February 2012 Movie Preview

February 3-

It is now February and I am jumping right into my February movie preview. February is typically another slow month and that probably won’t change much this year, but there are some interesting movies worth checking out starting with this upcoming weekend. The Woman in Black in my opinion is the most intriguing movie of the weekend. It’s a horror/thriller film that started out as a book (or novella I think), then became a play, then became a TV movie, and now has officially been made as a nationwide film. Early reviews on it are positive. The thing that makes this most intriguing is that it stars Harry Potter. Daniel Radcliff, that is, if you were confused by that. Its Daniel Radcliff’s first major film since Harry Potter has ended and it will be interesting to see him in a different role. Chronicle is the second movie of the week. It’s about three high school kids who make an incredible discovery and end up with super powers. Then of course things start to go horribly wrong. To be honest at first it didn’t sound that great. I thought it might be a bit cheesy and childish, but early reviews are great. It has 89% on Rotten Tomatoes for what it’s worth. Turns out this could be one of the first surprisingly good movies of the year. Last up we have Big Miracle. Big Miracle is a movie whose premise reminds me a lot of Dolphin Tale, which I enjoyed. Dolphin Tale was a movie about a kid trying to save a dolphin. Big Miracle is about a news reporter and his ex-girlfriend trying to save a family of whales in Alaska. It stars Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski as the lead roles.

February 10-

Week two continues the new craze for re-releasing movies in 3D with Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace getting its second shot at the big screen. Of course there will be the diehard Star Wars fans coming out of their cave and crying for Lucas’s head again, but in the end George Lucas will be the one with the last laugh. Phantom Menace currently stands at number seven in the all-time domestic box office with 431 million. It only needs to get 30 million to pass the original Star Wars and both break the top five all-time and become the highest grossing Star Wars movie to date. Chances of it passing that in weekend number one is pretty good. Now it probably won’t pull off a Lion King, but if it does it is just over 100 million away from The Dark Knight. With Star Wars, comes three additional new releases. The first is another high powered action movie called Safe House. In Safe House, a young CIA agent is given the task to watch over a fugitive in a Safe House. The fun starts when the safe house gets attacked and the CIA agent finds himself on the run. Safe House brings back Denzel Washington to the big screen, which will be the first time we’ve seen him in a year or two. It co-stars Ryan Reynolds. Channing Tatum is out to make a mark this year and this week he gets his second of five films released with The Vow. Take notes of this one guys because if you take your girl to see this one, it may win you some brownie points. The Vow is about a married couple where the wife gets in a bad accident and has severe memory loss. Her husband has the challenge of trying to get her to fall in love with him all over again. It kinda reminds me of 50 First Dates in a way. Finally, this second weekend of February brings us our first sequel of the month with Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. I am sure there was no pun intended with that title, especially since its predecessor is called Journey to the Center of the Earth. Now I haven’t seen the first one so I can’t pass judgment on this one, but nevertheless I am not overly excited about this movie.

February 17-

Ghost Rider fans will be happy for this weekend as the Ghost Rider sequel, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is released. It is certain to get mixed reactions from fans just like every Nicholas Cage movie does. I’m not anti-Cage, but I know some people are and I don’t think this will be much different from his other roles, so keep that in mind. No Eva Mendez in the sequel but the devil is present and it is Cage’s goal to stop the devil in this one, so I’m game for that. I’m not a fan of the devil, so I will be rooting Cage on. If I see it of course. This weekend brings the first major animated film of the year. That is not counting Beauty and the Beast of course, since that is a re-release and not a new release. That animated film is The Secret World of Arrietty. Now this doesn’t sound all that original, but it does sound like a good movie. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it reminds me of a combination of a few different movies. It’s about a family of people who are four inches tall and trying to avoid the normal sized humans, but gets discovered. The biggest name actor in it is Will Arnett. Last on the week is This Means War. It’s quite the combination of elements with it being an action/romance/comedy movie. Either that will make it rather epic or it will crash and burn. I’d want to vote the latter, but I’ve learned to trust Tom Hardy recently. He’s teamed up with Chris Pine and Reese Witherspoon in this movie. The storyline is as follows: two CIA agents discover that they are dating the same woman. Then keep in mind the title of This Means War and you can guess what happens in this.

February 24-

The last weekend of February has the most new releases with four, but at the same time might be the slowest weekend of the month. First up is a pair of thrillers. Gone might be the most intriguing option of the weekend, at least for me. It stars Amanda Seyfried and the plot the includes her hunting down a kidnapper. The other thriller is a notch higher with an R rating is title Act of Valor. It continues on odd theme of CIA agents by being the third or fourth CIA agent movie this month. In this one the, a team of NAVY seals is on a mission to recover a kidnapped CIA agent. That together with Gone and you have a good dose of kidnapping on the schedule for audiences to watch. Tyler Perry comes back to the big screen next with Good Deeds. A lot of these Madea movies have come out and quite honestly they all look dumb. This could be the dumbest movie of the month. Now normally the adage is last but not least. I am changing that for this preview. The last movie I talk about here is certainly the least in my mind. R rated comedies did great last year and this movie will try to continue that. It is called Wanderlust. The fact that it has the word lust in the title combined with the fact it is rated R for graphic nudity turns me away. It stars Paul Rudd and Jennifer Anniston as a couple that decides on living in a rural commune where free love rules after becoming unemployed. I will be skipping it, but you can do what you want.