Monthly Movie Madness: June 2014

After a great May to kick off the Summer Movie Season we slow down a bit here in June but there is still some quality films hitting up your local multiplex.

5. Transformers: Age Of Extinction: Okay, I know I'm the number one supporter of franchise fatigue... Especially with the Transformers series. The first film was good, the second was a little worse and the third was downright annoying. Though even director Michael Bay must have realized this rebooting the franchise with a new star in Mark Wahlberg and the inclusion of the dinobots.

Synopsis: The Transformers film series continues with this fourth entry from director Michael Bay and executive producer Steven Spielberg. Mark Wahlberg and Jack Reynor star. Four years after the conclusion of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, a mechanic (Wahlberg) and his daughter discover a deactivated Optimus Prime. Meanwhile, a powerful, ingenious businessman and a group of scientists attempt to learn from past Transformer incursions and push the boundaries of technology beyond what they can control.

4. Snowpiercer: Chris Evans stars in the first English film from South Korean director Bong Joon-ho (The Host). The ratings are good as are the box office receipts as it's already earned more than 50 million in South Korea.

Synopsis: Based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette. When an experiment to counteract global warming causes an ice age that kills nearly all life on Earth, the only survivors are people travelling on a massive train called Snowpiercer. Powered by a perpetual-motion engine, it travels on a track that spans the globe. The inhabitants of the train soon find a class system installed, with the wealthy taking over the front of the train and the starving poor forced to live behind locked doors at the tail, where food is sometimes delivered to them in protein blocks by armed guards. The guards also periodically take some of their children. One of the leaders of the tail inhabitants, Curtis (Chris Evans), stages a revolt to unlock the doors dividing each car so they can get to where the elite live in luxury and take over.

3. Edge Of Tomorrow: Here's a movie that wasn't even on my radar. I like Cruise and Blunt but this looked like Oblivion meets The Source Code. Two movies I thought missed the mark. But the early reviews (88% on RT) are amazing so it climbed up to number 3 on my list.

Synopsis: The epic action of "Edge of Tomorrow" unfolds in a near future in which an alien race has hit the Earth in an unrelenting assault, unbeatable by any military unit in the world. Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) is an officer who has never seen a day of combat when he is unceremoniously dropped into what amounts to a suicide mission. Killed within minutes, Cage now finds himself inexplicably thrown into a time loop-forcing him to live out the same brutal combat over and over, fighting and dying again...and again. But with each battle, Cage becomes able to engage the adversaries with increasing skill, alongside Special Forces warrior Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt). And, as Cage and Rita take the fight to the aliens, each repeated encounter gets them one step closer to defeating the enemy.

2. 22 Jump Street: Deuces are wild here as 22 lands at 2 for my most anticipated movies coming in June. In a month lacking comedy and movies aimed at females (Fault In Our Stars excluded) 22 Jump Street is going to have big numbers as both Hill (Coming off Wolf Of Wall Street) and Tatum (Coming off The Lego Movie) are having big years thus far and it's about to get 22 times better.

Synopsis: After making their way through high school (twice), big changes are in store for officers Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) when they go deep undercover at a local college. But when Jenko meets a kindred spirit on the football team, and Schmidt infiltrates the bohemian art major scene, they begin to question their partnership. Now they don't have to just crack the case - they have to figure out if they can have a mature relationship. If these two overgrown adolescents can grow from freshmen into real men, college might be the best thing that ever happened to them.

1. How To Train Your Dragon 2: Like I wasn't going to put this at number 1? The two headed monster of How To Train Your Dragon 2 and 22 Jump Street open the same weekend and don't be surprised if it's the biggest weekend of the year. But if I could only pick one I know which I'm going to see.

Synopsis: DreamWorks Animation returns to the world of dragons and Vikings in this sequel to their successful 2010 outing How to Train Your Dragon. The original film followed the exploits of a Viking chief's son, who must capture a dragon in order to mark his passage into manhood and prove his worthiness to the tribe. It's been five years since Hiccup and Toothless have made peace with the dragons and the Vikings of Berk. During one of the adventures of Hiccup and Toothless, they come across an ice cave that serves as a haven for the dragons and Hiccup's long-lost mother Valka. Hiccup and Toothless are then dragged into a battle when the dragon hunter Drago Bludvist plans to build a dragon army to take over the world.