Stephen Jones - Best New Horror #26

Tom Cruise’s cowardly propagandist found himself in a time-loop, dying over and over again alongside Emily Blunt’s seasoned soldier in a war against alien invaders in Doug Liman’s surprisingly inventive 3-D Edge of Tomorrow . A cross between a Philip K. Dick nightmare and Groundhog Day , it was based on a Japanese graphic novel and retitled Live Die Repeat for its Blu-ray release. To promote the film, Cruise and Blunt attended premieres in London, Paris and New York during a twenty-four hour period.

Actor and director Noel Clarke’s latest low budget British SF movie The Anomaly , in which he played a former soldier switching between two parallel existences, boasted a supporting cast that included Ian Somerhalder, Brian Cox and Luke Hemsworth.

Having apparently never read Donovan’s Brain or seen Colossus: The Forbin Project , Johnny Depps’ dying scientist uploaded his consciousness into an omnipotent super-computer in the Christopher Nolan-produced Transcendence , with depressingly predictable results. Meanwhile, Christopher Waltz’s near-future computer genius was tasked with proving that existence itself was meaningless in Terry Gilliam’s bewildering The Zero Theorem .

Set on the titular train circling the globe in a frozen future, Boon Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer featured Chris Evans, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton and Jamie Bell. Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson starred in the post-apocalyptic thriller The Rover , set in the Australian outback.

Three friends driving to California tracked down a mysterious signal and ended up in a secret high-tec facility run by Laurence Fishburne in The Signal .

In Mike Cahill’s thoughtful low budget I Origins , a research biologist (Michael Pitt) discovered an anomaly in the human eye that could prove the existence of reincarnation.

Brick Mansions , an inferior remake of the French film District 13 (2004), starred the late Paul Walker in his final completed film as a narcotics cop on the trail of a drug lord (RZA) with a nuclear bomb in a near-future Detroit housing project.

Patrick Wilson, Liv Tyler, Jerry O’Connell and Keir Dullea starred in Jack Plotnick’s 1970s retro sc-fi spoof, Space Station 76 .

Frank Pavich’s superb documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune looked at the Chilean director’s “lost” mid-1970s movie version of Frank Herbert’s classic SF novel, with fascinating commentary from a sprightly 85-year-old Alejandro Jodorowsky, Chris Foss, Gary Kurtz, H.R. Giger, Richard Stanley and others.

Jennifer Lawrence’s personality-free Katniss Everdeen became a symbol of the revolution against the totalitarian government of President Snow (Donald Sutherland) in Francis Lawrence’s overblown second sequel The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I , based on the best-selling young adult novel by Suzanne Collins. The film was dedicated to the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Neil Burger’s Divergent , set in a segregated future world ruled by Kate Winslet’s sinister official, was adapted from Veronica Roth’s best-selling YA series, while a group of teens with their memories erased found themselves competing to escape from a deadly enclosed environment in The Maze Runner , based on James Dashner’s series of YA books.

Mankind’s past memories were downloaded into the memory of a boy (newcomer Brenton Thwaites) in Phillip Noyce’s The Giver , based on the 1993 YA novel by Lois Lowry. It featured Meryl Streep (in her first bad wig film of the year) as the leader of a not-so-perfect dystopian future, and singer Taylor Swift turned up in a cameo.

Two friends (Zoey Deutch and Lucy Fry) were returned to a secret boarding school for teenage bloodsuckers in the box-office flop Vampire Academy , based on Richelle Mead’s series of young adult books.

Peter Jackson finally brought his overblown trilogy to a satisfying conclusion in the action-packed The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies , which again featured Christopher Lee as the evil wizard “Saruman”.

Based on Mark Helprin’s 1983 romantic reincarnation novel, Winter’s Tale (aka A New York Winter’s Tale ) starred Colin Farrell, a flying white horse and a demonic Russell Crowe.

Directed by Renny Harlin, who had an estimated budget of $70 million at his disposal, the truly awful The Legend of Hercules had little to do with the Greek myth beyond the wooden hero (Kellan Lutz) being the son of Zeus.

The same could also be said of the other two films about the character released in 2014. Based on a graphic novel and released in 3-D, Brett Ratner’s Hercules featured Dwayne Johnson as the mythological demi-god, supported by a cast that included Ian McShane, John Hurt, Rufus Sewell and Joseph Fiennes. Meanwhile, former WWE wrestler John Hennigan played the fallen hero in Hercules Reborn , which thankfully went directly to DVD.

At least Paul W.S. Anderson’s Pompeii had Mount Vesuvius erupting fireballs in 3-D, despite numerous historical and geographical goofs, and Russell Crowe’s gruff patriarch had to deal with a pesky apocalyptic flood in Darren Aronofsky’s controversial Noah . As if all that water wasn’t bad enough, he also had to contend with Ray Winstone’s scheming villain, Anthony Hopkins as an ancient Methuselah and giant stone monsters called “Watchers”.

Angelina Jolie starred in Disney’s Maleficent , which re-imagined the vengeful sorceress from Sleeping Beauty as a misunderstood feminist with an impressive pair of horns.

Set in London’s British Museum, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb concluded the family fantasy trilogy starring Ben Stiller as museum security guard Larry Daley with support from, amongst others, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Ricky Gervais, Ben Kingsley, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Matt Frewer and an uncredited Hugh Jackman.

Meryl Streep wore another fright-wig as the blue-haired witch in Rob Marshall’s lively adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s 1987 revisionist fairy tale musical Into the Woods . Johnny Depp turned up as a creepy big bad wolf.

Chris Evans returned as Marvel Comics’ super-soldier in the superior sequel Captain America: The Winter Soldier , which earned more than $200 million domestically in just three weeks. After Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) was apparently assassinated, Captain America teamed up with Black Widow (the busy Scarlett Johansson) and The Falcon (Anthony Mackie) to uncover a plot by HYDRA to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. from the inside. The impressive supporting cast included Robert Redford, Toby Jones and Jenny Agutter.

Meanwhile, James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy was based on a lesser-known Marvel Comics title. A likeable Chris Pratt starred as Peter Quill, who was kidnapped by space pirates in the 1980s. Now a grown-up thief, he teamed up with a group of alien misfits (including a genetically-modified racoon and a walking tree, voiced by Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel respectively) to prevent a mystical orb falling into the hands of an alien warlord. For those who stayed for the end credits, there was also a surprise appearance by Howard the Duck.

In a crossover between the two earlier movie series, Bryan Singer’s convoluted X-Men: Days of Future Past , the latest in the Marvel mutant franchise, saw Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) sent back in time to 1973 by Professor X (Patrick Stewart) to recruit the younger Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) in a battle against the robot Sentinels, created by Peter Dinklage’s Dr. Trask.

Director Singer was forced to pull out of doing publicity for the film following a false teen sex abuse lawsuit filed against him in April.