Entertainment / Get Reel Digital: April Hollywood Movies You Must See!

Get Reel Digital: April Hollywood Movies You Must See!

Entertainment Apr 12, 2017

by Matthew Currie

The most intriguing films coming to a cinema or Blu-Ray player near you this month include the return of the Fast & Furious gang, a zombie story like no other and Anne Hathaway as Godzilla (sort of). Check out our list of April Hollywood movies you must see!

In Theatres

The Fate of the Furious (April 14, Universal)

**April Hollywood Movies: Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) is out for blood after Dom’s backstabbery.** Photo Credit: Universal Pictures/ collider.com

You’d think that a billion-dollar action franchise that’s made it a point to get bigger and crazier with each subsequent entry would have trouble upping the ante somewhere around its fifth sequel. But here we are at Fast 8, and the Furious are still finding giddy new heights of high-octane ridiculousness. In the first film made since co-star Paul Walker’s tragic death, the franchise-long theme of “family” is more resonant than ever. It’s all the more shocking when Dom (Vin Diesel) betrays Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and the rest of the crew and joins up with a tech-savvy social anarchist (Charlize Theron).

To recapture their old friend and figure out what the hell’s going on, the crew must team up with old allies (Kurt Russell) and nemeses (Jason Statham) in an adventure that will see them unleashing their signature brand of automotive acrobatics around the globe.

Colossal (April 21, Mongrel Media)

Debuting at TIFF 2016, Timecrimes auteur Nacho Vigalondo’s quirky, mind-bending take on the giant monster movie stars Anne Hathaway as Gloria, a party girl who’s headed nowhere fast. Well, actually, she’s headed back to her hometown because her boyfriend (Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens) just kicked her out, she doesn’t have a job and she’s basically a living, breathing trainwreck. Meanwhile, half a world away in Seoul, South Korea, a gargantuan creature is rampaging through the city, Godzilla-style. It turns out that Gloria and this monster share a direct and inexplicable connection. They both, in their own ways, destroy everything they get close to.

The Lost City of Z (April 21, Elevation Pictures)

Following 2013’s The Immigrant, a sweeping, stirring interrogation of the American dream, director James Gray left himself with a near-impossible act to follow. But by most critics’ estimation, he’s delivered another rich, sumptuously shot historical drama. Here, he delves into the real-life exploits of British explorer Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam), who at the turn of the last century stumbled across the remnants of an advanced indigenous civilization while trekking through the Amazon.

His fellow Britons balked at the notion that there was anything other than savages in the jungle, but Fawcett was resolved to find proof. He spent the rest of his life questing for vindication alongside his wife (Sienna Miller), son (Tom “Spider-Man” Holland) and aide (Robert Pattinson) before meeting a mysterious end.

On Home Video

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Now available, Disney)

A motley crew of rebels, outcasts and defectors (including The Theory of Everything’s Felicity Jones and rising British star Riz Ahmed) band together to steal the plans for the newly completed Death Star in this Dirty Dozen-ish prequel to the original Star Wars: A New Hope. But then, based on the box-office totals when this blockbuster arrived in theatres over the holidays, we’re going to assume most of you are already quite familiar with the plot details. The first of Disney’s standalone Star Wars Stories (which will debut in between the main franchise films) is a bit narratively muddled for much of its runtime. But the heist that unfolds over the last 30 minutes is almost worth the price of admission.

Lion (Now available, eOne)

**April Hollywood Movies: Saroo’s (Dev Patel) obsession with finding his birth mother chips away at his relationship with girlfriend Lucy (Rooney Mara)**. Photo Credit: Lions Gate

The Oscar buzz it drummed up at TIFF was drowned out by La La Land, Moonlight and Manchester By the Sea, but Lion nonetheless put leading man Dev Patel back on Hollywood’s radar. As well it should have! The true story of Saroo Brierley — a lost Indian boy who was adopted by an Australian couple and, remarkably, 20 years later, tracked down the Indian birth mother he barely remembered by scanning Google Earth for landmarks — is not what you’d call a plot-driven affair.

Rather, it relies heavily on Patel’s charisma as well as that of co-stars Rooney Mara and Nicole Kidman to keep Saroo’s melancholic identity crisis—that maddening push and pull between the two families in his life — compelling. And they all rise to the challenge, though you can argue all three are eclipsed by young Sunny Pawar, the five-year-old newcomer who effortlessly anchors the first third of the film all on his own in the role of young Saroo.

The Girl with All the Gifts (April 25, Lions Gate)

**April Hollywood Movies: Melanie (Sennia Nanua, C) is no ordinary zombie.** Photo Credit: tiff.net

After a fungal infection decimates the human race, turning its victims into mindless, ravenous killing machines, it seems humanity’s last hope lies in a remote military base. Here, scientists (led by Glenn Close) and soldiers (led by Paddy Considine) are working to develop a vaccine using a group of anomalous children who’ve all been infected but retain their humanity (as long as you don’t get too close to them). The brightest among them is Melanie (Sennia Nanua). Despite spending her days chained and muzzled to a wheelchair, she’s pretty much an average kid. She loves stories, she loves kittens, and she loves, loves, loves her teacher, Ms. Justineau (Gemma Arterton).

Then the base gets overrun, and Melanie and a handful of survivors must make their way through a treacherous world. It’s here where we’ll find out just who and what Melanie is — and if the human race can or should be saved.

Main Image Photo Credit: Universal Pictures

Matthew Currie

Author

A long-standing entertainment journalist, Currie is a graduate of the Professional Writing program at Toronto’s York University. He has spent the past number of years working as a freelancer for ANOKHI and for diverse publications such as Sharp, TV Week, CAA’s Westworld and BC Business. Currie ...

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Get Reel Digital: April Hollywood Movies You Must See!

by Matthew Currie

Matthew Currie

COMMENTS

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