As we see April come to an end, this means a lot of different things for us all. It means warmer weather, being able to roll out our summer wardrobes, and of course, the quickly approaching summer vacation that every student has learned to cherish and enjoy over the years. However, it is also when the month of May begins, and we get this giant bunch of summer blockbusters that satisfy our desires to have spectacular action and likable characters presented to us over the course of roughly two hours. Of course, the big movie that everybody’s going to be talking about is Avengers, and we’ll get to that in a second, but aside from that, this is shaping up to be a great summer for all audiences to enjoy due to the variety of films that I see slated for release.
However, a lot of these movies are still a little bit of a ways away, so I’m just going to go over what’s coming out in the next couple of weeks as I always have done. First of all though, I want to get these two smaller films out of the way before we ‘Hulk Smash’ our way onto Avengers. This weekend sees the release of two films: one is called The Age of Adaline, about a woman played by Blake Lively who, due to a strange accident in 1935, never ages another day past the age of 29. It’s about her journey through the years, watching everyone around her grow old except for her, and separating herself from most people in order to not be hurt by their eventual demise. Lo and behold though, a charismatic philanthropist enters her life and rekindles her passion for life and romance. And that’s not an easy thing to do, apparently, because it took a young Harrison Ford to capture her heart once before, so that’s saying something. And yes, Harrison Ford is in this film. The other movie is called Little Boy and takes place in the 1940’s during WWII, following a young boy willing to do anything to end the war and bring his father home from the fight. The film stars Kevin James, Tom Wilkinson, David Henrie of Disney Channel fame, as well as newcomer Jakob Salvati as the titular character. It sounds innocent enough, but the current 11% rating on Rotten Tomatoes indicates that it may not be up to scratch.
And of course, the next week theatres will be releasing the biggest movie of the summer, and maybe the whole year: Avengers: Age of Ultron. Look, the anticipation for this film is not something that you see very often. In fact, the anticipation is so high that I daresay some people will walk away with a little bit of disappointment due to the sky-high excitement levels surrounding its release. Now, love or hate Marvel movies, whoever believes that this thing will not be making truckloads of cash in its box office run is absolutely insane, and this will definitely be a film that crosses the billion dollar mark, joining Furious 7 for sure, and most likely surpassing it if the numbers from the first Avengers are any indication. From this movie you’re getting a great villain, the reuniting of the team of heroes we’ve all come to know and love, as well as the payoff of Phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Boasting high production value, an all-star cast and acclaimed geek of a director, as well as the power of Disney, this movie is going to be an event, and will be such a hit that it’s hard to imagine what can beat it at this point, aside from its own sequels. Or that would be the case, if Star Wars wasn’t making its big comeback this year. We’ll get into that more later though when my Star Wars article releases on May 4th, so look out for that. Now you get the message at this point: go see Avengers!
And that wraps up current releases! Now we move on to the final part of Thursdays at the Theater, and that is talking about an older movie that I feel is either overlooked, relevant to the first portion of this article like the last edition, or simply an awesome movie that deserves to be talked about no matter what. For this week, the older movie is:
Unbreakable! Now, some of you may have heard of this movie, and some may not have, but I’m going to tell you what it’s about nonetheless. Unbreakable is, essentially, a superhero movie. But it’s different, because instead of using alien origins, experiments gone awry, or being born a god as the reasons for the powers being showcased, the hero in Unbreakable, David Dunn, is born with a condition that causes him to be impervious to physical damage. They treat this condition like a physical oddity, something that is ignored by the outside world just as many people with disabilities are ignored because of their uncommon situation. The film was directed by M. Night Shyamalan, during a period in time before he did movies like The Last Airbender (oof), and used twists effectively instead of lugging them without any finesse. I digress though, because here, in his second Hollywood film, he crafts an interesting premise. The logic the movie goes by is that it has a character (played by Samuel L. Jackson) who is a comic book fanatic with a rare disease that causes his bones to break quite easily. He states that if there is someone as weak as him, there must be someone who is completely invincible out there then, someone who is unbreakable, you could say. This is what the movie proposes to the audience, and it follows through with that by giving the most logical reasoning for a person to have superpowers that I’ve ever seen in any film or story, ever. Is it the best one? Of course not, but I believe it’s a great one, and its rather uncomfortable realism gives the film an edge over others in the superhero genre. It is astonishingly believable and logical, and is able to rope you in for the whole movie without sacrificing its tone or pacing throughout any of it. In fact, it’s more of drama/suspense/thriller movie more than anything else.
Well guys, that does it for this edition of Thursdays at the Theater. There’s a lot of stuff coming out in the next few months, but we’ve got Avengers coming out first to kick it all off, and I could not be more excited - the buzz I’m hearing is really positive. Even if it’s not as good as the first one, which I’ve also been hearing, I’m just there to have a fun time, and that’s all I really want. I have the best of the best down in my basement to enjoy over and over again. I want to thank you for taking the time to read this article if you’ve gotten all of the way down to the bottom here, and The Titan Times is really starting to hit its stride, so don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook in order to stay up to date on everything that we come out with. I’m Joshua Volkers reporting for The Titan Times, and I’ll see you on not only the next edition of Thursdays at the Theater, but the Star Wars article coming out on May the Fourth. Again, don’t forget to check out all that we’ve got going on here, and as always, stay strong, Titans.
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