My Top Most Anticipated Films of 2015

by Christopher Barr │POSTED ON JANUARY 03, 2015

The 2015 line-up of films look pretty exciting to say the least.  I have compiled a list of my most anticipated films but first here are some other films that I’m looking forward to seeing and some others that I’m a little worried about.

I’m looking forward to Blackhat because of the return of director Michael Mann.  The film’s trailer is available to see.  It has that Michael Mann look of realism and spectacular action as this race-against-time thriller draws it audience into the world of high level cyber-terrorism.

Fantastic Four concerns me in a way it probably shouldn’t but it does anyway.  The actors involved are all good, especially Miles Teller coming off the excellent Whiplash film.  Plus director Josh Trank who directed the wonderful and refreshing film Chronicle is promising.  The problem that I have is the changes to the origin story of not only to the Fantastic Four but also the changes to Dr. Doom.  Who knows, guess we’ll have to wait and see some footage to really tell if they succeed or not.

The trailer for Chappie did not impress me at all, not because of its special effects that look great, but because of its concept.  Hopefully there’s more metaphor then we see in the trailer, but I’m worried about this idea of consciousness in a robot.  We have a habit in society to make our things cool and more like our ideal selves without, for the most part, putting the work into bettering ourselves.

The Terminator Genisys trailer looked brutal.  The young actors in the movie, which is turning into an epidemic in recent years, are boring, dull, lifeless fillers.  So many of these young actors bring no weight to their roles and this unfortunate reality is littered all over this movie.  They use the same old stale lines we keep hearing in this franchise, ‘I’ll be back’ “Come with me if you want to live’.  This movie is not showing us anything fresh here; instead it’s showing us just how dead this story truly is.  It’s too bad because I loved this story for years and Arnold Schwarzenegger was always awesome kicking ass in it.

San Andreas is a new Rock movie about destruction and disaster.  I’m a sucker for the ‘what if’ scenarios of these disaster flicks.  Whether its aliens coming to blow cities up, zombies flooding through streets for brains or rapid weather changes that freeze millions of people, these movies are fun and that’s because they aren’t real and they know they aren’t real.  Some of the footage released from San Andreas looks great as huge land masses break and crash into rubble while people scream their terrified faces off as they die.  A thing of beauty while stuffing your face with popcorn in the safety and security of your local multiplex.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 is the end of this hugely successful franchise.  I’m expecting this film to give a good send off to the characters and the story.  Jennifer Lawrence is great in this part; well she’s great in anything for that matter.  It will be exciting to see how everything unfolds on opening day.

Furious 7 looks like it will be a bit of the same as the last two installments, which changed up the franchise into heist films rather than car racing movies.  This is the late Paul Walker’s last movie and for what he was worth as an actor, he was great in these movies.  These movies are silly and dumb in some cases but never the less exciting.  They are big movies that are very aware of that fact and fun spectacles to watch on the big screen.

When I saw the new trailer to Jurassic World I must admit, it worried me.  I loved the first Jurassic movie because of its special effects and its scope.  Here I’m worried that after 22 years since the original, are we going to see something new and fresh.  I hope so.  The huge sea monster was pretty cool in the trailer.

Mission Impossible 5 does have a huge hurdle to jump because of the massive success of Ghost Protocol which ignited and added new life back into the franchise.  Christopher McQuarrie is directing this time around which could go either way.  He directed Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher, which was good but not overly exciting of a film. 

Cloud Atlas was a great underrated film by the Wachowski’s.  Jupiter Ascending’s trailer looks like a thrill ride through a number of future worlds.  The special effects look as state of the art as their Matrix Trilogy did a decade ago.  The only problem is the movie got bumps from the 2014 summer slate for some reason and moved to February of this year.  Maybe it wasn’t finished in time or maybe it sucks, either/or I will be there to find out whether or not it rocks.

Joy is David O. Russell’s new film starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper and there’s not much known about it.  Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle were two great movies so here’s hoping three times a charm.

Comedy sequels are hard to do because it’s difficult to replicate the magic found in the first one. Ted 2 could turn out like Horrible Bosses 2 and The Hangover 2and 3 did, where they repeated the first film and didn’t add anything new to the concept.  Ted is a funny character so maybe he can pull off his crude and rude shtick in this sequel.  I loved the first one so here’s hoping they actually pull it off rather than just do another ‘money grab’ copy-and-paste.

What excites me about Tomorrowland is its director Brad Bird.  His first live action film was Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and it kicked ass.  Plus he was the man who brought us the animated masterpiece The Incredibles.  The teaser trailer released on Tomorrowland with its air of mystery and intrigue makes it quite promising.  The striking effects look great and the epic, Wizard of Oz-type futuristic story appears to be a good one.  

Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups trailer dropped online and looks quite intriguing.  The film follows Christian Bale, playing an insecure womanizer, living the rich life while the walls of reality close in on him.  With Cate Blanchett and Natalie Portman co-starring you can bet that this one will be one of the greats by the end of the year.  Plus it’s Terrence Malick for the love of god.

Here are my top 10 most anticipated films of 2015.

10. Crimson Peak

Released: Oct 16

Jessica Chastain and Tom Hiddleston in a Guillermo del Toro film is all the news I really need to know, I’m in.  Pan’s Labyrinth was a dark magical tale that lets us know, if Hellboy and Blade 2 wasn’t convincing enough, that this director can bring the spooky and the creepy.  This ghostly fable looks amazing with its elaborate costume and set designs informing us that we are in for yet another interesting dark world created by del Toro.

9. The Revenant

Released: Dec 25

Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman was my favorite film of last year so this man at this point can do no wrong.  The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a frontiersman in the 1820’s that gets mauled by a bear and is left for death by men that he later tracks down to kill.  Short of reading the book it is based on, there is very little known about how the Birdman director is going to visually take the film.

8. The Martian

Released: Nov 25

Prometheus wasn’t great but it wasn’t horrible either, that said, Ridley Scott directed two of the most successful and important science fiction films of all time with Alien and Blade Runner.  So it’s quite exciting to see that he’s diving back into the genre with Matt Damon in the leading role.  There isn’t really much available right now about the plot.  I’m just excited because all the elements seem at this point to be lining up.  The film also stars Jessica Chastain who is one of the best actresses working in Hollywood today.  Perfect, I’m in.

7. Ex Machina

Released: April 10

The trailer of this sci-fi film looks amazing.  The film is about a young programmer that is brought into a remote facility to participate in a breakthrough experiment in artificial intelligence.  In a Turingesque setting, puts this programmer with a female robot with striking human qualities.  His task is to find a level of consciousness in her that is equal to that of a human.  Alex Garland has written and directed this fascinating look into the evolution of machines versus the possible extinction of man.  Compared to the A.I. film Chappie, this film appears to be taking leaps and bounds into the prospects of the singularity and the future of robotics, both sociologically and philosophically.

6. Ant-Man

Released: July 17

I think we can all agree that the Edgar Wright situation sucked and we would have wanted to see what he would have done… but we are past that now.  This movie to me looks exciting because of Guardians of the Galaxy oddly enough.  What I mean by that is trust, at this point Marvel is on a roll so I have to believe that this movie is going to be another hit and entertaining ride.  Plus I’m quite curious to see what Paul Rudd will do.  I’ve always been a fan of his but he’s venturing into uncharted territory here.  I think he’ll bring the right kind of humor that will help carry the audience into this odd world.  I also think he’ll bring the pain as well in his performance which should surprise people.

5. Mad Max: Fury Road

Released: May 15

The trailer of this movie is a balletic masterpiece in its own right.  The film as far as I can tell is one continuous chase through the scorching desert.  George Miller is back for his fourth installment of the Mad Max films.  Mel Gibson is Mad Max, but casting Tom Hardy was the best possible move Miller could have done.  I can’t think of anyone else that could be Mad Max for a new generation.  The film looks nuts and off its rocker while looking incredibly beautiful at the same time.  Bring on the madness!

4. Spectre

Released: Nov 6

What’s exciting about this 24^th Bond film is that Sam Mendes is coming back to direct after directing the excellent Skyfall.  Quantum of Solace was a bit of a misstep only because Casino Royale blew everyone’s socks off, but what we have learned is that Daniel Craig owns this character.  Christophe Waltz is playing a villain this time around which is another added bonus.  Skyfall was exciting and fun so it should be interesting to see what Mendes and Craig do to fix Spectre up enough so they don’t just repeat themselves.

3. The Hateful Eight

Released: TBA

This film started out almost not happening because someone leaked director Quentin Tarantino’s screenplay online.  As a result and rightfully pissed off, Tarantino decided to scrap the idea.  He then warmed back up to the film, made a couple of script changes and started filming the picture.  The film is about 8 people in the old west, with various skill levels in the art of killing, that find themselves pitted against each other after being snowed in.  I love Tarantino films, they are sleek, they are violent, they are funny and they are fresh every single time.  So whatever he decides to do I’m there.  

2. The Avengers: Age of Ultron

Released: May 1

This sequel couldn’t be any more exciting and promising.  Joss Whedon, a huge fanboy in his own right, released one hell of a trailer.  Everything about this is mind-blowing, from Ultron all busted up interrupting the Avengers as they celebrate some victory, to the global scale of the story, to Black Widow flying out of an aircraft and landing on a city street on a motorcycle, to Iron Man landing inside his Hulk Buster armor to battle it out with the incredible Hulk.  I got so many chills while watching this trailer.  These Marvel movies keep getting better and better as they come along which even excites me more.

1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Released: Dec 18

The return of the original Star Wars cast in a brand new Star Wars movie.  Nothing can touch this level of bad ass.  The teaser trailer looked exciting, it showed a lot but revealed nothing.  JJ Abrams made a great Star Trek movie and I’m looking forward to see what he does with Star Wars.  This new movie I think is going to take the same lesson that the first X-Men movie did from the horrible and laughable Batman and Robin, it’s not going to repeat itself.  It’s a well-documented fact that Episodes 1-3 were a huge misstep from the original direction George Lucas took when he created the first three films.  With that said, I think we are in for one mind blowing movie experience come next December.