Movies are rated on the following scale, best to worst: Full Price, Matinee, Rental, TV, or Never.
1. Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope [trailer]
Super Size Me documentarian Morgan Spurlock teams up with Joss Whedon to capture the essence of Comic-Con International in San Diego, which is to say they follow Stan Lee and Kevin Smith around the world’s biggest nerd-fest as they create and crush the dreams of artists, designers, and collectors desperate for validation. Can’t be worse than Fanboys.
Release date: April 6
Geekend rating: Rental
2. The Cabin in the Woods [trailer]
Joss Whedon’s long-delayed deconstruction of the horror genre, as written by Cloverfield scribe Drew Goddard and Whedon, wherein a group of attractive 20-somethings are trapped in a mysterious cabin that adapts to torment and murder them. Think Scream meets Cube by way of Dollhouse. (That means “good.”)
Release date: April 13
Geekend rating: Matinee
3. Lockout [trailer]
Guy Pearce collects a paycheck as the sociopathic superspy with a heart of gold sent to rescue the President’s daughter (Maggie Grace) held hostage during a prison riot in space. Yes, that does read exactly like Diehard retold by a sucrose-overdosed five-year-old, which is pretty much what the trailer promises.
Release date: April 13
Geekend rating: Never
4. The Moth Diaries [trailer]
The writer/director of American Psycho cashes in on the teen vampire craze with the story of a boarding school orphan whose weirdly erotic friend might be undead, or simply a manipulative psychopath. Think Lost & Delirious meets Let The Right One In, only creepier and more exploitative.
Release date: April 20
Geekend rating: Rental
5. The Raven [trailer]
John Cusack plays Edgar Allen Poe as the author tracks down a serial killer inspired by his writings — as directed by V For Vendetta‘s James McTeigue. The studio bumped it from early March to late April because early screenings did well, so it may not be as awful as it sounds.
Release date: April 27
Geekend rating: TV
6. The Pirates! Band of Misfits [trailer]
Another March release bumped into April because the feedback was positive, though it’s unclear how anyone could have doubted the studio behind Wallace & Gromit doing a claymation version of Gideon Defoe’s cleverly fun The Pirates! children’s book series. Goofball swashbucklers battle rivals for the Pirate of the Year award, defeating Queen Victoria and teaming up with Charles Darwin along the way. Yes, please.
Release date: April 27
Geekend rating: Matinee
7. The Avengers [trailer]
The culmination of Marvel Studios’ years-in-the-making superhero meta-franchise, wherein Iron Man, Captain America, The Hulk, Thor, and Samuel L. Jackson (disguised as Nick Fury) agree to let Joss Whedon direct their first big-budget big-screen team up. Pinch yourself, comics geeks, ’cause you ain’t dreaming.
Release date: May 4
Geekend rating: Full Price
8. Dark Shadows [trailer]
Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and a surprisingly solid supporting cast team up for a campy big-screen remake of the 1970s quasi-horror soap opera of the same name. Depp plays Barnabas Collins, an 18th century English lord cursed with undeath and revived in 1972 — with all that it implies. (It implies goofiness. Lots of goofiness.)
Release date: May 11
Geekend rating: Rental
9. Battleship [trailer]
Peter Berg (the guy who directed Hancock) somehow gets a few hundred million dollars to turn the old Hasbro board game into a giant Transformers-style brain-dead plot-optional action-fest (they have a budget for four hyphenated terms). Yes, Hollywood is officially out of ideas.
Release date: May 18
Geekend rating: Never
10. Chernobyl Diaries [trailer]
A classic horror premise in a mildly novel setting. Six tourists hire an unethical guide to show them around the irradiated remains of Chernobyl, only to discover they’re being stalked through the abandoned ruins. Don’t let the Oren Peli producer credit fool you (he made Paranormal Activity); this one is low-budget and run by first-timers, so it could be either genius or garbage.
Release date: May 25
Geekend rating: TV
11. Men in Black III [trailer]
A completely unnecessary sequel, which sees Will Smith sent back in time to the 1960s where he encounters Josh Brolin doing an uncanny Tommy Lee Jones impression. Also, there may be some awkward racial jokes, because those worked out so well in Wild Wild West. You’ve been warned.
Release date: May 25
Geekend rating: TV
12. Piranha 3DD [trailer]
Sequel to the gratuitously bloody, puerile, and campy Piranha 3D. Somehow, the producers have amped the sex, violence, and irreverence up even more, which is to say this is a feature-length R-rated Robot Chicken sketch filmed in widescreen live-action 3D. Should be fun, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Release date: June 1
Geekend rating: TV
13. Snow White and the Huntsman [trailer]
Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, and Charlize Theron emo up the classic fairy tale for the Twilight set, as overseen by a rookie director relying heavily on green screen technology. Think Immortals meets The Brothers Grimm, for better and for worse.
Release date: June 1
Geekend rating: Never
14. Prometheus [trailer]
Ridley Scott’s three-decades-in-the-making prequel to Alien, with an all-star cast headlined by Charlize Theron, Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, and Guy Pearce teaming up to divine the origin of humankind, and possibly the xenomorphs, too. It looks every bit as awesome as you always hoped it would be.
Release date: June 8
Geekend rating: Full Price
15. Safety Not Guaranteed [trailer]
A group of journalism interns seek out the man who posted a classified ad looking for partners for a time travel expedition. An indie-licious cast anchored by Aubrey Plaza give this plenty of quirky street cred. Think K-PAX crossed with Little Miss Sunshine, only as a date movie.
Release date: June 8
Geekend rating: Rental
16. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter [trailer]
No, seriously, what if the Great Emancipator had spent his pre-Presidential youth scouring the wilds of 19th century America for nosferatu? It’s Hellboy meets The Patriot by way of Bubba Ho-Tep, with all the historical respect and gravitas you’d expect from that breed of cinema.
Release date: June 22
Geekend rating: Rental
17. Brave [trailer]
Pixar’s first feature starring a female protagonist chronicles a young Scottish highland princess’s quest to prove herself a warrior. Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson, and Kelly Macdonald round out a solid voice cast for another guaranteed heartwarming hit.
Release date: June 22
Geekend rating: Matinee
18. Seeking A Friend for the End of the World [trailer]
When an impending asteroid strike threatens to wipe out all life on earth, Steve Carell decides to spend his last days on a road trip with Keira Knightley (there are worse coping mechanisms). I have no idea who thought Date Night needed to be mashed up with Deep Impact, but I admire the chutzpah.
Release date: June 22
Geekend rating: Rental
19. Beasts of the Southern Wild [director’s featurette]
The story of a young Louisiana girl struggling to save her father from an environmental catastrophe she believes she caused, complete with revived prehistoric monsters. Why, yes, this was a Sundance Film Festival darling.
Release date: June 29
Geekend rating: Rental
20. G.I. Joe: Retaliation [trailer]
Adrianne Palicki, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Bruce Willis(!) headline the sequel to 2009’s aggressively stupid G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. The good news? Almost the entire cast of the last movie is killed in the first reel of this one (except Ray Park’s Snake Eyes, of course). The bad news? The previous sentence included the word “almost.”
Release date: June 29
Geekend rating: Never
Read about geek flicks that will hit U.S. cinemas between July and September 2012.
21. The Amazing Spider-Man [trailer]
500 Days of Summer director Marc Webb (seriously) reboots the webslinger to a version more consistent with his comic book origins (read: mechanical webshooters), only with more angst and conspiracy (read: all the weird quasi-canon spy stuff with Peter Parker’s parents). The Social Network‘s Andrew Garfield taps in for Spidey, with Emma Stone in place as Gwen Stacy, the webhead’s original girlfriend. Attendance is mandatory.
Release date: July 3
Geekend rating: Full Price
22. Ice Age 4: Continental Drift [trailer]
The same basic Ice Age formula, only this time the Mammoth-Sabretooth-Sloth trio is set adrift on an iceberg to battle prehistoric pirates. More importantly, the proto-squirrel is still chasing its Sisyphean acorn. If you liked the last three, you’ll like this one.
Release date: July 13
Geekend rating: TV
23. Ted [NSFW trailer]
Family Guy‘s Seth MacFarlane directs Mark Wahlberg as a guy whose boyhood wish was for his teddy bear to come to life, but now has to live with that decision as an adult courting Mila Kunis. Imagine if Stepbrothers was somehow horribly crossed with Winnie The Pooh. If you dig MacFarlane’s animated work, you’ll probably get a mildly shameful kick out of his live-action debut.
Release date: July 13
Geekend rating: TV
24. The Dark Knight Rises [trailer]
The epic conclusion to Christopher Nolan’s mature, topical, and challenging take on Batman. This time around, Christian Bale’s Dark Knight must face off with Tom Hardy’s Bane, the supervillain who broke his spine and nearly destroyed Gotham — with Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman along for the ride. Whereas the last film was a meditation on the post-9/11 anti-terror state, Nolan’s endpiece tackles the dark underpinnings of post-financial crisis civil unrest — only with flying cars and spandex kung-fu fights. Very likely the geek movie of the year, if not the decade. See you there.
Release date: July 20
Geekend rating: Full Price
25. Neighborhood Watch [trailer]
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg penned this send-up of alien invasion films, which sees Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Jonah Hill form a bumbling neighborhood watch group that stumbles on an otherworldly plot to wipe out humankind. The Trayvon Martin case may force the studio to delay the release, but if and when it premieres, expect Attack the Block by way of Superbad.
Release date: July 27
Geekend rating: TV
26. The Bourne Legacy [trailer]
The fourth installment of the Bourne franchise has Jeremy Renner step in for Matt Damon as the brainwashed CIA superspy gone rogue. Edward Norton tries to ride herd on Renner’s Bourne 2.0, with Rachel Weisz as the requisite female lead. Awesome stunts are guaranteed, and the cast is so sterling that even a mediocre script will likely deliver.
Release date: Aug. 3
Geekend rating: Matinee
27. Total Recall [trailer]
Colin Farrell stars in and Die Hard 4‘s Len Wiseman directs a from-the-ground-up remake of the classic Philip K. Dick story of a man whose storebought memories cause him to lose contact with reality, or perhaps finally clue him in to the conspiracy he may have helped create. Unfortunately, they’ve dumped all the space opera elements that made the 1990 Paul Verhoeven/Schwarzenneger version a quasi-campy classic.
Release date: Aug. 3
Geekend rating: Rental
28. The Odd Life of Timothy Green [trailer]
It’s not often you see someone try to remix the old Monkey’s Paw premise as a heartwarming family film, but that’s Disney for you. (It can’t be harder than making an upbeat kid-friendly Hunchback of Notre Dame.) A childless couple bury a box of wishes for a perfect son, only to have a boy apparently spring forth in answer to their prayers — with some magical baggage, of course.
Release date: Aug. 15
Geekend rating: TV
29. ParaNorman [trailer]
Imagine The Sixth Sense as a knockoff Tim Burton claymation horror-comedy. A nerdy, misunderstood kid who can speak with the dead must somehow save his hometown from a zombie uprising. If you liked Coraline and The Nightmare Before Christmas, you’ll like this.
Release date: Aug. 17
Geekend rating: Rental
30. The Apparition [no trailer yet]
Carter from Gossip Girl (Sebastian Stan), Alice from Twilight (Ashley Greene), and Draco from Harry Potter (Tom Felton) cash in on their emo-teen street cred for a half-hearted ripoff of Flatliners. Three college kids are hunted by a poltergeist they summoned during a college experiment. The absence of a trailer and the fact this film is dumped unpromoted at the end of August are all bad, bad signs.
Release date: Aug. 24
Geekend rating: Never
31. The Possession [no trailer yet]
Kyra Sedgwick and Jeffrey Dean Morgan cash paychecks in this low-budget horror flick about a girl who buys a puzzle box containing an evil spirit. If that sounds like the plot of every third direct-to-video scare film from the 1980s, then your expectations are properly set. Stop me if you’ve heard this one: The absence of a trailer and the fact this film is dumped unpromoted at the end of August are all bad, bad signs.
Release date: Aug. 31
Geekend rating: Never
32. 7500 [trailer]
Remember that old Twilight Zone episode where William Shatner (or, for you film fans, John Lithgow) saw a demon on the wing of an airplane? What if the demon was a Japanese-horror-style monster, and it was inside the plane? That’s 7500, as directed by the guy who gave us The Grudge. More simply, it’s Snakes on a Plane meets The Ring. Yikes.
Release date: Aug. 31
Geekend rating: TV
33. Argo [no trailer yet]
Ben Affleck directs and stars in the true story of a group of CIA agents who rescue six Americans held during the Iranian Hostage crisis — by pretending to film a sci-fi movie in Tehran. Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston, and John Goodman anchor a top-to-bottom stellar cast, though whether Affleck has the chops to pull this off is up for debate. It’s worth finding out.
Release date: Sept. 14
Geekend rating: Rental
34. Resident Evil: Retribution [trailer]
Five movies in and Milla Jovovich is still waging a plot-free eye-candy global war against the Umbrella Corporation and the mutant zombie plague it unleashed. If you liked the last four, you’ll like this one — though at this point, we’re really starting to judge you.
Release date: Sept. 14
Geekend rating: Never
35. Dredd [no trailer yet]
Karl Urban stars in this decidedly less campy adaptation of the classic British comic book antihero future-cop. For those unfamiliar, Dredd is a law enforcer in a post-apocalyptic dystopia where the police are judge, jury, and executioner. This time around, he faces off with Lena Headey as a druglord peddling reality-altering intoxicants. You had me at “there’s no Rob Schneider.”
Release date: Sept. 21
Geekend rating: Matinee
36. Hotel Transylvania [trailer]
Apparently, Dracula decided to make a little extra scratch running a hotel where classic movie monsters can get relief from the torches and pitchforks crowd. The good news is that animation genius Genndy Tartakovsky is behind the wheel. The bad news is Adam Sandler is voicing the lord of vampires, with Kevin James tagging along as Frankenstein’s monster.
Release date: Sept. 21
Geekend rating: TV
37. House at the End of the Street [trailer]
Elisabeth Shue and Jennifer Lawrence are the mother-daughter duo who make the mistake of moving next door to a family where a teenage boy was the sole survivor of his sister’s family killing spree. The usual supernatural creepiness ensues. The film’s release date was pushed twice, though whether that’s a sign of poor quality or just the marketing department’s desire to cash in on Lawrence’s Hunger Games cachet is unclear. Either way, there’s nothing new to see here.
Release date: Sept. 21
Geekend rating: Never
38. Looper [trailer]
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a futuristic mob enforcer who assassinates victims shunted into the past. Unfortunately, his latest target is his future self, played by Bruce Willis. Trippy time paradox chase sequences ensue. Think The Professional by way of Primer and Inception. Could be awesome, could be Timecop.
Release date: Sept. 28
Geekend rating: Matinee
Which movie most whets your appetite, and which films are certain stink-bombs (though the two categories are not mutually exclusive)? Sound off in the comments section.