2020 Vision

I make no apologies for that title.  Anyway, it's time to have a look ahead across the coming year, to see a few things I'm looking forward to in the world of film.  Now you'll notice that most of the titles on here are big studio properties; that's not due to a personal preference of mine, it's more that such projects by their nature tend to be more stable, and more visible in the long term compared to indie fare.  I'm also going to skip over in this list stuff being released relatively early in the year, just so I'm not blogging about it twice in quick succession, so I'm not mentioning 1917 or JoJo Rabbit right now, as I'm already going to see at least one of those within a week.



Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

I was far from the biggest fan of Suicide Squad, needless to say, so the fact I'm actually looking forward to this says a lot about how it looks.  Mind, I think that most of us can agree that whatever you thought of SS, Margot Robbie was by a country mile the best thing in it, so at least it's playing to its strengths, and I wouldn't be surprised if this just plain pulls what Aquaman did and have the entire link to last film be a single, throwaway line.  This looks pretty different to the comics (certainly this Cassandra Cain seems quite a bit different to the Batgirl version in the comics; she was a fun character!), but it does seem to carry the punk energy Gail Simone's run on Birds of Prey did, so more of a spiritual tribute than a straight adaptation then.  On that last point, the fact that Simone, one of my favourite comic writers, is excited for this one makes me excited too.

The Invisible Man

So, that Dark Universe was a bit of a flop wasn't it?  Well, Universal have decided to course correct and do what should have been plan A; get Blumhouse to take the classic monster characters, and do them in horror movies, not turn them into superheroes!  For started, Leigh Whannel, who has had good success with sci-fi with Upgrade from 2018, has a pretty timely take on the concept of The Invisible Man, and a solid way to make him scary; have him use that ability for gaslighting.  The original Wells novel was all about someone being seized with a lust for power after realising the possibilities invisibility offers.  This one seems to be going on a similar line, but from the perspective of the victim.  So yeah, this could be like Hollow Man, only not terrible.

Promising Young Woman

Ooh, the mere concept of this one, a woman who got the blame for being sexually assaulted deliberately going after the sort of guys who would do that, is going to piss a lot of MRA types off.  Excellent.  I'm liking the darkly humorous look of this one, which I think is a necessity as given it's based on a pretty real issue going on, you do have to add some levity to proceedings.  Also, given where this trailer cuts off, I get the feeling this is not going to pull any punches with the revenge aspect either.

Antebellum

A vague but intriguing trailer, seeming to promise a horror experience rooted directly in a major issue of today, and yesterday it seems.  There does seem to be this movement within time travel stories to drive away the nostalgic look at the past that Back to the Future and others delivered, and point out that no, there was a tonne that was wrong back then, especially if you weren't the right class and/or race.  There was the Doctor Who episode Rosa, from LFF this year there's the excellent Synchronic (definitely go see that one when it comes out), and this seems another riff on that idea.  I'm all for this, as I think a lot of what's wrong with the world right now comes from wishing back a golden age that never truly was, and anything to highlight that there are a tonne of things about the past we need to get as far as hell away from is good for me.

Artemis Fowl

Now this was actually meant to come out in 2018, but for reasons only known to The Mouse, Disney has put it in summer 2020 instead.  I'm really interested in it, as I love the series of books by Eoin Colfer this is based on, which I can basically sum up as "A teenaged supervillain tries to pull a con on The Fair Folk".  Yes, it's a mix of high-tech and magic, as fairies are real, and the titular character on finding this out decides to try to get his hands on the ransom fund for the Lower Elements Police RECONnaissance units, or in other words gold from LEPRecon.  The book has a lot of humour like that (Colfer later wrote the recent sixth Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy novel And Another Thing...), so I hope Kenneth Branagh has bought that on board for this one.  Speaking of Branagh, his take on Death on the Nile is due out in November, I hope it brings the same art deco energy that Murder on the Orient Express had.

Wonder Woman 1984

I'm amazed about something with this trailer.  Given how blatantly Pedro Pascal's take on the character of Maxwell Lord is based on a particular current political figure, I am shocked that he hasn't gone into a full Twitter rant about it!  Mind, perhaps he doesn't realise that character is one of the bad guys... What I like in this trailer is that the Cheeto baiting isn't just for the sake of courting controversy; given that 1984 is smack in the middle of the Reagan era, I think this 80s tribute is going to go all the way in criticising that time, and how the attitudes from this have resurfaced.  Plus, it just looks like a tonne of fun; that shot of her lasso-ing the lightning is jawdropping, and Gal Gadot in the Kingdom Come Wonder Woman armour... eeeeeeeeee!

Tenet

Now I should mention that I'm not the biggest Christopher Nolan fan in the world (hell, none of his Batman films make my personal top five Batman films!*), but say what you will about his films, they are great to look at and admire, they are handsome things.  This one from the trailer, with it's almost Braid style temporal-trickery, looks like no exception, this should look absolutely gorgeous on the big screen.  Plus storywise, it's been an ongoing thing in Nolan's films right back to his first one, Following, that he likes playing games with time in the stories, with the order of events and such, so it makes sense for him to do a full on time travel/time manipulation tale.

Jungle Cruise

Dwayne Johnson is just everywhere in movies right now, but given his natural charisma that's perfectly fine with me.  This is meant to be a sort-of spiritual successor to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (big silly action based on a Disney theme park ride), and you can see traces of that in here, but with the character work, especially from Emily Blunt, and the period setting the vibe I'm more getting is from the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies mixed in with The African Queen.  Hmm, The Rock as a modern Bogart?  That definitely works, this looks like a lot of fun.

Bill & Ted Face the Music

Bill & Ted are back, in a story actively about them getting old.  Every year when I do a "most looked forward to" list, I have at least one entry where I can just say "do I really need to explain this one?".  That's this case!

Last Night in Soho

A new Edgar Wright film is often cause for interest, but this one does seem like a major gear change for him, as it's going full on psychological horror, with classics like Don't Look Now and Repulsion mentioned as influences.  This has gotten a lot of attention, as it has involved a large amount of location filming in Soho and Fitzrovia, with it restored to a sixties look, so like Antebellum above it looks this might be another "de-nostalgia" trip of a story.  Top cast for this one too, including Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, Terence Stamp, Rita Tushingham (I didn't even know she was still acting!), and Dame Diana Rigg!

Halloween Kills

The revamp of the Halloween franchise from 2018 was a breath of fresh air (as my recent whole series rewatch can attest), so it's great for it to carry on with the same creative team.  I'm still hmming and haaing over whether we needed anymore of these, but then I realised "any excuse for more of Jamie Lee Curtis kicking all of the arse as Laurie is OK for me!".  Plus the last one did have a few loose ends (like that arsehole of a boyfriend still alive by the end) to take care of.  I also appreciate the fact that with announced for 2021 Halloween Ends, there's a definite plan with a solid endgame worked out.  Now as long as this one moves events along well, doesn't just fill time as the middle act of a trilogy, and for Gods' sake not make some of the same revealing too much goofs the old sequels did, this will be a nice treat for Spooky Season!

Godzilla vs. Kong

This was slated for March, but it's been pushed back till November 2020.  If it's just to make sure it's given a good spruce up ready for release, I'm fine with that, I just hope though that given that King of the Monsters, as much as I personally enjoyed it, only just made a profit and divided critics, they're not doing a mad scrabbling re-do of a lot of it.  As I've really enjoyed the "Monsterverse" so far, with Kong Skull Island for one impressing me a lot more than I thought it would, this one I'm really nervous about, it's my obligatory "pleasedon'tsuckpleasedon'tsuckpleasedon'tsuckpleasedon'tsuckpleasedon'tsuck..." entry for this year's list.

So, as much as 2020 is promising to be a continuing dumpster fire in terms of global politics, at least we have some good media to see us through, and some of those films are promising to do something to challenge the attitudes of these times, just like all good art should.  Happy New Year to all of those that follow the Gregorian calendar, use that Leap Day well, and have a good time at the movies!

*If you were wondering, my top five goes Mask of the Phantasm, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, Batman Returns, The LEGO Batman Movie, Batman (1966)