Jan 29 2009

Upcoming Movies In 2009

Published by at 10:11 am under Blog,Movie Review,Movies

2009 is going to be a big year for movies. After a lacklustre 2008 (which saw only a handful of decent films grace the big screen), surely this year will see some more risks being taken and we may get to see some great original content churned out by the Hollywood machine.


The Dark KnightAm I aiming too high? I don’t mean to be overly critical of Hollywood, but with the exception of some epic blockbusters (most notably The Dark Knight), they played it safe and threw up far too many crowd pleasing RomComs and the record breaking (but somewhat shameful) Mamma Mia! – the exclamation mark is not my idea.


I’ll acknowledge that there’s a few movies out towards the end of 2008 (vying for the Oscars), such as Milk, Frost/Nixon, Benjamin Button, Vicki Christina Barcelona and others, but seeing as we don’t generally get around to seeing them until January 2009 or later, I’m not including them.


But…looking forward…here’s my list of the potentially good, probably bad and likely to be ugly films we can expect this year. There’s also a few that I’m just hopeful about.


The Good


  • Nine is a musical in which a middle-aged film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) is trying to complete his next film. His only problem is that he has too many women in his life, including his wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard), his sexy mistress Carla (Penélope Cruz), and his muse and protege Claudia (Nicole Kidman).
  • Them – From Edgar Wright of Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Need I say more?
  • Fanboys is the story of a group of friends who, anxious for the premiere of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace – and because one of them is suffering from cancer and wishes to see the film before his death – decide to break into Skywalker Ranch and steal an early print of the film. A road trip begins as the friends encounter William Shatner, obsessed Trekkies, and bikers who make them undress for water.
  • Surrogates – In the near future, humans live in isolation and only interact through robotic bodies that serve as surrogates. When several surrogates are murdered, a cop (Bruce Willis) investigates the crimes through his own surrogate. The investigation forces the cop to bring his human form out of isolation and unravel a conspiracy behind the crimes. In today’s online world where Second Life and other ‘worlds’ are so popular, this could prove to be an actioner with depth.
  • The International may be the most timely high paced thriller out in 2009. Interpol agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) are determined to bring to justice one of the world’s most powerful banks, the International Bank of Business and Credit. Uncovering illegal activities including money laundering, arms trading, and the destabilisation of governments, Salinger and Whitman’s investigation takes them from Berlin to Milan to New York City to Istanbul. Finding themselves in a high-stakes chase across the globe, the bank will stop at nothing to stop them.
  • The Wolf Man may have made and remade so many times, but going by the publicity shots I’ve seen so far on this version, Benicio del Toro looks set to make the ultimate werewolf movie.The Wolfman
  • In Dorian Gray Narnia‘s Ben Barnes doesn’t want to grow old. With support from Colin Firth and Ben Chaplin, this should be interesting.
  • Sherlock HolmesGuy Ritchie brings the master detective to the big screen with Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson. What could go wrong?
  • Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs – the first Ice Age movie was fantastic. If this is a fraction of that, it’ll still be great.
  • The Lovely Bones is probably the book I’ve heard most about in recent years without actually reading. It seems, as long as it avoids falling into its own arse, this could be huge. Saoirse Ronan stars.
  • The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus has to be good. It just has to be. Gilliam has devoted his life to fixing it since the death of Heath Ledger, the film’s main star, and has enlisted the help of Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law to pick up where Ledger left off.
  • Coraline is a stop-motion horror fantasy based on Neil Gaiman’s modern Alice in Wonderland-like tale.
  • Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is following 2007’s awesome blockbuster about the robots in disguise. Bigger, faster, louder – possibly better.
  • Inglourious Basterds – I have misspelled nothing. Tarantino makes a WWII war movie. No more detail required – this will be epic.
  • With Terminator Salvation so much could go wrong, but I’m optimistic.
  • Monsters vs. Aliens does exactly what it says on the tin…by Dreamworks Animation. Oh, and it’s voiced by Hugh Laurie, Seth Rogen, Kiefer Sutherland and Reese Witherspoon, among others.
  • X-Men Origins: Wolverine – I loved all three X-Men movies and Wolverine has such a brilliant untouched backstory. With Liev Schreiber, the most underated actor of his generation, as Sabretooth, this could be great.
  • Watchmen is likely to be one of the biggest films of 2009. Based on the epic comic series, Watchmen will be attacked by fanboys regardless how good or bad it is, so I just say sit back and enjoy.
  • Star Trek will be big, regardless if it’s good or not. I’m hopeful. The cast looks good and in the hands of J.J. Abrams it should be safe.
  • Public Enemies is a prohibition era ganster movie with a solid cast. Michael Mann directs Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotilliard, Billy Crudup and a huge bunch more. I smell Oscars.
  • Toy Story in 3-D – Ok, so it’s just a re-release in a new format. Tell me you’re not excited though…
  • Orphan is a basic horror movie about a husband and wife who adopt a creepy kid. So far, so average. But when I heard Peter Sarsgaard was in it, I thought it worth keeping an eye on.


The Bad


  • G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra – GI Joe? Really? Don’t get me wrong, I loved my little action man when I was young. But a movie? With Dennis Quaid? Still, Christopher Eccleston might make a decent bad guy.
  • Red Sonja is Conan the Barbarian’s female counterpart. Even Robert Rodriguez and Rose McGowan can’t make this work. Can they?
  • Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian – Did you see the first one? You did? Then you know why this is in the Bad section.
  • Fast & Furious, the seventh or eight follow up to 2001’s The Fast and the Furious, reunites the original’s Vin Diesel and Paul Walker in an effort to reignite both their flailing careers.
  • The Proposal is just one of the many awful RomComs due out in 2009. I single out this one because it has the once cool Ryan Reynolds and the never-cool-but-gaining-some-credibility-in-recent-years Sandra Bullock. I guess they meet and don’t like each other and things happen and they have a big crisis moment and they fall in love and everyone laughs heartily at the end. Actually, now that I read a bit more about it, it seems to be a remake of Green Card. Still belongs on the Bad pile.
  • The Birds was Hitchcock’s strangest horror and one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. As with Psycho, this does not need to be remade. Why can’t they just give the original a re-release in the cinemas? Why? Naomi Watts stars, seemingly.S. Darko
  • S. Darko – when I first heard they were making a sequel to Donnie Darko I laughed it off. What a ridiculous notion. Then, in the distance, I heard the faint ringing of Hollywood’s cash register and it all began to make sense. Oh, Daveigh Chase, the freaky girl from The Ring, plays Samantha, the ‘S’ of the title.
  • Nottingham, another Robin Hood movie with the awful Russell Crowe playing both Robin Hood and The Sherrif of Nottingham – presumably one character wouldn’t be able to contain his massive ego.
  • In The Informant the U.S. government decides to go after an agri-business giant with a price-fixing accusation, based on the evidence submitted by their star witness, vice president turned informant Mark Whitacre. Sound like an intriguing courtroom drama? Nope – it’s a Matt Damon comedy. I’m very sceptical.
  • Avatar is James Cameron‘s newest obsession after finally getting over his Titanic fetish. Frankly, I expect the sci-fi epic to fall down under the weight of it’s own sense of self-importance.
  • Angels & Demons is the sequel prequel followup thing to The DaVinci Code. The plus side – Tom Hanks has got a haircut. Here, check out this truly terrible trailer:




The Ugly (I could add more but I might be ill)



The Ones I Am Hopeful About


  • Friday the 13th – it’s a remake of the classic horror. It’ll probably be awful, but I’m interested.
  • The Box reads like a horror version of Jumanji and has so much going against it – mainly its cast of James Marsden and Cameron Diaz. But this is the latest film from Donnie Darko creator Richard Kelly. There is promise.
  • Underworld: Rise of the Lycans – I was a huge fan of the first underworld with Kate Beckinsale (luvly!) and the sequel was decent too. This film harks back to the origins of the tale and has no Beckinsale, but does have Rhona Mitra, who looks an awful lot like Beckinsale in the posters. Michael Sheen is reprising his role though and that could make for something interesting.The Spirit
  • 2012 is another ‘world is going to end’ type films. It follows the survivors post-apocalypse. It is written and directed by Roland Emmerich of Independence Day and the slightly preachy Day After Tomorrow and I am hopeful about it because, despite the premise, it has drawn an amazing cast in John Cusack, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, Oliver Platt, Woody Harrelson and others.
  • The Spirit – This may be a 2008 movie, I’m not sure, but I have yet to see it. It’s received a number of scathing reviews, but I am still keeping my fingers crossed because it looks so damn cool.
  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the latest edition of the Neverending Story. I think maybe I’ve just gotten too old and tired to be excited about a new Harry Potter movie and I suspect much of the films cast are the same. I’ll undoubtedly go see it and I hope for good things. We’ll see.


And this is surely going to be shit but I can’t wait to see it:



Needless to say, there are hundreds of more movies due out this year. This is my first glance across the list with higher budgets. I haven’t had a look at any Indie’s yet or delved too deeply into IMDb’s 8,937 titles released in 2009. Give me time…

 

So, are there any movies you lot are looking forward to, or is there anything you’d change on my list?

23 responses so far

23 Responses to “Upcoming Movies In 2009”

  1. Voodooladyon 29 Jan 2009 at 10:59 am

    Ooh, yeah I looking forward to a lot of those especially FANBOYS, Transformers, Harry Potter, Watchmen, Pulblic Enemies, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, X-Men Origins….I think the Time Travelers wife might be out aswell, I loved the book and althought the movie could be pants I’ll still be there.

  2. Peteron 29 Jan 2009 at 11:58 am

    Excellent post for the film geek in me – most of those films will be joinging my DVD collection at some point – even some of the ‘bad’ ones!

    Cant believe I havent heard of fanboys! I am disgraced!

    Avatar – I’ll wait and see what it is like but poor old Cameroon really needs to do something special to live up to past glories.

  3. Darrenon 29 Jan 2009 at 12:20 pm

    @Voodoo I missed that one. It’s got Rachel McAdams in it – I quite like her. I’m still undecided on Eric Bana since he starred in Hulk a few years ago. We’ll see.

    @Peter Cameron seems to have gone mad in recent years. I’m not holding out much hope for Avatar. As for the list, I’ve really only scratched the surface.

  4. Philon 29 Jan 2009 at 12:33 pm

    thanks for such an indepth look at this. i think I saw maybe two movies in the cinema last year. i am hoping to see more this year.

  5. B'dum B'dum B'dum B'd-on 29 Jan 2009 at 12:38 pm

    the standard format is that a lot of the great films get early december releases for oscar season, look at scorsese’s new one; finished since last august but not out til november.
    How about In Bruges, Let the Right One In, JCVD(Jean-Claude Van Damme), Man on Wire, Gran Torino, Slumdog Millionaire, Wall E…
    2008 was a great year actually, you’re talking sh!te.

    I’m not pushed about any of the ones your hopeful about there,
    having seen 8 1/2 over the weekend I’ve lost what little hope I had for nine,
    fanboys are kinda looking forward to watchmen, cos they f*cking despised v for vendetta and all… looks like it’ll be good too
    sherlock holmes sounds briliant though
    and you left out Armando Iannucci’s In the Loop!

    Basically though, in such a large carefully planned medium, every year averages the same amount of great films.

  6. B'dum B'dum B'dum B'd-on 29 Jan 2009 at 1:22 pm

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jan/29/sundance-armando-iannucci-in-the-loop

  7. PaddyInEnglandon 29 Jan 2009 at 2:43 pm

    IS that hot bitch in transformers gonna be a hot bitch again.

    I liked her, hot body and a juvey record and she can change a wheel on a car, what more you want?

  8. Voodooladyon 29 Jan 2009 at 4:55 pm

    There’s rumours she might be taking up the Tomb Raider costume Paddy, try to hold it together now.

  9. Lottieon 29 Jan 2009 at 5:07 pm

    This may take more than one comment –
    The Good

    Anything with Daniel Day Lewis gets a big “Uh Uh” from me but most of the others sound great.

    A Picture of Dorian Grey is one of my all time favorites stories – I heard a dew years back that Jude Law was going to play him…not sure if this guy is better. They better not ruin it or there will be hell to pay. HELL!

    The Bad Huh really? All of those are a joke right? Right?

    The Ugly
    I want to see Confessions of A Shopaholic. I like Isla Fisher – she’s just so cute. And there’s pretty pretty shoes. Boys won’t understand.

    The Hopeful The Spirit got really bad reviews but I have an open mind. Is it out yet? I think it was due out in the first week of January.

    I really want to go to the Cinema now. I am also looking forward to “He’s just not that into you” and “The Ugly Truth”. Again – I make no apologies for liking these girly films other than to day HJNTIY has an interesting cast and TUT has Catherine Heigle who I also like.

    (Hannah Montana must be stopped)

  10. TheChrisDon 29 Jan 2009 at 6:13 pm

    Oh fuck, there’s going to be a Hannah Montana movie?

    * hires goons to kill the bitch that plays her *

  11. Dermoton 29 Jan 2009 at 8:11 pm

    silly chris she’s already dead go to youtube for more info.

    yeah to be honest, hardly any of those movies interest me.. i find it hard to get interested in film just by a written preview, its the trailers that always catch my attention. if the trailer is adequate , is usually means that the director is saving the good stuff for the feature length. thats usually how i judge it but hey thats just my opinion.

    i have to admit, watchmen trailer looks pretty damn cool 😀

  12. Rickon 29 Jan 2009 at 11:57 pm

    Sad to say Darren that The Spirit is 2008 and shite beyond most belief, save for Scarlett, of course.

    You’d put up with 2 hours of drivel for 30 seconds of her in a sexy Nazi uniform, glasses and a whip.

  13. Darrenon 30 Jan 2009 at 9:04 am

    @Phil I am a massive movie buff and I used to go to the cinema two and three times per week. Last year, I doubt I went once a fortnight. This year, I will try to make amends.

    @B’dum C’mere, come down from that high horse. I’m not saying every movie in 2008 was shit, just that the majority of the bigger movies disappointed. ut yeah, In Bruges – fantastic, JCVD – I look forward to seeing it, Slumdog is pretty much a 2009 movie and Wall-E was spectacular. But maybe you’re right – every year throws up a lot of crap and some great movies too.

    I’ve not even heard of Armando’s film. Must look into it.

    @Paddy Oh yes! Hot bitch is back!

    @Lottie I’m not going to see Confessions of a Shopaholic with you!!!

    @Chris I’m affraid so. And there’s no point killing her – it’s already been filmed.

    @Dermot Go on, tell me you’re a little excited about Transformers 2…

    @Rick You make Spirit sound incredible – I’m off to download it this minute.

  14. Darraghon 30 Jan 2009 at 10:03 am

    I see what you’re up to.

  15. Darrenon 30 Jan 2009 at 10:36 am

    @Doyle Sit down there before you hurt yourself.

  16. Darraghon 30 Jan 2009 at 10:44 am

    Sorry, sorry. I saw the Pink Panther 2 movie trailer and I got excited. “He’s not the pink panther, he’s a very naughty boy”.

  17. Darrenon 30 Jan 2009 at 10:56 am

    Oh God! I purposely PURPOSELY didn’t even mention that movie – it’s beyond the Ugly pile.

    (Update: Wow! I blotted that from my mind. It’s my top Ugly movie.) 😛

  18. raptureponieson 30 Jan 2009 at 1:08 pm

    NINE – *squeals*

    Also, i will not hear bad things about confessions of a shopaholic, you haven’t seen it yet.

    So there.

  19. TheChrisDon 30 Jan 2009 at 2:27 pm

    In that case, we must venture out and burn every copy of the movie already produced…

    Then kill her.

  20. B'dum B'dum B'dum B'd-on 30 Jan 2009 at 3:21 pm

    oh, you were on about the BIG screen, I thought you meant the format in general.

    I really loved Wall E though, would’ve made up for a lot of it alone.

  21. Sean-of-the-80son 30 Jan 2009 at 10:12 pm

    Other movies you missed:

    Kick-Ass – Directed by Matthew Vaughn (the Stardust fella) and based off the brilliantly violent graphic novel by Mark Millar (Wanted, The Ultimates) , Kick-Ass tells the story of Dave Lizewski, a kid with no co-ordination or athletic abililty who decides to customise a wet-suit and become….a superhero!! Of course the first night he goes out patrolling he gets the shit beaten outta him , hospitalized for three weeks….as soon as he gets out, he s back to it! Through a fluke he stops a mugging, is recorded by a passer-by, gets put up on youtube, and becomes an overnight sensation. Of course he has manged to piss off a few local gangs, so he’s in trouble…

    9 – Produced by Tim Burton, featuring the voices of John C.Reilly and Elijah Wood, among others. 9 takes place in a world parallel to our own, in which the very legacy of humanity is threatened. A group of sapient rag dolls, living a post-apocalyptic existence find one of their own, 9, who displays leadership qualities that may help them to survive.

    Push – Starring Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning, This sci-fi action film involves a group of young Americans with telekinetic, telepathic, and clairvoyant abilities, hiding from a U.S. government agency referred to as “Division.” They try to find the only woman that ever escaped from “Division”. She is their only key to finding out how to escape the agency. They must also use their different talents and band together for a final job enabling them to escape the agency forever. I dunno about this, but I’m hoping it’ll be good!!

  22. Darrenon 02 Feb 2009 at 11:03 am

    @RP Get thee to a nunnery.

    @Chris I’m with you!

    @B’dum Did you hear, at the Annimation Awards Wall-E didn’t win a thing? It lost out to Kung Fu Panda in most major categories. Madness!!!

    @Sean I’ve missed a hell of a lot, I think. Those sound interesting. Especially the Tim Burton one.

  23. Marine Painton 03 Dec 2010 at 6:03 am

    Rise Of The Lycans do have some great fighting scene between the werewolves and the vampires, it is a nice movie *”~

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