In the same way that everyone's favourite magic nanny anticipated wonderment before splashing into a fantasy world via the Banks family bathtub (watch the charming 2018 Poppins sequel if you don't get the reference), so we film fans are embarking on a new and potentially enthralling adventure in cinema. It's called 2020 and if the year just past is anything by which to judge, we dare hope for greatness. Our cinema screens brought us surprise and delight during 2019 and while quality mid-budget movies were in their usual danger of getting squeezed out by blockbusters, Netflix came to the rescue as an alternative platform. (The Irishman, Marriage Story and Bird Box all leap to mind as examples of the Netflix movie coming-of-age.)
As of today (early January) it's the big studio projects which are monopolising my attention. Well they would, since they're the ones with the advance publicity and carved-in-stone release dates. By the end of the year a host of smaller projects will have come into my radar and some of them may well be in my Top Ten. But for now here are the ten higher profile movies that really have me salivating - you know, the ones where the only way from my expectations is down.
(Quick note - all release dates in question relate to the United Kingdom.)
1. 1917 (10th January)
Already released in the US to many ecstatic reviews, 1917 has that enticingly simple premise - a vital two-man mission on the Western Front, playing out over two hours in real time in what appears to be a single shot. With the double whammy of Sam Mendes and Roger Deakins - that's the Oscar-winning director of American Beauty at the helm and the Oscar-winning cinematographer of Blade Runner: 2049 behind the lens - this promises nothing short of greatness. Oh, and composer Thomas Newman's score for Tolkien recently moved me to tears, so... I should be a goner this time around.
Verdict: 10/10. I virtually never give out top scores on a first viewing, but could do anything other in this instance. Mendes, Deakins and co did not let me down and the film's depth of emotion matches its technical prowess. I've already been back to see it again and - yup - wow.
2. The Personal History of David Copperfield (24th January)
Literary purists will no doubt balk at this one, but frankly they can go... watch a different adaptation. Armando Iannucci has written and directed this take on Charles Dickens' sprawling classic and that's all I need to know. The man who lampooned UK politics in The Thick of It before similarly ripping through US politics in Veep (not to mention satirising totalitarian power struggles as a whole in The Death of Stalin) has taken time out to give Copperfield his uniquely witty spin. The always likeable Dev Patel takes the lead role, surrounded by more dream casting choices (Tilda Swinton as Betsy Trotwood - yes!; Peter Capaldi as Mr Micawber - yes!) than you could shake a parasol at. With all these mutual friends on board I'm having a hard time managing my great expectations.
Verdict:7.5/10. A pacy re-telling and then some, this has Iannucci spin a-plenty, with an energetic central performance from Patel and all else orbiting around him in a solar system of bright Dickensian colour. Highly enjoyable like I'd hoped.
3. The Lighthouse (31st January)
Here's another one that's been provoking critical exuberance Stateside. And it's got an impressive audience rating on IMDb, particularly for a 'scary'. But then the A24 production company do a nice line in arty horror, one example being Lighthouse director Robert Eggers' previous feature The Witch. The premise of two keepers - the salty old hand and the new guy - trying to retain their sanity on a bizarre island off the coast of New England is irresistible. Also it's shot in that austere monochrome - just look at the poster. I have it on good authority that it's a horror experience unlike any before. And I love me a horror experience unlike any before. Ship me to that creepy island now!
Verdict: TBA
4. A Quiet Place Part II (20th March)
There's a degree of trepidation mixed in with my excitement here. 2018's A Quiet Place was so unique in its effect on cinema audiences (hands stalled en route to popcorn so intense was the silence) that I wanted it to remain a standalone. But I'm undeniably intrigued to imagine what will happen to the Abbott family next, as they attempt to dodge those hearing-enhanced predatory aliens. Emily Blunt is heading up the fight for survival and her husband John Krasinski is on full writing as well as directorial duties this time around, all of which bodes well. The insular world of the first film is about to open up, with Cillian Murphy and Djimon Hounsou joining the struggle. That could mean this film will lose the tautness of the original, or find some gripping new direction. Keep the noise down and hope for the latter.
Verdict: TBA
5. No Time to Die (2nd April)
Daniel Craig's fourteen-year tenure as James Bond has had highs (Casino Royale, Skyfall) and not-just-so-highs (Quantum of Solace, Spectre), but no actual Roger Moore/Pierce Brosnan-style lows. (I'm thinking of you, Moonraker and Die Another Day, and it's making me sigh.) That's thanks in no small measure to Craig's level of in-role commitment, even if he did swear off playing the spy ever again following his 2012 mission. Here's hoping that with the MI6 team all on board, backed up by the director of True Detective Season 1 and a writing team that includes Phoebe Waller-Bridge, they can give the reluctant fifth-time Bond a rousing and resonant send-off. The trailer suggests classic 007 tropes with a heavy dose of paranoia and some potent malice in the form of Rami Malek's villain. Expect to be satisfied, stirred and maybe a little bit shaken. It's definitively the conclusion - so anything could happen.
Verdict: TBA
6. Black Widow (1st May)
Look, I'm an Marvel Cinematic Universe fan, so of course I'll be watching this on opening night. But there's a particular kind of intrigue as to what a standalone Black Widow movie can offer in the light of the character's dramatic Avengers: Endgame fate. Flashing back to pre-Infinity saga times, it will reunite her with comrades from her 'red ledger' days in what looks to be a Bourne-esque spy thriller (with added superhero stuff). Flavour-of-2019 Florence Pugh will play her 'sister' (blood or otherwise remains to be seen), with Rachel Weisz and Stranger Things' David Harbour rounding out the team, the latter as a rather portly Russian version of Captain America. Fingers crossed for a rattling ensemble adventure with a few tantalising hints regarding the MCU's future.
Verdict: TBA
7. Tenet (17th July)
It's a new Christopher Nolan's film. Enough said. Okay, I'll say a little more. It's a new Christopher Nolan film with a substantially bigger budget than Interstellar. It's a new Christopher Nolan film that promises to be more mind-bending conceptually than Inception. It's a new Christopher Nolan film involving international espionage, time travel and John David Washington in his first leading role since BlacKkKlansman plus the (probably) new Batman, Robert Pattinson. Did I mention it's written and directed by visionary British film-maker Christopher Nolan? Enough. Said. My anticipation is off the freaking chart for this one.
Verdict: TBA
8. Last Night in Soho (18th September)
I know even less about Last Night in Soho than I do about the above Tenet. What I do know is that it's co-written and directed by Edgar Wright, who so far hasn't made a film that dips below the 'very good indeed' line. I also know that it follows Baby Driver in a move away from the pure comedies (Shaun of the Dead, etc.) of his younger days, this time into science-fiction-tinged horror. Oh, and that his co-writer is Krysty Wilson-Cairns, who had script duties on 1917 (also above) and acclaimed and gory period TV series Penny Dreadful. Yes, and that it boasts a cast including Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith and the Weasley twins. Okay, I do know quite a bit about it after all - and everything I know is good.
Verdict: TBA
9. Eternals (6th November)
It's the MCU again, and this time they're showing similar daring to when they introduced the Guardians of the Galaxy back in 2014. Eternals has no apparent links with the Avengers et al. It's a whole new departure for fans, albeit one with an impressive and diverse cast of immortal characters. Angelina Jolie is in there, along with The Big Sick's Kumail Nanjiani, Humans' Gemma Chan and two of the Winterfell boys from Game of Thrones. This potentially vast space opera is also being directed by Chinese director Chloe Zhao, of critically lauded 2017 western drama The Rider. She's an interesting, offbeat choice, and her presence means that precisely 100% of Marvel Studio's 2020 movie output is directed by women. (Australian Cate Shortland is helming Black Widow - didn't I mention that above?) When a studio has raked in $5 billion from its worldwide box office the previous year with only three movies, they have no excuse for playing things safe. And with Eternals, no such excuses are being made. It's an unknown quantity for most of us and that's making me smile.
Verdict: TBA
10. Dune (18th December)
Mind if I recycle the phrases 'visionary film-maker' and 'vast space opera'? Denis Villeneuve is one of those and is currently finishing off this prime example of the other. Frank Herbert's multiple world-spanning science-fiction saga has been adapted twice before. If anyone has a shot at capturing its mind-melting immensity and diversity, however, it's the man who gave us the haunting close encounter of Arrival in 2016, following it up with Blade Runner: 2049's dystopian beauty two years later. He's backed up by the cinematographer of Star Wars TV hit The Mandalorian, the music of fellow-genius Hans Zimmer and a cast that gets more awesome by the announcement. Rebecca Ferguson, anyone? Timothee Chalamet? Josh Brolin? Javier Bardem? Seriously? With no Star Wars or Aquaman-equivalent being released in December this year, Dune will have the science-fiction/fantasy audience all to itself - but can it capitalise? For what it's worth, my seat is as good as booked.
Verdict: TBC
For fear of overwhelming you and myself I'm not even getting into the host of other 2020 UK releases I'll most certainly be watching - like Pixar's Soul, Top Gun: Maverick and Bill & Ted Face the Music. (Bill and Ted are returning in middle-age!!!) There's only so much cinematic promise I can deal with at one time and right now I'm feeling quite overwhelmed. Check this post as the year progresses to see whether or not my Big Ten deliver.
2020 you have so much filmic potential. My hands are clasped to the heavens on your behalf...
Whatever it takes.
I love independent films and I love serious studio titles that court awards and I love the obscure arthouse stuff that never makes it to my local Odeon. Hey, my favourite films from the past three years were Nocturnal Animals, Moonlight and First Man respectively, so I'm totally a proper film critic. But sometimes what I really need is a big, bold, attention-grabbing, eye-popping, popcorn-munching entertainment-fest. And no one except no one in 2019 does those better than Marvel. Avengers: Endgame opens on April 25th here in the UK and I'm counting the days. Literally. As I write this there are 35 left to go. So as my own contribution to the Endgame hype-machine, here are ten reasons why my anticipation is greater than for any blockbuster movie since The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. (For the record, it was really easy to find the ten.)
1. 11 Years Coming
The Marvel Cinematic Universe debuted with Iron Man in 2008, a post-credits sequence linking its hero Tony Stark to something called 'The Avengers Initiative'. Since then the MCU has expanded, deepened and interconnected, its characters popping up in each other's films, groups of them occasionally banding together as full-time or honorary 'Avengers' to face off against the really big foes. How clearly head honcho Kevin Feige envisaged this year's Endgame back in 2008 I'm not altogether clear, but there's a sense looking back to the early days that it was all headed somewhere flipping huge. I described Avengers: Infinity War last year as a 'culmination'. Well in truth it was only the first half of that culmination. Endgame is where a decade's worth of storylines and character arcs finally achieve their closure. We fans have been patient, and this is the payoff.
2. Mother of All Cliffhangers
Let's not understate the hugeness of what happened at the end of Infinity War. Half the population of a very busy cinematic universe was rendered literal dust-in-the-wind by a snap of Thanos' gloved fingers. Among the crumbled were key players - Spider-Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, Falcon... Audiences shared their heroes' desolation. Thor, having failed to deal Thanos a fatal blow, was lost and bewildered. Steve Rogers could only paw the ground, muttering 'Oh God'. And Tony Stark silently hugged himself, as though trying to embrace a no-longer-existent Peter Parker. Our guys had lost, while their brutal but strangely philosophical nemesis parked his ass on a mystery planet to enjoy the sunset and contemplate his misguided act of mercy. Man, it was tough to watch. So... what's next?
3. An Interweaving of Threads
The MCU is now famous for doing such interweaving (see 1, or better still read my full article on the topic here.). Infinity War combined the Avengers characters with those from Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange and Black Panther in the ultimate super-hero mash-up. And while there's been a certain amount of scaling down in personnel courtesy of Thanos and the infinity gauntlet, Endgame is still going to mix things up some more. Scott Lang will find some way to join the team (his Ant-Man and the Wasp outing left him ultra-miniaturised and inconveniently stranded in the Quantum Realm), while Carol Danvers is returning to Earth for the first time since her 1995 tangle with Nick Fury and the Skrulls in Captain Marvel. These movies have been dealing with character-clashes consummately well, so we can expect some wonderful drama and a few deft comic touches to leaven the gloom, as the old-guard incorporate the newbs.
4. That Enigmatic Marketing Campaign
I've given vent on Filmic Forays to my frustration at spoiler-filled movie trailers (specifically here). My pet movie gripe to this day is having multiple plot points/key moments given away by the studio publicity machine, so that the viewing experience is robbed of its impact. What's refreshing about the Endgame trailer is that it reveals the absolute minimum of what we can expect in the film, while still managing to convey a sense of utmost urgency and drama. Our heroes are devastated, but they're going to fight back, that much we know. How exactly? Unclear. In what circumstances? Not a clue. To what effect? Nope, got nothing. The marketing team has striven to prevent the story's secrets from leaking, a task as strenuous as wrestling the infinity gauntlet back from Thanos (and we all know how that ended). Well if any major spoilers do make it out there (and I pray they don't), it won't be due to crass telegraphing on the part of the Marvel team. They're doing all they can to keep the big revelations under wraps, and dropping just enough hints to make us salivate like Pavlovian dogs.
5. Streamlining Earth's Mightiest Heroes
Infinity War did a commendable job of spinning multiple stories on multiple planets at the same time. Inevitably, however, there were characters who lost out. (Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff spring immediately to mind). In the aftermath of Thanos' radical cast-culling that should not be a problem. While there's still a scattering of characters who were introduced to the MCU following the first Avengers movie, Endgame seems much more focused on the original team - you know, the gang who had each other's backs when New York came under attack from the Chitauri seven years ago. Hawkeye is making a welcome (if grief-stricken) return to complete the Class-of-2012 reunion, which intensifies the prospect of an epic and potentially tragic last stand. If Infinity War was sprawling, Endgame should have a tight team-based focus.
6. Scintillating New Character Combos
There's still room post-Thanoid apocalypse for some intriguing MCU connections to take place. Along with the integration of Ant-Man and Captain Marvel with the core group, we have a couple of enticing prospects. What kind of marooned space-buddies will wise-cracking Tony Stark and vengeful humour-vacuum Nebula make? And how bad-ass a pairing will we have in Rocket Raccoon and War Machine? (Very, the above picture would suggest.) With Danai Gurira's Wakandan warrior Okoye still knocking around, plus who knows what other survivors waiting in the shadows, there's no knowing what additional encounters might be in store. That's the wonder of the MCU - the sense that all your 'What if character A met character Q?' questions will eventually be answered.
7. An Epic Runtime
Directing team the Russo Brothers recently spoke in terms of a three-hour final edit of Avengers: Endgame and there's little sign that they're trimming it significantly shorter. Movies of equivalent length were in vogue fifteen years ago, largely due to Peter Jackson's Middle Earth trilogy, but studio executives and cinema multiplex owners tend not to like them; the longer the runtime, the fewer screenings can be crammed in during the movie-going day. It's a sign of the production team's confidence (and that of the execs) in what they've created that they're keeping it close to the three-hour mark. In addition we can expect a finale that's got much more than spectacle. It's going to devote all the time required to those crucial character moments - resolving all those tantalising sub-plots and giving this classic crew the send-off they deserve.
8. Emotional Punch
Have you seen that final trailer? The one that gives virtually nothing away, save the height of the stakes involved? Everyone is grieving, everyone is lost, everyone is struggling to process the outcome of their war with Thanos. Steve and Tony can't believe they failed to stop the big purple guy. Thor holds himself personally responsible (because he failed to aim for the head). Hawkeye (above) has been bereft of all he truly loved. Natasha, it seems, is acting as everyone's grief counsellor. They should try to find a way to move on, but they can't. Not if there's some glimmer of a chance they could reverse the situation and claim victory where they failed first time around. And however tough their mission, this time they'll see it through - whatever it takes. Gives you chills, right? No? Seriously? Don't you have a soul???
9. Trust the Russo Boys (and their writing team)
Writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely knew their MCU already, having written screenplays for Captain America: The First Avenger (good) and Thor: The Dark World (passable). They found their perfect compliment, however, in directing partnership Anthony and Joe Russo. These talented siblings came from a background in TV comedy to helm some of the best entries in the Marvel cinematic canon to date - Cap America episodes The Winter Soldier and Civil War and last year's awe-inspiring first half to the Thanos story. While not necessarily fully-fledged auteurs, the Brothers Russo have nonetheless a terrific grasp of storytelling structure, pacing and tone. Their Cap stories are arguably the most bruising MCU titles (physically and emotionally), while their Avengers movie navigated a clean and hugely satisfying path through a narrative that was dauntingly ambitious. Since Infinity War and Endgame were made Lord of the Rings-style in a single shoot, we can be pretty damn sure that this closing episode will match the quality of the opener, if not surpass it.
10. That Climactic Feeling
Speaking of The Lord of the Rings (and why wouldn't anyone?), think back to Christmas 2003. Remember when Frodo and Sam were picking their way through the sulfurous ruins of Mordor, while Aragorn and his battle-weary troops squared up to the massed hoards of Sauron? Never in my cinematic adventures had I felt such a sense of desperate heroism in the face of insurmountable odds - and I'd read the book! That's until now, I think. The Avengers' final stand against Thanos has that nothing-left-to-lose Return of the King vibe - like its heroes are choosing to stand tall as the world ends around them. Yes we know there are other MCU movies on the way, that Peter Parker can't really be expected to stay dead and that Black Panther was too big a cultural phenomenon not to be granted a sequel. But time (to say nothing of contracts) is running out for the classic A-team, and this feels for all the world like their last hurrah. They've got the tiniest sliver of a chance (one in fourteen million six hundred and five, if Doctor Strange got his mystical sums right) to defeat Thanos and reverse the snap. But they're determined to beat those odds. Whatever it takes.
So - do our guys, girls and raccoon really have a prayer? Will Hawkeye get his family back, Wakanda its King, Queens its friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man? Will Tony have his happy ending with Pepper, or a chance to kiss and make up with Cap? Will Bruce Banner get his Hulk on, and will Black Widow finally get it on with him? Will Nebula sort out her Daddy issues? Will Rocket remain the Galaxy's sole Guardian? Is there a way back from despair, and if so, will it come at a terrible price for some of our heroes? Am I geeking out just a little bit too much?
I honestly don't care. I'm way too stoked. See you on April 25th, everyone. It's going to be awesome.
