1. 'X-Men: First Class'
Easily the most anticipated comic-book movie (for me) this year. I love the style and the slickness and the simplicity of everything I've seen so far. What I'm looking forward to the most is that this seems to be movie about the characters, not just about the action. I love how in the shot at the end of the trailer you see Erik lifting the submarine out of the water and they cut to a shot of him holding the sub and you can tell just from that one shot the power that he realizes he has. Not only is this my most anticipated film, this is the film I expect to beat the others critically and audience reaction-wise. This looks like a winner.
2. 'Thor'
I trust Marvel... even though I don't really like the superheroes we have coming out from them this year (besides the X-Men). However if I had to pick one being released by Marvel Studios themselves, I would pick 'Thor' easily because it just looks so f'n epic. I like how they almost seem arrogant with the marketing of the film, almost like Thor himself, by having all of those cheesy lines like "Suit Up" and whatnot in the commercials. This is the film that's really going to kick-start the summer and I believe that it's going to be a hell-of-a-lotta fun.
3. 'Cowboys & Aliens'
I've only seen the trailer for this film and I'm already sold. If the top two films don't deliver, leave it to 'Cowboys & Aliens' to make everything seem good and well again. Also, gotta say it, I trust in Favreau.
4. 'The First Avenger: Captain America'
I hate boy-scouts if they feel pretentious... thankfully, Chris Evans doesn't feel pretentious at all in the role of Steve Rogers. This film would have easily been #2 on here if I wasn't so worried about the production itself. I like Joe Johnston's 'The Rocketeer', which is similar in concept, but I'm a little worried that this film may disappoint. I'm worried that they might take it too seriously, and I'm worried that the film will be poorly edited (considering they did some last minute re-shoots). Despite that, I'm still looking forward to this film and I hope they pull off both of Marvel's two big characters so we can walk into 'The Avengers' and love it even more.
5. 'Dylan Dog: Dead of Night'
Haven't heard much about this film, but I just recently watched the trailer and... I'm excited to see it. I love Brandon Routh, I think he's one of the most underrated and underutilized actors in the business, and I hope this film does okay so the man could get some more attention for being extremely good at comedy (just go back and watch 'Scott Pilgrim vs. The World' to see it).
6. 'Conan The Barbarian'
There's one line in the trailer that just completely sold me: "I live. I love. I slay. And I am content." Just... f'n... brilliant. I hope they can pull this off and make it good because I'd love to see the director, Marcus Nispel, jump past the remake barrier and deliver something fresh (the man directed the 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' remake which is wrongly given overwhelmingly negative criticisms while the filmmaking is first-class and the atmosphere built-up is nightmarishly effective).
7. 'Green Lantern'
If you couldn't tell by this films placement, I am NOT looking forward to 'Green Lantern'. Main reason is because this film looks cheesy, and not cheesy in the good 'ol fun way ('Hellboy', for example). No, this film looks cheesy in the bad way. Good actors (Tim Robbins, Angela Bassett, Ryan Reynolds) hamming it up because they know "Hey! It's a comic-book movie!", terrible CGI (YES, FANBOYS, THE SUIT DOES LOOK LIKE CRAP!), poor dialogue and tired storytelling. I am willing to put up money in guaranteeing that this will be the biggest disappointment of the year! Trust me when I say that I could go in-depth on everything that I've seen so far and tell you why it is not working; even as a non-fan of the comics, I could tell straight away that Ryan Reynolds was miscast as the title character (apparently portraying himself as Ryan Reynolds as a character who's name happens to be Hal Jordan). If there's any saving grace to this, Mark Strong and Peter Sarsgaard appear to be giving it their all as their respective characters.
8. 'Priest'
Do I even need to comment? If anything, may I ask this noble question: Why does Paul Bettany still have a career if he's just going to be churning out these terrible rehashes of other memorable movies year-after-year? Somebody talk to his agent... NOW!
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