#BizTrends2020: 2020 at the movies

My original article here.

09 Jan 2020

Here's what to look forward to on the big screen in 2020

Welcome to 2020 at the movies, let's see what this new decade has in store for us.

Reboots and long-awaited sequels

As ol’ King Solomon once said, there’s no new thing under the sun. This year’s reboots kick off with the horror feature, The Grudge – which will be released in theatres on 17 January. This is a reboot of three existing films released between 2004 and 2009, and those movies are based on the Japanese franchise!

Will Smith and a chubbier Martin Lawrence are back for one last ride as Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett in Bad Boys for Life. This is one we’ve been waiting for since 2003’s Bad Boys II. Belgian directors Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi have taken over the reins from Michael Bay but it looks like we can still expect a whole lot of explosions, car chases and gunfights. Bad Boys for Life hits our screens on 24 January.



Move over Eddie Murphy (and, I guess, Kyla Pratt from the straight-to-DVD versions), it’s Robert Downey Jr’s turn to take a crack at the eccentric Dr John Dolittle character in Dolittle also being released on 10 January. The man who can talk to animals is accompanied by a wealth of talent voicing all of his friends, including Rami Malek, Octavia Spencer, Kumail Nanjiani, John Cena, Emma Thompson, Antonio Banderas, Michael Sheen, Jim Broadbent, Marion Cotillard, Frances de la Tour, Carmen Ejogo, Ralph Fiennes, Selena Gomez, Tom Holland and Craig Robinson. The film is directed by Stephen Gaghan (Syriana, 2005).

HG Wells’s The Invisible Man gets a remake starring Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid’s Tale), Aldis Hodge (Clemency) and Oliver Jackson-Cohen (The Haunting of Hill House). The film, written and directed by Leigh Whannell, comes out on 13 March. 27 March sees Disney continue with its live-action/hauntingly real CGI adaptations in the form of Mulan, directed by Niki Caro and starring Yifei Liu, Donnie Yen and Jet Li.




Daniel Craig is back in his fifth film as James Bond in No Time to Die on 3 April, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga. The movie picks up after Bond has left active service and is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica and co-stars Rami Malek, as the Bond villain, Léa Seydoux and Lashana Lynch. Apparently, people have been waiting for a sequel to 1986’s Top Gun and their prayers have been answered! Tom Cruise is back as the legendary fighter pilot, Maverick in Top Gun: Maverick on 3 July.

Hollywood is taking another stab at Ghostbusters this year after the 2016 version didn’t go down so well. They are linking this one right back to the originals and tapping into that glorious ‘80s nostalgia that’s keeping Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard employed. 10 July gives us Ghostbusters: Afterlife with the original feature’s director’s son, Jason Reitman, in the director’s chair. The movie starts good ol’ Finn Wolfhard, Paul Rudd, Mckenna Grace, Carrie Coon and Bokeem Woodbine.



We’ve had Kingsman: The Secret Service and Kingsman: The Golden Circle and now we go back in time with the prequel to discover the origins of the very first independent intelligence agency, The King’s Man, on 14 February. The King's Man stars Harris Dickinson, Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton and Djimon Hounsou. Matthew Vaughn is back as director.

The comic book stuff

DC kicks off things with Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn on 7 February. Remember Suicide Squad? I guess this movie picks from there. Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn’s broken up with the Joker and is looking to start a new life. I don’t even know. At some point, Harley Quinn joins superheroes Black Canary, Huntress and Renee Montoya to save a young girl from an evil crime lord, Black Mask. Birds of Prey stars Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, Ella Jay Basco, Ali Wong and Ewan McGregor. The film is directed by Cathy Yan (Dead Pigs, 2018).



3 April gives us director Josh Boone’s horror-influenced X-Men movie New Mutants, hopefully. The movie was supposed to be released in 2018 but was delayed. It stars Game of Throne's Maisie Williams and Anya Taylor-Joy. Marvel Studios opens their Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Black Widow on 1 May. The film is directed by Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome, 2017) and stars Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, alongside David Harbour, Florence Pugh, O-T Fagbenle and Rachel Weisz. Set after the events of Captain America: Civil War (2016), the film sees Romanoff on the run and forced to confront her past.

2017’s Wonder Woman was a huge hit and we’re super excited about the sequel, Wonder Woman 1984. The sequel hits screens on 5 June, it’s set in the ‘80s (like so many films and series these days) and sees the return of Steve Trevor somehow. The movie is the ninth instalment in the DC Extended Universe and is directed and co-written by Patty Jenkins. It stars Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, alongside Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, Robin Wright and Connie Nielsen.

More highlights

Other films to look forward to in 2020 are The Turning, based on Henry James’s novel – which is the story of a nanny hired to take care of two creepy kids in a creepy house in Maine. The film stars Mackenzie Davis, Finn Wolfhard (this kid again), Brooklynn Prince and Joely Richardson. Sonic the Hedgehog is a thing that’s happening. In this live-action adventure comedy, Sonic and his new best friend Tom (James Marsden) team up to defend the planet from the evil genius Dr Robotnik (Jim Carrey) and his plans for world domination.



A film I’m looking forward to – because I loved the books as a kid – is Artemis Fowl, which is about a 12-year-old Artemis who is a millionaire, a genius and a criminal mastermind. But Artemis doesn’t know what he's taken on when he kidnaps a fairy, Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon Unit to harness her magic to save his family. Disney Pixar is also releasing an interesting project with Soul, a journey from the streets of New York City to the cosmic realms to discover the answers to life’s most important questions. Soul stars Jamie Foxx and Tina Fey and is directed by Inside Out's Pete Docter.

I wish you 2020 vision at the movies this year.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Review

Original review here. 

Let me say it right off the bat that Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a great movie and a worthy follow up toThe Force Awakens. If you've been following any news about the movie, you'll know that there is a split between some Star Wars fans and film critics.

Some of the fans feel that the movie is not a Star Wars movie at all and lacks the franchise’s essence. Many film critics praised the movie for its strong storyline and for the manner in which it subverts the viewers’ expectation. Director Rian Johnson (The Brothers Bloom) delivers a solid Star Wars movie with many unexpected twists and turns. The Last Jedi captures the magic of Star Wars but is brave enough to turn a lot of the lore on its head and steer the franchise towards a new direction. It does take some missteps as it changes course, though.

A New Hope

In 2015, JJ Abrams wrote the most beautiful love letter to Star Wars in the form of The Force Awakens. As fans, we loved it because it was ‘Star Wars’. We looked past the fact that it was a rehash of A New Hope and that it did not really move our favourite franchise forward much. Sure, we got new villains in the form of the First Order, but we must admit that they were introduced as carbon copies of the Empire’s villains. We got a new weapon in the form of Starkiller base (we see what you did with the name there, JJ) and that was pretty much the third Death Star. Snoke was pretty much the Emperor, Kylo Ren wanted to be Darth Vader and General Hux (with his amazing coat) an up-and-coming Grand Moff Tarkin. The good guys followed a similar mould, with maybe the exception of Finn. Don’t get me wrong, The Force Awakens is a great movie but it served as a soft introduction to the new trilogy and did that well. Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi has the difficult task of being a Star Wars sequel and moving the story forward in an unexpected direction. It does that well.

JJ Abrams' love letter to Star Wars

Okay, by now we all know that Star Wars: The Force Awakens is good. It is frighteningly good.

BY CHARLES SIBOTO 19 JAN 2016

Luke’s words from the trailer are pretty much what The Last Jedi does: “This is not going to go the way you think”. Johnson gives the Star Wars universe some much needed fresh air by moving away from the beats we expect from a Star Wars movie. The good guys learn that they cannot fight the Dark Side using the same tactics they have been and the Dark Side goes to a place we’ve not seen before. Everything is not so Dark Side and Light Side, The Last Jedi dares to give us a grey area. We are given a new perspective on the Force and how it works and moves through the galaxy. Mark Hamill steals the show as a disillusioned Luke Skywalker. The story pays respect to the older Star Wars characters but it is more the story of solidifying the new characters’ place in the story. Every time you see Carrie Fisher as Leia onscreen you can’t help but feel emotional and her last performance as the character is beautiful. Daisy Ridley’s Rey learns to pick up the mantle as a Jedi, Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron learns to be a better leader and John Boyega’s Finn learns to value what he is fighting for. Adam Driver is brilliant as Kylo Ren and both his and Rey’s struggle with the Light and Dark sides of the Force is portrayed expertly. Domhall Gleeson as General Hux (his coat is so cool!) continues to vie with Kylo for the Supreme Leader Snoke’s favour. Snoke (Andy Serkis) is as menacing and mysterious as ever.

The Empire Strikes Back

The movie opens with the rebel scum doing their rebel thing and the First Order doing their chasing and threatening thing. Nothing new here. The Last Jedi opens on the same beat we expect from a Star Wars movie: a Star Destroyer looks cool in space, there is a cinematic battle, the good guys fly their X-wings against impossible odds whilst keeping up their humorous banter, a cute droid beeps, a villain loses his cool and a John Williams soundtrack is pushing all the right emotional buttons. It’s great. Then, all of a sudden our expectations start getting subverted at every turn. All of our YouTube prophets’ fan theories are trampled into the dust and we are in new territory. It’s great! Johnson questions things we believe about the Star Wars universe and opens new avenues of exploration.

The Last Jedi/The Return of the Jedi (They really need to make up their minds)

It’s not all lightsabers and BB8, though. The Last Jedi makes mistakes and they do take away from the vision that Johnson has. My biggest gripe is that the movie is too long. I love long movies but only when it does not feel like padding. The Last Jedi gets to a point where there is a lot of padding and what feels like unnecessary storylines. They introduce places and characters you can’t bring yourself to care about and that takes away from the brilliance of the core plot. At the end of the movie you are tired, happy, confused, possibly angry and then you go home and give it more thought and smile because this is a great middle act. The Last Jedi answers some of the questions we had offhandedly, not at all or asks us questions. The threads are left dangling and both groups of people who liked it and did not like it are left hoping that Episode IX answers all of our questions. YouTube fan theorists get to keep their jobs for the next two years as The Last Jedi leaves a lot of mysteries that need solving.

The Furious 7

The Furious 7


My Furious 7 review on Bizcommunity.com. This movie is just great. Go out and see it.