The summer blockbuster season officially kicked off last week with The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which hit the theatres to a collective “meh”. Thankfully, there’s no shortage of upcoming summer releases that are worth putting down the books and hitting the theatre for — even some of the superhero sequels. Here are some of the upcoming summer movies we’re most looking forward to:
Godzilla (May 16): If you’re wondering what Bryan Cranston has been up to post-Breaking Bad, the answer is working as a nuclear scientist and provoking Japanese mega-beasts. That’s right, the original movie monster is back in this much-needed reboot of the 60-year old franchise. It was filmed largely in and around Vancouver — look for uncredited cameos by Canada Place and the Convention Centre.
X-Men: Days of Future Past (May 23): Everyone’s favourite mutants are back for an umpteenth sequel, this time changing the past in order to protect their future. The franchise stays fresh with the addition of new characters like Fan Bingbing as a teleporting mutant and Peter Dinklage as a villain bound on destroying all mutants.
Maleficent (May 30): In the style of Wicked, this live-action Disney flick tells the story of Maleficent, the vindictive fairy who curses Sleeping Beauty. The film stars Angelina Jolie as the titular red-lipped, black-horned villainess, whose icy beauty is sure to inspire the most popular costume of Halloween 2014. This one is worth seeing — even if you don’t have a little sister.
Edge of Tomorrow (June 6): Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt star in this Independence Day-meets-Groundhog Day sci-fi bloodbath about soldiers trapped in a time loop of the final day in a war against an alien civilization. Based on a Japanese graphic novel whose title, All You Need to Kill, is way, way better.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (July 11): In 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, we saw the hyper intelligent primate Caesar go from genetically engineered lab animal to vigilante chimp-on-a-mission. The story picks up 15 years later at the outbreak of a human vs. ape war, with Caesar as the leader of a simian army that has figured out how to use those opposable thumbs to work a shotgun.
Jupiter Ascending (July 18): We have high hopes for the new film from the Wachowskis, their first original sci-fi script since The Matrix trilogy. It stars Mila Kunis as the world’s most beautiful janitor, who discovers she’s actually interplanetary royalty with a bounty on her head. Channing Tatum co-stars as the human-wolf hybrid ex-military hunter whose mission is to protect her. I know, right?
Mood Indigo (July 18): Who better than Audrey Tautou to star in the adaptation of a French surrealist novel about a newlywed who discovers she’s terminally ill with flowers growing in her lungs? This is the perfect film for asking that manic pixie dream girl in your summer session class out on a date.
The Giver (August 15): This is the summer that Lois Lowry’s “unfilmable” young adult novel about Jonas, a boy in a seemingly perfect, pain-free world who is tasked with the job of storing memories, hits the screen. If it’s anything like the myriad other films about teen protagonists in dystopian worlds released in recent years, it’s bound to be a hit.
