A great month for a movie date…

With peak awards season now safely in the rearview mirror, it feels like the perfect time to grab a tub of confectionery and gorge on the sort of highly enjoyable blockbusters that will likely never win an Oscar. We love the high-brow, make-you-think, abstract-umentaries, but we also think it’s important to recognise films that celebrate the true purpose of cinema — to entertain. And there’s plenty of that to come in March.

Creed III

Michael B. Jordan makes his directorial debut in this movie. Fortunately, the relationship with his leading man should be a straightforward one, not least because that also happens to be Micheal B. Jordan. This will be the third entry to the Creed storyline, which is a spin-off of the Rocky series of films. The first two strikes set a strong tone with audiences thanks to some pretty impressive ring work. The action in Creed III centres around that classic Rocky formula of pitting the titular character (Jordan) against a charismatic, purposed and equally powerful adversary. This time it’s Creed’s childhood friend (played by a wildly hench-looking Jonathon “Kang” Majors), who after spending a long stretch stewing on post-exit plans in the slammer has come out swinging. You only get one shot.

Champions

Helmed by one-half of the fraternal directorial team that brought us Dumb and Dumber; and There’s Something About Mary — Bobby Farrelly, Champions feels like an altogether more wholesome sort of comedy. Which is probably a good thing because most of the jokes from his early work would probably result in a publicly brutal ‘cancelling’. This film stars Woody Harrelson as a disgraced professional NBA coach who’s ordered to spend his court-appointed community service, looking after a young basketball team whose players all have intellectual disabilities. The trailer teases, some great sparks of humour, and we’re hoping, really aggressively hoping, that this lands with the same energy as the original Mighty Ducks movie, or a slightly more serious DodgeBall. Nothing pulls the heartstrings to quite the same melody as a well-told underdog story. Except maybe dodging a wrench. Or a cancelling.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods

Following the shake-up at DC Studios at the end of last year, few of the brand’s legacy projects looked safe. James Gunn and Peter Safran have officially pulled the plug on the Snyderverse, and are planning a complete Justice League reboot (with *sniffs* a new Kryptonite dodger behind the portrayal of Superman). Our feeling is that this will prove to be a smart move by DC (just sit Gunn’s 2021 The Suicide Squad against David Ayler’s 2016 Suicide Squad). Amongst the movies too far along in production (and with relatively successful seeder films) to cancel, were The Flash; Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom; and Shazam! Fury of the Gods. The latter hits cinemas this March and stars Zachary Levi as the adult half of a character who is able to transform from a child to a superhero. This time around Shazam and his band of merry misfits will be meddling in the apocalyptic affairs of Atlas’ daughters. And, as a high-stakes subplot, this film will essentially be Levi’s very public job application audition.

John Wick: Chapter Four

After this release, we’ll be four movies into what is currently destined to be a five film saga. And you’ll know exactly which end of the care continuum you sit at. At level one there’s ‘your dog died, get over it Keanu’, and at level 10 it’s ‘ready to kick down doors and use pencils in an uncharitable manner to get premiere tickets’. And there aren’t many that would find themselves in limbo between these polar points. The third chapter ends (spoiler) with a wounded John Wick (Keanu Reeves) striking an accord with The Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) to join forces in an effort to take down the shadowy High Table, the puppet masters of international organised crime and purse holders for the global assassin network. And you better hope that by the time John gets to you, he hasn’t run out of bullets.

Luther: The Fallen Sun

In the conclusion of season five, Luther’s (Idris Elba) unconventional, direct-order-disobeying, corruption-defying detective style finally saw our man being stitched up in a fairly ‘pony-looking’ frame job. But he’d already exhausted all friendships and favours in the department by then. So the charges stuck, and our eponymous hero has spent the time between then and now, in jail. Available to stream on Netflix, from March 10, the first feature-length addition to the Luther saga, tells the story of our maverick British investigator escaping from jail, only to go back to work. Without pay. Weird flex but there’s a familiar serial killer running amuck on the streets of London and detectives gonna detect. Could this be the final bow for our favourite Holmes-Bourne hybrid? Only time (and possibly a Bond call-up) will tell, but in the meantime, we beg focus, for dear Dr What’s-On readers — the game is afoot.

Scream VI

The sixth movie in the franchise where if everyone followed the rules clearly set out in the first movie, there wouldn’t have been five sequels. It’s also the first Scream outing sans Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, not because she was killed off after miraculously surviving all previous slash fests, it’s reportedly down to a pay dispute. A real knife to the purse. Jenna “Wednesday Adams” Ortega is amongst the returning, ahem, new blood from 2022’s Scream — one of several characters with familial links to the cast of the original movie. Courtney Cox is back, as is the killer (or killers) carrying out the spree from under a ghost face mask. We’re genuinely looking forward to this latest installment from the series that famously blends jump thrills and soft lols. We’re just a bit peckish, so we’re popping out for popcorn. Don’t worry “we’ll be right back”.

65

This latest film from creative double act Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (the writers of A Quiet Place), 65 stars Adam Driver as a pilot who following a catastrophic crash, lands ungracefully on a mysterious planet. It soon becomes clear that this other world is in fact earth, just 65 million years ago (so like a reverse Planet of the Apes?). This late Cretaceous timeframe puts him up against the most fearsome apex predators (with the arguable, ironic, exception of man) ever to have lived on the earth. It’s also suspiciously close to the touted date for the extinction of most of the planet’s megafauna.

Images: MovieStillsDB