Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Is a reboot of the popular comic book of the same name.  The film is directed Jonathan Liebesman and produced by Michel Bay.  The film’s plot retains the origin story of the turtles.  This origin involves the turtles gaining their size and strength due to a chemical they interacted with.  April O’Neil (Megan Fox) takes on the role of nosy yet intrepid reporter in this reboot and is a friend to the turtles.

The Expendables 3

The Expendables 3 is the third and hopefully final outing in the Sylvester Stallone written retired action stars trilogy.  Stallone’s Barney and a group of the Expendables are working to stop a man named Stonebanks (Mel Gibson) from causing chaos in some foreign country.  As it turns out, Barney knows Stonebanks because he was the other co-founder of the group.  Stonebanks now spends his time being an evil mercenary in some foreign country.  Barney was tasked by the FBI to bring in Stonebanks alive so they can charge him for a number of diverse war crimes.

Snowpiercer

Bong Jun-Ho who directed the film Mother directs his first American feature Snowpiercer which stars Chris Evans, Jamie Bell, Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, Allison Pill and Ed Harris.  The plot concerns the idea that the world tried to stop global warming and it froze the earth.  Because of that incident the remaining survivors board an industrial designer’s high speed train that is built to support human life for decades.  The train is broken down into a social class structure.  The poorest people are in the back of the train while the rich lead leisurely lives in the front of the train.  Essentially the lead character Curtis, played by Chris Evans stages a break out to get the passengers who have lived in the back up to the front.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Beyond being a direct sequel to 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is about morality and what is possible when all hope is lost and civilization has crumbled completely.  The follow follows Caesar as he has built a colony for apes a decade after the events of the first film.  Humans have finally found a source of power in San Francisco after being devastated by the simian flu that killed millions.  The humans have to gain the trust of the apes to get access to their power source but may not be able to trusted by Caesar.

Life Itself

Film Criticism has always been viewed as a profession where writers gave their deeply rooted opinions on the films released each year.  The attitude toward the profession of criticism shifted in the 1970’s when Siskel and Ebert began their television show Sneak Previews.  Life Itself is about the latter of the pairing Roger Ebert.  Life Itself does something quite unique for a documentary.  The film tackles the cancer fight Ebert faced at the end of his life and then throughout the film explores the writer’s past leading to his last days as a critic and an individual.

Edge of Tomorrow

Director Doug Liman has always has always been given a mixed reception when it comes to films he has directed.  The first that got him noticed was The Bourne Identity starring Matt Damon as the secret spy with amnesia.  Now Liman returns to directing after 2010’s Fair Game starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn with a vehicle for Tom Cruise called Edge of Tomorrow.  Edge of Tomorrow stars Cruise as a man named Cage who in the future working to avoid a war with an alien race.  This plan fails miserably and he is enlisted into the army as infantry and during battle inherits the ability to relive the day of that battle as long as he dies every day he tries to save humanity.

The Raid 2

The Raid 2 is a direct continuation of the events of The Raid Redemption.  This sequel again stars Iko Uwais as Rama.  This time he is working undercover to get revenge for the death of his brother.  Rama has to befriend the son of a gangster.  The son named Uco is tired of the two decade peace that has occurred between his father and the Japanese gang family.  Everything comes to a head when Uco starts to attempt to take control of the empire his father carefully constructed.

Ida

Released a year after its initial debut in Poland Ida tells the story of Anna, a young nun who is about to take her vows of poverty chastity and obedience.  She is told by a sister nun to visit her last living relative an aunt named Wanda.  From there Anna learns that her name is not Anna but Ida and that she is not Catholic as she has studied to be but was born into the Jewish faith.  Through traveling with Wanda to find where her parents are buried Ida experiences the world for the first time and throughout that journey she learns about her past and who she is as a person.

A Million Ways To Die In The West

Seth MacFarlane proved his skills as a filmmaker and artist with the film Ted.  Ted was a film about a toy teddy bear who comes to life through a little boy’s wish.  The bear grows with the boy throughout his journey to adulthood.  Macfarlane voiced the raunchy crazy teddy bear who couldn’t grow up and Mark Wahlberg played the adult version of the young boy as an adult.  This film was a funny film about how growing up with a best friend doesn’t always mean growing together.  A Million Ways to Die in the West is the opposite of what made Ted great.  There is nothing that makes the lead character worth investing your time in.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

X-Men: Days of Future Past is the perfect transition film for those audience members who love the original X-Men cast and have yet to like the cast of X-Men First Class.  Based on the award winning comic two issue miniseries publiched in 1981 the plot of Days of Future Past involves Wolverine’s consciousness going back in time to prevent the assassination of Dr. Bolivar Trask.  Trask created the Sentinels who in the future are the machines that hunt down mutants and those who have the possibility to birth a mutant.