Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)

“Everything you know about Jumanji is about to change”

Directed by Jake Kasdan (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle)
Starring Dwayne Johnson (Hobbs & Shaw), Jack Black (The House With a Clock in its Walls), Kevin Hart (The Secret Life of Pets 2), Karen Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), Nick Jonas (Les Misérables: 25th Anniversary Concert), Awkwafina (Ocean’s 8), Rory McCann (Solomon Kane), Alex Wolff (My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2), Morgan Turner (Halal in the Family), Ser’Darius Blain (Bolden), Madison Iseman (Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween), Colin Hanks (Elvis & Nixon), Rhys Darby (Trolls), Danny Glover (Predator 2) and Danny DeVito (Twins)

Three years after their adventure in Jumanji, Bethany (Iseman), Fridge (Blain) and Martha (Turner) are planning a reunion during college winter break, but Spencer (Wolff) has fallen out of touch due to suffering from depression. Seeking him at home, the friends find Spencer’s Grandpa Eddie (DeVito) and his estranged friend Milo (Glover), before realising that Spencer has re-entered Jumanji. They follow to help him, with Martha once more becoming the character Ruby Roundhouse (Gillan), but Fridge becomes Shelley Oberon (Black), while Eddie and Milo in turn inhabit the heroic Dr Smolder Bravestone (Johnson) and his sidekick Mouse Finbar (Hart).

Frozen II (2019)

No tagline

Directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee
Starring Kristen Bell (Teen Titans GO! to the Movies), Idina Menzel (Olaf’s Frozen Adventure), Josh Gad (Murder on the Orient Express), Jonathan Groff (Hamilton on Broadway), Sterling K Brown (The Predator) and Evan Rachel Wood (What We Do in the Shadows TV series)

King Agnarr (Alfred Molina) tells his daughters about an Enchanted Forest, sealed off from Arendelle since a conflict in his youth, and Queen Iduna (Wood) sings a lullaby about Ahtohallan, a river of memories. We flash forward to some time – either fifteen or twenty-seven months, by my estimation; probably the latter – after the events of the first film, with Queen Elsa (Menzel), Anna (Bell), Anna’s boyfriend Kristoff (Groff) and Olaf the magical snowman (Gad) are celebrating the harvest festival in the utopian socialist monarchy that is modern Arendelle when Elsa is overcome by the call of a distant voice and somehow awakens the long-dormant spirits of the forest, forcing an evacuation of the Kingdom in the face of elemental turmoil.

SPOILER WARNINGS

Rebourne: Doctor Sleep (2019)

“Dare to Go Back”

Directed by Mike Flanagan
Starring Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran and Cliff Curtis

The Original

Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), an author and recovering alcoholic, is struggling with his next book, as well as the bottle. He takes a job as winter caretaker in the Overlook Hotel, a mountain lodge left empty for the season, hoping to get some writing done and reconnect with his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and son Danny (Danny Lloyd). Unfortunately, the malevolent spirit of the hotel gets its hooks into Jack, intent on destroying Danny and his paranormal abilities, the titular ‘shining’.

The Shining is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest horror movies ever made – critical opinions aside, it contains scenes which have been parodied over and over again, and had a pastiche in a Simpsons ‘Treehouse of Horror’ episode – although not by Stephen King, author of the novel on which it was based. King took issue with director Stanley Kubrik’s treatment of the original story, eventually producing a new adaptation which was a) much more faithful, and b) quite dull. He also wrote a sequel, Doctor Sleep, which eventually got an adaptation of its own.

The Late Sequel

I’ll be honest, Rose the Hat is an effectively creepy villain right up until you start hearing her name sung to the theme tune of the children’s cartoon ‘James the Cat’.

Danny ‘Doc’ Torrance (Roger Dale Floyd) begins to recover from the horrors of the Overlook Hotel when the spirit of hotel cook and fellow Shiner Dick Halloran (Carl Lumbly) teaches him to trap the ghosts that haunt him in boxes in his head. Years later, he has become an alcoholic Ewan McGregor, using booze to numb his abilities, until all-round nice guy Billy Freeman (Curtis) helps him turn his life around and he gets a job as night porter in a hospice, where he becomes known as Doctor Sleep among the patients for his ability to ease them from life when their time comes.

Rebourne – Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

“Welcome to the day after Judgement Day”

Directed by Tim Miller (Deadpool)
Starring Linda Hamilton (The Terminator), Arnold Schwarzenegger (Terminator 2: Judgement Day), Mackenzie Davis (The Martian), Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna and Diego Boneta (Rock of Ages)

The Original

In 1984, a Terminator, a cyborg assassin, was sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor, the future mother of the future leader of the human resistance against the AI, Skynet. A single soldier was sent back to protect her.

In 1995, a second Terminator was sent to kill John while he as still a young boy. A reprogrammed Terminator was sent to protect him, alongside his mother, who was now hard as nails.

The Franchise

Since 1991’s Terminator 2, there have been four on-screen continuations of the story, and who knows how many comics and tie-ins.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was kind of like T2, but with boob jokes and depressing fatalism.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles skipped to the small screen and jumped over the timeline of Rise of the Machines, before racing into a slightly baffling final act when it was cancelled after two series.

Terminator: Salvation eschewed time travel in favour of the post-apocalyptic adventures of a super-miserable miserable and oddly British John Connor.

And Terminator: Genisys saw Skynet trying to secure its existence by getting into the console market, or something.

The Late(st) Sequel

In the aftermath of the events of T2, John Connor is killed by one of a number of redundant Terminators sent back by Skynet before its existence was negated.

Twenty-two years later, a ‘Rev-9’ Terminator (Luna) and a soldier named Grace (Davis) are sent back in time, the one to kill Dani Ramos (Reyes), a factory worker and fledgling labour organiser, and the other to protect her. The Rev-9 kills Dani’s father and brother (Boneta), but she and Grace are saved by the intercession of Sarah Connor (Hamilton).

X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)

“Every Hero Has a Dark Side”

Directed by Simon Kinberg
Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp, Jessica Chastain, Kodio Smit-McPhee and Evan Peters

Since preventing the whole ‘destruction of human civilisation‘ thing, the X-Men have blazed a trail for mutant acceptance. Now Charles Xavier (McAvoy) has a direct line to the White House, and the X-Men – Cyclops (Sheridan), Nightcrawler (Smit-McPhee), Storm (Shipp), Jean ‘Codenames are for losers’ Gray (Turner) and Quicksilver (Peters), led by Beast (Hoult) and Mystique (Lawrence) – are national heroes. This status leads to them being called in to rescue a shuttle crew from an unknown cosmic force, which ends up absorbed into Jean.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)

“Evil Comes Home”

Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson
Starring Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Shawn Roberts, Ruby Rose, Eoin Macken, William Levy and Iain Glen

Dr James Marcus, a scientist seeking a cure for his daughter’s progeria, creates the T-virus, Umbrella Corporation, and programs his daughter’s personality into the AI known as the Red Queen, before losing control of all he has created to A-list swine Dr Alexander Isaacs (Glen) and his hired goon Albert Wesker (Roberts).

That’s right: It’s backstory time!

Bumblebee (2018)

No-one remembers the tagline for The Phantom Menace, right?

“Every Hero Has a Beginning”

Directed by Travis Knight
Starring Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, Jorge Lendeborg, Jr., John Ortiz, Jason Drucker and Pamela Adlon, and the voices of Dylan O’Brien, Angela Bassett, Justin Theroux and Peter Cullen

As the Autobot rebellion flees Cybertron, Optimus Prime (Cullen) sends the scout B-127 (O’Brien) to Earth to prepare it as a haven on which the Autobots can regroup, and to protect it against the Decepticons. This immediately goes to shit, as B-127 crashes into a Sector 7 military exercise, flees from forces led by Colonel Jack Burns (Cena), only for both to be attacked by the Seeker Blitzwing. Burns’ forces are decimated and Blitzwing damages B-127’s voice box and memory before B-127 can kill him.

Wreck-it Ralph: Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)

Directed by Rich Moore and Phil Johnston
Starring John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Gal Gadot, Taraji P. Henson, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk, Alfred Molina and Ed O’Neill

Six years after the events of the first movie, Ralph (Reilly) is stuck in a cosy little rut with his best bud Vanellope (Silverman). She, however, craves something new. Ralph’s attempt to help ends up wrecking the Sugar Rush machine, and the two set off into the uncharted wilds of the internet in search of a discontinued part, leaving Felix (McBrayer) and Calhoun (Lynch) looking after the bratty, and now homeless, racers.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald (2018)

“The fate of one will change the future of all.”

Directed by David Yates
Starring Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Zoë Kravitz, Callum Turner, Claudia Kim, William Nadylam, Kevin Guthrie, Jude Law and Johnny Depp

When Gellert Grindelwald (Depp) breaks out of custody during transport to Europe, the British Auror Office sets out to hunt him down in Paris (and writing this, I suddenly can’t work out why they are the ones apparently in charge of this.) Among the hunters are Theseus Scamander (Turner) and his fiancée Leta Lestrange (Kravitz), while US Auror Tina Goldstein (Waterson) tries to track down the obscurus Credence Barebones (Miller), who in turn is looking for his identity, with the aid of the cursed circus performer Nagini (Kim). Into all this comes Newt Scamander (Redmayne), sent by Albus Dumbledore (Law) to find Credence before anyone can kill him, or Grindlewald recruit him.

Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018)

“Some Missions are Not a Choice”

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie
Starring Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Angela Bassett, Michelle Monaghan and Alec Baldwin

Since the capture of their leader, Solomon Lane (Harris), the Syndicate has changed its name to ‘the Acolytes.’ Outflanked, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his team – Luther Stickell (Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Pegg) – lose a shipment of stolen plutonium to the Acolytes. They are able to trick their bomb-maker into revealing the identity of their leader, but the regular CIA call shenanigans on the IMF, with Director Erica Sloane (Basset) going over the head of IMF Secretary Hunley (Baldwin) to assign hatchet man August Walker (Cavill) to accompany, observe and, if necessary, eliminate Hunt, suspected of being doomsday cultist John Lark.