Lights, Camera, 2014

Greetings everyone and as promised, here is Monday’s entry of The Magical Mystery Blog.

Despite Hollywood’s descent into unoriginal movie ideas, 2014 looks like an exciting year for movies and film ideas. While this seems like another year filled of retold fantasy stories, a few interesting ideas have managed to slip through the cracks. Here are just some glimpses into movies debuting this year and have attracted tons of attention.

-Maleficent

A few days ago the second trailer for Maleficent was released. This movie focuses on the villain of the iconic Sleeping Beauty story and tells the back story of the horned sorceress. In this teaser we see that at some point, Aurora and Maleficent meet and engage in multiple conversations. In one specific meeting, Maleficent informs the young beauty of an evil that not even she cannot protect her from. Notice the word in that sentence is ‘protect’ – thus giving a new idea to the audience that maybe Maleficent isn't vile, but rather another person defending Aurora much like her father and the fairies.

Throughout the trailer we see that the animated classic is the basis of Maleficent’s history. We see that the castle is kept nearly to the same design as are most of the characters. However, people are already bashing Elle Fanning for being Aurora mostly due to her voice and appearance. I believe that Elle is a fantastic choice because in the original story of Sleeping Beauty, she was fifteen to sixteen. Elle so happens to fit the same age as Aurora and embodies the youthful nature of the princess. This movie is set to hit theaters on May 30th. 

-The Lego Movie

The Lego Movie is just as what the title reads: an entire movie dealing with Legos. Not only are the Legos generic little yellow men and women, but in this film there’s Lego Batman, Abraham Lincoln, and even God (voiced by Morgan Freeman of course). The plot focuses on one average Lego man who stumbles onto something greater and discovers that he plays a rather large part of the Lego world. Although this movie is intended for children, chances are adults and geeks will flock to the theaters on February 7th to see their favorite childhood pastime come to life.

-Guardians of the Galaxy

This movie has received the most hype from Marvel fanatics everywhere. It has also attracted some Whovians due to the fact that Karen Gillan (Amy Pond) will star in this as well. The plot centers around Peter Quill, a man who happens to find himself caught in the war filled cosmos of the Marvelverse.   By his side are the Guardians of the Galaxy including a genetically engineered raccoon, a tree alien of royal descent, a revived human turned killing machine, and a powerful assassin.  Together they take on Nebula, Ronan the Accuser, and the ultimate villain, Thanos. Thanos, for you Marvel lovers, appeared at the end of the first Avengers movie. It’s rumored that the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy may or may not fuse at some point.  If they did, then it would be one colossal movie that would be out of this world. Guardians of the Galaxy will premiere on August 1st. 

-Dumb and Dumber To

Dumb and Dumber was a classic, laugh until your sides hurt comedy featuring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels.  In this sequel, they reunite twenty years later to find one of their children. While the plot sounds all right, the idea of them having families and children raises so many questions. Who would ever fall for them, how was their family life, did they change to fit the role of a father? So many questions, so many days to go until it hits theaters on November 14th.

What movie are you looking forward to? Feel free to comment and as always, feedback and followers are welcomed.