Coming to Theaters: March 2017

March 3rd

Logan: Hugh Jackman’s final performance as Wolverine is here. Encouraged by the success of Deadpool last year, 20th Century Fox is allowing this to be a rated R superhero movie, which means we might get some of the more violent bits of the Wolverine story that have been absent from the PG-13 X-Men movies up until this point. The trailers at the very least, have given the movie quite a different feel that earlier Wolverine movies. Slower and more grounded, the trailers make this movie look more like a tone poem than an action flick. Thought I’m sure there will still be plenty of action here. The movie’s going to be rated R for a reason.

March 10th

Kong: Skull Island: This more you think about this movie the stranger it is that it even exists. It’s a King Kong movie, but not a remake of the classic story, but one that instead focuses entirely on the time on the island. But it’s also set in the same universe as the 2014 Godzilla so that we can have a King Kong vs. Godzilla movie in a few years. But Godzilla hasn’t shown up yet so this movie has to take place before 2014. And by “before 2014, we’re talking about 1973. Which means that this movie is very much a Kong movie told through the lens of the Vietnam War. That’s not just speculation. The director of the movie has cited both Platoon and Apocalypse Now as major influences on the movie, with several of the posters drawing from Apocalypse Now imagery in their marketing. So yeah, it’s strange enough that I want to see where they’re going with this.

Raw: We’re in a bit of a renaissance when it comes to well reviewed, interesting horror movies. In January, Split was M. Night Shyamalan's best received movie in years. In February Get Out was released which, as of this writing is the best reviewed movie of the year on Rotten Tomatoes, with 159 fresh reviews. This month, hopefully the trend will continue with Raw. It’s a French horror film about a vegetarian that deals with, among other things, cannibalism. We don’t know a ton about it, but it’s won several awards so far at multiple film festivals.  

March 17th

Beauty and the Beast: This year’s live action remake from Disney is of one of their biggest successes. From the look of it, Disney doesn’t seem to be straying too far from the source material on this one, as the trailers are presenting it as almost a beat for beat remake of the animated film. And you know what, that’s perfectly fine, because just the few notes of the title song in the trailer were enough to get me choked up. I can not wait for this movie.

T2: Trainspotting: Talk about this movie has existed since 2009 when Danny Boyle first stated he wanted to return to these characters. (The original Trainspotting was released in 1996.) The public’s perception of the first Trainspotting has just gone up since it’s original release, so making a sequel to it could be dangerous. Still this feels like a movie that the creators genuinely want to make, more than a cash grab. The original cast and director are back. Plus the movie has already been released in the UK, and while the reviews there say it isn’t up to the original, it serves as a perfectly good sequel to Trainspotting.

The Belko Experiment: Before his mainstream movie (Guardians of the Galaxy) comes out later this year, James Gunn has a stranger release that he wrote. The Belko Experiment involves a group of eighty white collar workers who are trapped in their office building for a social experiment. An unknown voice over the intercom forces the workers to partake in a deadly game in a movie that looks like a strange cross between Battle Royale and Office Space.

March 24th

Power Rangers: I have seen every single trailer that has been put out for this movie so far, and I can’t figure out who the target audience for this movie is. Is it kids? The show was a kids show. No it seems a little too complicated and intense for a kids movie. Is it trying to cash in on nostalgia? Is it aimed at adults who watches Power Rangers as kids? I don’t think so.It looks like it’s taking itself far too seriously for that. So is it trying to market itself as a serious action movie? Please, it’s called Power Rangers. My fear is that the movie is going to try and hit all the demographics and in doing that, manage to miss them all. I’ve wanted a big budget Power Rangers movie forever, and that remaining spark of childhood can only hope that this will somehow pull it off.

Life: It’s been awhile since we’ve had a space based horror movie. From the trailers this movie is drawing major comparisons to the Alien franchise, especially the original movie from 1979. And with the next Alien movie coming out in just a few months, hopefully this one can make enough of a mark on it’s own that it won’t be swallowed up by the wave of attention the established franchise is bound to get in the coming months.

CHiPS: This is clearly just trying to recreate the success of 21 Jump Street. Come on, a rated R comedy based on a tv show from the 1980s? They’re not even trying to disguise where the idea here came from.  But you know what, if it’s funny, and fun, none of that matters. 21 Jump Street was a magical situation, but it wasn’t lighting in a bottle. There’s no reason that same concept couldn’t work with a different show, so as long as it’s funny, it will be fine.

March 31st

Ghost in the Shell: We’re less than a month away from the release of this movie, and still the biggest thing anybody can tell you about Ghost in the Shell is the big story of casting Scarlett Johansson. With all of the publicity on the the movie being negative (or at the very least controversial) This movie’s going to need to get some stellar reviews to turn the tides and get the response it’s looking for. We’ll see how it does, but let me just say that the source material can be quite weird. I curious to see how the movie plans to handle some of the stranger parts of the story.

The Boss Baby: This one seems bad, even by the sometimes lax dreamworks standard. The plot (There’s not enough love to go around, and puppies are taking up more than their fair share.) doesn’t feel well thought out, which makes the whole set up of the movie feel more and more unpleasant the more you think about it. On top of that, the movie doesn’t seem to be particularly funny. Sure the “Baby meeting” scene in the trailer made me laugh, but when you have forty seconds of funny in a two and a half minute trailer, you can’t help but focus on the one minute and fifty seconds where jokes were falling flat left and right.