very rarely an idyllic place in the world of movies. Even family movies like WALL-E make sure it looks terrible, while R-rated movies go to the most extreme ways possible to prove just how deplorable the future is. The X-Men likely think everybody from Max Mad to Robert Neville got it easy though, as their future consists of giant adaptive robots killing every mutant in sight.

The opening scene of X-Men: Days of Future Past, which introduces us to those robots (called Sentinels), is a thing of beauty, as it beautifully sets up how miserable this future really is, as mutants are killed off in a casual manner that makes one sick. Besides setting up an impressive action and tone-defining sequence, the opening also shows off one of the movie’s greatest assets; it’s ability to make any character that pops up immediately memorable. The unique powers that comes with each of the many mutants we meet in the film are so darn cool that it’s hard not to root for them (my personal favorite is featured in that opening; Bishop, played by Omar Sy).

Soon though, Wolverine (still played terrifically by Hugh Jackman) is off to 1973, where he hopes to get younger versions of Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to help prevent the creation of those pesky Sentinels. The arc Wolverine’s undergone in six of these seven movies has had it’s ups and downs, but it all culminates nicely here, as he has to take responsibility and be more of a helpful presence to the younger versions of Xavier and Magneto. Jackman handles this thoughtful side of the character in fine fashion, while also delivering an immensely quotable one-liner and awesome fight scene in similarly successful style.

The 1973 seen in this movie is a dazzling place that sucks one in due to the insane amount of detail here. That year really wasn’t that long ago, yet it feels like an entirely different world compared to the one we have today. Thankfully, they play up these differences to their maximum potential, as everything from Pong to Richard Nixon is given time to shine.This era also gets us to McAvoy who absolutely brings it as young Xavier, a tortured soul who’s now a drug addict and a recluse. McAvoy does do an excellent job making sure his character comes off across as damaged, but not unlikable, a tough balance that he pulls off nicely.

McAvoy and Fassbender had some terrific chemistry in X-Men: First Class (for me, still the best X-Men movie) and perhaps the film’s only disappointment is the lack of time the two spend together. The one major scene they do get is gripping, but soon Fassbender does some things that feel abrupt and unwarranted; I get why they did him, but they could have been executed better, especially since they come at the cost of Fassbender interacting with the spectacular ensemble cast. It doesn’t help that Fassbender does some stuff in the finale that feels….weird and a little over the top considering the circumstances he’s acting in. Add in some questionable actions involving Beast and Wolverine, and some of the climax of this feature does slightly underwhelm, though it’s saved by some final few set pieces that being the film back to glory.

Oh, and lest I forget, the rest of the ensemble cast, by the way, is thankfully well balanced, with Halle Berry and Ellen Page getting nice cameos while (contrary to the public consensus) Jennifer Lawrence does a superb job handling all the complexities Mystique has to endure in this film. By the way, you’ve likely heard by now about Evan Peters landmark action sequence as Quicksilver. Spoiler Alert: it more than lives up to the hype.

Really, some underwhelming aspects of the finale notwithstanding (which still pale to The Wolverine, which I was overly generous with last summer) X-Men: Days of Future Past is still excellent moviemaking that shows how good storytelling mixed with superb action is an extremely potent mix.