Now that we've finished cleaning up the Christmas clutter,it's time to look towards the future,especially in films due to arrive in theaters to hopefully thrill audiences,or atleast make that 20 bucks you laid out at the refreshment counter worth your while there,during 2008.
It'll be a new year with some new fears(and a few of the old ones tagging along),so we will need a hero or two to save the day. Let's take a look at the possible contenders for box office victory and mass appeal:
HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY
Ron Perlman returns as the ultimate Big Red One,with the original director of the first Hellboy movie,Guillermo Del Toro back in the saddle again. It looks like all of the folks that survived the earlier movie are here and the f/x is weirder and wilder than before.
Del Toro is a natural at genre flicks,which the studios may appreciate more these days after the critical love Pan's Labyrinth was bathed in. Del Toro's also coming out with a fantasy movie called The Orphanage that looks just as good and maybe will give him that Oscar he deserves:
BATMAN:THE DARK KNIGHT
This movie is as eagerly and impatiently anticipated as the Nintendo Wii was for Cartman. Fortunately,we don't have to resort to primitive time travel methods to check this bad boy out. I know some fans are already quibbling about the Joker's makeup but come on,guys,this version of the Batman legend is intended to be much more gritty and less cartoony than the previous films before have been.
Granted,the long shadow of Jack Nicholson as the Clown Prince of Crime will be looming over this film but it looks to me as if Heath Ledger is making the part his own. There's a new sheriff in town and no one is safe:
IRON MAN
Marvel's been in a bit of a superhero slump lately,with lackluster sequels bringing the bing-bang-boom out of their cinematic groove. That low may be shortlived ,with the arrival of a newly minted movie adaptation of Iron Man,starring one of the most unlikely actors to play a superhero,Robert Downey,Jr.
Turns out that Downey's offscreen antics suit the nature of his current onscreen leading man,giving some potential nuance to the character. Oh,and the metal armor outfit has a nice shine to it:
CHRONICLES OF NARNIA:PRINCE CASPIAN
Heroes are not just for comic books;they can be found anywhere and everywhere in the kingdoms of pop culture and especially in Narnia,where the sibling foursome of The Lion,The Witch and The Wardrobe return to team up with Prince Caspian.
Some folks will be peeved about skipping over the other couple of Narnia books that come before Prince Caspian but since C.S. Lewis didn't write the series in the chronological order(he assigned the set sequence of the books years later)that we know today,I think we can cut the studio a break on this one:
GET SMART
"Not another TV show remake!" Yes,it is but I have hope for this one. While the original Don Adams series was tops in the field of spy movie parodies,certainly Steve Carell is a worthy successor to the throne(or the phone booth,if you will)and Anne Hathaway makes for a lovely Agent 99.
After all,who better to play Maxwell Smart than Agent Michael Scarn of the FBI? Would you believe that my only qualm here is that they didn't have the foresight to find a part for Dwight,aka Samuel L. Chang?:
That's all I have for now. Tune in next year for more thrilling updates,same bat time,same bat blog!
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