February 2016

THIS MONTH AT THE UK CINEMA 

Hey guys, February has come round quickly but fortunately it has brought a lot of good movies with it. This month has plenty of movies I think are worth a watch, so I'll try to keep this concise.

The movie that I am most looking forward to over the next 29 days is Deadpool. This highly anticipated movie is based on the Marvel Comics character Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), a former Special Forces operative turned mercenary, who becomes the "merc with a mouth" after an experimental cancer treatment leaves him disfigured but with accelerated healing abilities.

Other relatively big budget films out this month include Goosebumps, a fantasy adventure based the popular book series, in which the monsters created in the mind of author R. L. Stine (Jack Black) come to life and only he, along with his daughter Hannah (Odeya Rush) and their neighbour Zach (Dylan Minnette), can return them to the pages from where they came before all chaos breaks loose. 

Disney's latest release, The Finest Hours, is film adaptation of a true story where Captain Bernie Webber (Chris Pine), of the US Coastguard, leads a four man team in a small, wooden lifeboat through 70-foot waves to rescue over thirty sailors stuck on a sinking oil tanker, during one of the worst storms ever to hit the coast of New England. 

The biggest of this month's big budget films is Point Break, a remake of the 1991 Point Break movie, featuring Johnny Utah (Luke Bracey), a young FBI agent who goes undercover as he suspects a group of extreme athletes to be behind some major crimes damaging the financial markets.  

The first of two big budget comedies out this this month is Zoolander 2, sequel to the 2001 original, where Derek (Ben Stiller) and Hansel (Owen Wilson) have been forgotten by the modelling world but they are recruited by Interpol agent Montana Grosso (Penélope Cruz) to help find the criminal mastermind who is killing of some of the world's most beautiful people.  

The second of these comedies, How to Be Single is based on the novel of the same name in which the recently single Alice (Dakota Johnson) is taken under the wing of Robin (Rebel Wilson) who teaches her how to be single in the New York City, after she discovers that dating is not what it used to be.

And finally, there is Concussion. This tells the true story of Dr Bennet Omalu (Will Smith), an American immigrant and also a brilliant forensic neuropathologist, who was the first to discover the American Football related brain trauma, CTE. In the movie he embarks on a "David vs. Goliath" battle against the NFL to expose the truth about this danger.

Some smaller releases out this month, that I'm just as excited about, include two British releases. The first, a big screen adaptation of the classic TV series, Dad's Army and as with the TV series, the movie follows Captain Mainwaring's (Toby Jones) group of slightly inept Home Guard soldiers during World War II who have to deal with journalist Rose Winters (Catherine Zeta-Jones) when she arrives to report on the Walmington-on-Sea platoon's adventures.

The second British release is Taking Stock, a comedy crime caper which sees out-of-work actress Kate (Kelly Brook) made redundant from her shop job and, inspired by Bonnie Parker (of Bonnie and Clyde fame), she decides to release her inner bad girl and rob the shop with the help of her shop assistant friends, but where is her Clyde?

Other smaller films include A Bigger Splash, a crime drama in which the relaxing Mediterranean holiday of famous rock star, Marianne Lane (Tilda Swinton) and filmmaker Paul De Smedt (Matthias Schoenaerts) is interrupted by the arrival of Harry (Ralph Fiennes), an old friend of Marianne, and his daughter Penelope (Dakota Johnson), creating a dangerous whirlwind of passion and jealousy. 

Another adaptation for the big screen, a live-action version of the 1980s cartoon series Jem and the Holograms is also due out this month. With the same name as its cartoon precursor, this movie tell the story of Jerrica (Aubrey Peeples), who lands a record deal after an online video of her singing gained popularity and from there, she and her sisters go on a journey and discover some talents are too special to keep hidden.

Strangerland is an independent, Australian thriller-drama which sees the lives of Catherine (Nicole Kidman) and Matthew Parker (Joseph Fiennes) turned upside-down when their son and daughter disappear. After it becomes apparent that something terrible may have befallen the two children, rumours spark and suspicion spreads of the parents' involvement and they are pushed to the brink as they worry about the fate of their children.

Another thriller-drama movie, Triple 9, sees a group of criminals and corrupt police officers attempt a seemingly impossible robbery, but in order to do it they must kill a fellow officer so as to distract the police and give them time to carry out the heist on the other side of town.

A third drama, this time a mystery drama, also revolves around a crime. In Secret in Their Eyes, investigators Ray Kaston (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Jess Cooper (Julia Roberts) are called to a murder scene, but when they realise the victim is Jess' daughter the team and the case collapses due to grief. Thirteen years later, with new leads, the case is reopened but this leads to shocking truths and unhappy with the law, Jess decides to take it into her own hands.

The final of my February movie top picks is Freeheld. Based on the true story of Laurel Hester (Julianne Moore), who after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, battled with her partner Stacie (Ellen Page) against the New Jersey police force in order to let her pension be left to her girlfriend before her she died.  

There are a lot more movies that people are going to want to see this month, including Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Fifty Shades of Black, Trumbo and the fourth Alvin and the Chipmunks movie - The Road Chip, but there is no way that I'm going to be able to see all of the those films too, so these were my top picks for February.

UK Release Dates
Dad's Army                   - 05 February 2016          TRAILER
Goosebumps                 - 05 February 2016          TRAILER
Point Break                   - 05 February 2016          TRAILER
Strangerland                 - 05 February 2016          TRAILER
Taking Stock                 - 05 February 2016          TRAILER                        A Bigger Splash                - 12 February 2016          TRAILER
Concussion                   - 12 February 2016          TRAILER
Deadpool                      - 12 February 2016         TRAILER                    
Jem and the Holograms  - 12 February 2016          TRAILER
Zoolander 2                  - 12 February 2016          TRAILER
Freeheld                       - 19 February 2016          TRAILER
How to Be Single           - 19 February 2016          TRAILER
The Finest Hours           - 19 February 2016          TRAILER
Triple 9                         - 19 February 2016          TRAILER  
Secret in Their Eyes       - 26 February 2016          TRAILER