In Movies Hitman: Agent 47 is the story of a genetically engineered assassin who is not terribly happy about his fate. He teams up with a woman who may be the offspring of one of the earlier iterations in his lineage to try to stop a multinational corporation which is out to unlock the secret of his creation and build an army of unstoppable killers. They are the only thing standing between that group and world domination, and the world could really use their help. Sadly, that seems to be all the new releases we get this week in any genre category, but that isn’t terribly surprising considering the holidays were last week, and the buying gifts season is officially over for this year.
There isn’t any genre films on the big screen this weekend as near as I can determine; but that’s OK, because we will have the Doctor Who Christmas Special on Friday instead. This will be the first episode where Alex’s Professor River Song shares the screen with Peter’s incarnation of the Doctor. When you add in that Steven Moffat wrote the script himself, and the director this time has also been directing Sherlock episodes, it is bound to be something special indeed.
In Movies, Dragon Blade is an epic historical fantasy about the battle between the Roman Empire and the ethnically diverse people of 36 countries, some of which would combine with still more nations to become China century’s later, for control of the Silk Road. It stars Jackie Chan, John Cusack and Adrien Brody, and was massively successful in its native China earlier this year. A lot of the critics were not kind to it, but it is worth seeing for the huge battle sequences alone. Also this week, Pan is a retelling of the origins of the classic literary hero who refused to grow up, and it also was not kindly received by many of the critics.
TV has Defiance: Season 3, which is the first major network TV show to be an online game, with the events of each environment impacting the story line of the other. Lots of different Aliens scattered all over the Earth add to the drama and action. Also this week, Dominion: Season 2, one of the few stories where Humanity is under direct threat by the Angels. Strangely enough, there doesn’t seem to be any Anime this week.
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow is a show I have been waiting for, and in a few more weeks it becomes real. Launching on Thursday, January 21st, it takes everything they have been building to in Arrow and Flash and consolidates them into a single program with a multiplex story arch. If it is even half as good as I have been hoping, it should be a world class ensemble superhero show, just like Avengers or X-Men, but owned by the DC team instead of Marvel.
Apocalypse was the mutant who could absorb the powers of other mutants, controlling them until he had drained them dry. After thousands of years he is back, and wants to remake the world as his own plaything. X-Men: Apocalypse will arrive on the big screen on May 27, 2016. I assume no one is surprised that I am looking forward to seeing the latest addition to the franchise, since it just seems to get better every movie from my perspective.
Silly fun at its finest, The Brothers Grimsby is a warning that the only thing more dangerous than the world’s greatest spy is his brother. It will be on the big screen next March 11th.