Things To Come: Our Most Anticipated 2014 Sci-Fi Movies
Will 2014 be a good year for big-screen science fiction?
This article is more than 2 years old
Edge of Tomorrow (June 6)
Imagine if, in Groundhog’s Day, Bill Murray had a massive robotic exoskeleton, access to all manner of military hardware, and had to fight aliens every day that he was reborn. That would have been a completely different movie, one that might resemble Doug Liman’s upcoming sci-fi adventure Edge of Tomorrow. Based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s sci-fi novel All You Need Is Kill, the movie finds Tom Cruise’s Bill Cage — a sweet, 1980s style action hero name, by the way — reliving the same crappy day over and over and over again. How bad is this particular day? Well, it always ends with him dying, which is usually a pretty good indicator that your day sucked.
Cage becomes trapped in a time loop while battling an invading alien race known as Mimics. Every day he gets up, fights, and dies. Despite his best efforts to avoid his fate and defeat his enemy on the battlefield, he just can’t seem to get over that hump. Obviously, when he tries to tell people what’s going on, he sounds like that crazy person you don’t want to sit next to on the bus. When he runs into Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), someone finally believes him, and the two must join forces to save the human race. You can bet there’s going to be some making out, too.
While some of the action looks solid, especially that shot in the trailer of the sky full of transport planes, there are some concerns. I love Tom Cruise, he’ll always be my Maverick, but we’ve come to a point where we’re not really buying the lone-wolf badass soldier thing he’s got going on here. You get what they’re going for with the mech suits, but they look so clunky that it comes across as comical. And whoever came up with the slogan “Live. Die. Repeat.” needs a serious talking to. It sounds like instructions on a shampoo bottle. Still, for all the questions, there are enough pieces in place that Edge of Tomorrow could be totally awesome. I doubt it will blow any minds, but it does look like fun. – Brent
Transformers: Age of Extinction (June 27)
I am an unapologetic Michael Bay fan! I’ve seen every single one of his movies on opening day in theaters since Bad Boys in 1995. He’s the only living director working in Hollywood where that claim is true for me. I’m also not delusional. I’m fully aware he has made some pretty bad movies, such as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Pearl Harbor. However, for the most part, his films are spectacle/event movies that demand your attention, which brings me to Transformers: Age of Extinction.
No one can make an action movie quite like Michael Bay, so to see the director take another stab at making a Transformers movie is somewhat refreshing. While his motivations of making Age of Extinction are likely purely financial, the end result will hopefully be a high point for Michael Bay. Simply put, this movie will feature the Dinobots!
On paper, Age of Extinction is already a better movie than any of the movies in the first film trilogy. It has more exciting Autobots and Decepticons, and it has a better cast with Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, and Kelsey Grammer. While I don’t think the movie will be coherent, there’s nothing better than sitting in an air-conditioned movie theater, eating salty popcorn and drinking sugary soda while watching a Michael Bay movie. – Rudie
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