Welcome back to Rhode Island Movie Corner’s year-long
preview of the films that will be hitting theaters in 2015. This is Part 4 of
12 and today we’re looking at the upcoming releases for the month of April.
While the summer movie season technically starts in May, many people believe
that it’s slowly beginning to move back a month or two considering the fact
that a lot of big-name blockbusters are starting to get released in the months
of March and April. However, to be perfectly honest, this month’s lineup is a
little light in terms of new releases. There’s literally only one major wide
release each for the first two weeks of the month. But that’s not going to stop
us from taking a look at what’s coming out this month, so let’s get started as
we look into the films of April 2015.
APRIL 3- Only one wide release this week, but it’s a big one with a
lot of buzz surrounding it. Unfortunately, not all of it for the right reasons.
*James Wan (‘The Conjuring’, ‘Saw’, ‘Insidious’) takes over
directing duties from Justin Lin for ‘Furious 7’, the seventh entry in the
highly successful ‘Fast and the Furious’ franchise. In this film, Dominic
Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew find themselves being hunted by Deckard Shaw
(Jason Statham), the brother of ‘Fast and Furious 6’ villain Owen Shaw, who
seeks revenge for his brother’s death. The main cast of the series (Paul
Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson,
among others) reprise their roles from the previous films, joined in this film
by Lucas Black (reprising his role as Sean Boswell from the third entry, ‘Tokyo
Drift’), Nathalie Emmanuel, Ronda Rousey, and Kurt Russell, among others.
Of course, as you all know, this film was marred by tragedy
in November 2013, when star Paul Walker died in a car crash while on break from
shooting this film. Since then, production was put on a short hiatus before
filming resumed, with this film now set to retire his character Brian O’Connor.
APRIL 10- Yet again, only one wide release but I’ll also throw in
another noteworthy film coming out this weekend.
*The newest adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel, ‘The
Longest Ride’ stars Britt Robertson and Scott Eastwood as a college student and
ex-champion bull rider, respectively, who fall in love and end up helping an
older man (Alan Alda) when he ends up in a car accident. Their lives become
connected to the man when he starts to reminisce about his wife.
*Also hitting theaters this weekend (though not listed as a
‘wide’ release on Box Office Mojo) is ‘Ex-Machina’, the directorial debut of
writer Alex Garland (‘Dredd’, ’28 Days Later’). The film centers around a
computer programmer (Domhnall Gleeson) who is selected to come to the reclusive
mountain home of a famous tech CEO (Oscar Issac). While there, he is informed
that he going to perform a ‘Turing Test’ on a humanoid android A.I. named Ava
(Alicia Vikander).
APRIL 17- Seems like this was the prime spot this month as four (!)
new wide releases debut.
*Based on the novel of the same name by Tom Rob Smith, ‘Child
44’ stars Tom Hardy as an MGB agent in the Stalin-era of the Soviet Union who
investigates into a series of child murders. The film also stars Noomi Rapace,
Joel Kinnaman, Jason Clarke, and Gary Oldman.
*Disneynature’s newest film, ‘Monkey Kingdom’, centers on a
family of monkeys who must find a new home when their old home is overrun by
another tribe of monkeys. The film is narrated by Tina Fey.
*Kevin James reprises his role of mall cop Paul Blart in
‘Paul Blart Mall Cop 2’, the sequel to 2009’s surprise commercial hit ‘Paul
Blart Mall Cop’. In this film, Blart and his daughter Maya take a vacation to
Las Vegas where Blart once again finds himself in the middle of a takeover
situation, this time of the hotel that he and his daughter are staying at.
*The newest horror film from Blumhouse Productions (their second
in three months following February’s ‘The Lazarus Effect’), ‘Unfriended’ takes
place a year after a high school student named Laura Barns killed herself after
being mercilessly mocked online over a video of her passed out while at a
party. When six of her former classmates have a Skype conversation on the
anniversary of her death, they soon find themselves having to deal with a
mysterious 7th person who joins the conversation on Laura’s old account.
This mysterious stranger then proceeds to threaten them with death if any of
them log out of Skype.
APRIL 24- And finally we have a pair of dramas to close out the
month.
*Blake Lively stars in ‘The Age of Adaline’ in which she
plays a woman who, following a car accident, ends up being stricken with
‘immortality’, never aging past 27 for eight decades. The film also stars Ellen
Burstyn and Harrison Ford.
*Finally there’s ‘Little Boy’, in which a young boy tries to
find a way to end World War II so that his father can come home. The film stars
Kevin James, Emily Watson, and Tom Wilkinson.
And those are the films set to come in April 2015. Thanks
for reading and check back next month for Part 5 of this year-long preview as
we officially start off the summer movie season with the films of May.
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