‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ among must-watch movies in July 2017
KUALA LUMPUR: Summer was just getting started in June, and July is when the releases are heating up to a blaze.
If you don’t like having fun right under the hot sun, you certainly have plenty of reasons to grab some popcorn and sip your soda in the cooling halls of the cinema for every week in July.
The titles of this July may seem more sombre than what we are used to for summer blockbusters, but that gives us a good break from the nonsensical violence and highly pumped action we just saw in June (thanks Transformers), to turn on your head and get in touch with your heart for some of these moving titles this month.
So whether you are looking for the escapist adventures of a friendly neighbourhood superhero, or want to relive the dark moments of war, here are the movies not to miss this July. Spider-Man: Homecoming
Marvel fans went rabid the first time they saw their favourite web slinger appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Captain America: Civil War, and this is his feature introduction into the MCU. While still considered a Sony and Marvel Studios collaboration, Spider-Man goes through another ‘reboot’ with Tom Holland as a much younger Peter Parker, with different circumstances leading to him becoming a superhero, and a different set of characters from the comics to be the mainstay that we are used to. SpiderMan: Homecoming will be the demonstration as the start of a beautiful relationship between Marvel Studios and other rights holders, and hopefully more Marvel characters will be brought back into the MCU fold (*cough* Fantastic Four *cough*).
General Release Date: July 6 Reset
We’ve seen what China is capable of in making their fantasy spectacle with their sometimes highly convoluted usage of CG (see Wu Kong also releasing this month), but they have been riling in the all style no substance approach of late, as their market is slowly wising up to see more ‘clever’ movies. While Reset doesn’t set any new bar for the high-concept sci-fi genre of time looping, involving a time machine inventing single mother who tries to rescue her kidnapped son, it does show that China is willing to experiment with the edgier sci-fi genre that relies more on its plot and narrative value.
Produced by the massive machinery that is Jackie Chan (who has got the action department covered), Yang Mi takes the lead as the desperate mother against Wallace Huo’s Tsui Hu who manipulates the situation, and we are looking for a few surprising twists along the way to give us a different impression about Chinese blockbusters with smarter writing.
General Release Date: July 6 A Day
Time-loops are a classic trope in sci-fi and it only gets more interesting when you get to see different countries approach it differently. South Korea is far more developed in their premise setting than relying on extensive CG than most of their Asian counterparts, and it is only by accident that they have a different take on the time-looping premise. Written and directed by Cho Sun-ho, a famous doctor played by Kim Myung-min returns to South Korea only to witness the death of his daughter due to a car accident, and then having to relive the day from his arrival every time he fails to save her. When his numerous attempts brings him in contact with a paramedic who is also experiencing this terrible cycle of deja-vu, the two of them try to figure out a way to take them out of this time-loop.
General Release Date: July 13 War for the Planet of the Apes
Two years after the events of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, apes and man are now in a full flung war to determine the survival of their species. As the nominal leader of the apes, Caesar has been trying to protect his kind, while the humans, led by a grizzly Woody Harrelson, is out to exterminate all apes. This third instalment in the Planet of the Apes franchise takes an even darker tone compared to its predecessors, but also explores more redeeming themes when two sides are set on exterminating each other, which might be something related to our times. Even if the philosophical ideas being explored is not what you are looking for in your summer blockbuster, a main attraction of the Planet of the Apes franchise has always been the cutting edge of Weta’s performance and motion capture, so you can watch this as a showcase to see how far the technology has gone.
General Release Date: July 13 Dunkirk
Any summer that has a Christopher Nolan title is a good summer. That has been the case in 2010 with Inception, and 2008’s seminal The Dark Knight. For 2017, we get Dunkirk which is a big change from his fictional works so far. Dunkirk is based on the real-life events during World War II (again war is a big theme this month!) when British soldiers are left stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk for nearly 10 days, cut off on all sides by the German army and dubbed as a ‘colossal military disaster’ at the time by Winston Churchill. Admittedly, Christopher Nolan is not the first name of potential directors we want to see make a ‘based on true event’s’ story, but he has far earned his directing and technical stripes to try something new for his audience. That, and also this would be his shortest feature length to date means that you won’t be forcing yourself to hold it in until the rolling credits.
General Release Date: July 20 Our Time Will Come
If defiance against the face of adversity is the theme of war, it just goes on and on with Our Time Will Come which depicts the life story of “Fang Gu” (or Aunt Fang), a female resistance leader living in Hong Kong during the Japanese occupation of World War II. This is another in the series of director Ann Hui’s examination of prolific Chinese women in history after making the biopic of writer Xiao Hong for The Golden Era in 2014 that went on to represent Hong Kong for the Academy Awards. This time with the lady of choice for their powerful performance is Zhou Xun as the leading character. Our Time Will Come is also graced with a stellar supporting cast of Eddie Peng and Wallace Huo (again).
General Release Date: July 20 Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Alright, enough with the war movies and let’s move back to something more fantastic. Based on the comic book series that does not involve any kind of superhero, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is an eyepopping and mind numbing scifi space adventure told through the lens of director Luc Besson who has not visited this scale of visual spectacle since The Fifth Element. Dane DeHaan and newly minted actress Cara Delevingne star as the young leads as special operative agents keeping the peace on human territories in space. They will also be meeting the faces of Clive Owen, Rihanna, Ethan Hawke and Kris Wu. We don’t know what else to expect from Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets other than anticipating the visuals, which is not a bad thing considering the last time someone tried something of this scale of visual diarrhoea resulted in Jupiter Ascending.
General Release Date: July 20 Atomic Blonde
Based on the graphic novel The Coldest City, MI6 agent Lorrain Broughton is brought into Berlin on the eve of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, to find a list of double agents smuggling into the West. If you thoroughly enjoyed this year’s John Wick Chapter 2 and saw the trailer for Atomic Blonde thinking that she was a female counterpart, you are not quite offthe-mark. Premiered at this year’s SXSW, Atomic Blonde is directed by David Leitch — who also codirected John Wick — making his solo debut, and you can see the action choreography is quite on point. We are pretty confident that this will remove the stain on Charlize Theron since Aeon Flux as long as she keeps taking more butt-kicking roles like this one (we are still waiting for that Furiousa spin-off), and it doesn’t hurt to have James McAvoy, John Goodman and Sofia Boutella in the cast for some cinematic action too.
General Release Date: July 27 — CinemaOnline