My 7 Most Anticipated Movies of 2018

With 2018 now officially upon us - for, at least, the past three weeks - I think it's about time to put together my list of...

So far, 2018's been a strangely quiet year for upcoming titles. The current slate doesn't have too much that piques my interest, but there's still enough to base a list on. As the title of this post would suggest, these are the movies that I - personally - am pretty freaking stoked for.

To be clear, this list could be subject to change over time. There's a bunch of movies coming out this year that still haven't been announced yet, and some projects on here could end up cancelled for one reason or another. Hell, I might lose interest in a project if nothing else ever comes of it.

This is also my personal and completely biased list of the movies that I'm most excited for. You might only agree with a handful of entries on this list, or probably disagree with the whole damn thing entirely. That being said, let's break the ice with some...

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The dudes from Workaholics star as a group of room service guys trying to save their hotel from a group of terrorists. It also has Shaggy in it and gets its title from Bill Pullman's famous line from Aliens. How can I not be looking forward to this?

I mean, if the trailer hadn't already sold me on the movie, then the premise alone should. Personally, I like the three leads in here, and there hasn't quite been an outrageously great action-comedy since 22 Jump Street, and I'm hoping Game Over, Man scratches that itch for me.

I didn't exactly find out about BuyBust the way I usually find out about movies. The first thing I'd ever seen or heard about this movie was that they built a huge slum set just to shoot in, and that Anne Curtis-Smith underwent a pretty rigorous training regime just to prepare for her role.

Buy Bust was also directed by the critically-acclaimed director Eric Matti and co-stars Brandon Vera and Nonie Buencamino. The trailer suggests that this could be an intense, claustrophobic action-thriller with some pretty shocking stuff, and I'm pretty pumped to see this when it comes out.

I'm a sucker for biographies, especially when they're about musicians, so a biography about Queen would be something I'm inclined to pay attention to. Bohemian Rhapsody's gone through a pretty arduous production process thus far, dropping Bryan Singer halfway through and replacing him with Dexter Fletcher, but there's still enough talent behind this for me to be pretty damn excited.

The cast for this project is really well put-together - including Rami Malek and Joseph Mazzello - and, given Queen's extensive history, should have a lot of interesting bits to cover. I'm hoping for this to be great, because I'd love to see more biopics about bands from the past.

TOP 7

Let's be honest with ourselves here - the only people who haven't been waiting on The Incredibles 2 have never seen The Incredibles.

Not only was The Incredibles an entertaining superhero movie - in a time when superhero movies weren't even an in-thing yet - but it had incredible action, fantastic characters, and animation that still holds up incredibly well today. It also happened to end on a giant cliffhanger - maybe the biggest cliffhanger in cinema, ever.

I honestly have no idea why it took Pixar so damn long to get this one made, but, now that it's finally on its way, we have good reason to talk about it. If anything, I'm hoping for the same, and a lot more, and I'm really excited to see where they take the story and the beloved characters we got from the first movie. (We also get to see Mrs. Incredible again, which is always a plus.)

Okay, for a movie that hasn't even been released yet, Solo: A Star Wars Story gets way too much flak - in fact, way more than it deserves. Honestly, I don't get why everyone else is so negative about it. Personally, I see a lot of reasons to be excited, especially after we got that awesome trailer.

If nothing else, it's the crew and the people involved in this project that have me all excited. Rush's Ron Howard's in the directorial hot-seat after 22 Jump Street's Phil Lord and Chris Miller dropped out (in dramatic fashion), and Arrival's Bradford Young is manning the cameras. Hell, Empire Strikes Back's Lawrence Kasdan even penned the script for it. That kind of pedigree really does paint an optimistic picture, in my book.

And, personally, something I found very interesting was that my uncle - who, for the record, hated The Last Jedi - is looking forward to this one. Make of that what you will, I'm just leaving it out there. 

Speaking of unreleased movies that get absurd amounts of hate, Sicario 2: Soldado is - to many people - gonna suck because Denis Villeneuve isn't directing. What those people don't know is that Taylor Sheridan (who wrote the first movie) wrote the script for Soldado, and that they got one of the most esteemed directors in Italy to helm the ship.

Directed by Stefano Solima - who made a career out of Mafia stories - and still starring Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin, Soldado looks like it's gonna build on what we loved from Sicario, while telling a fresh, new story. Seeing as I liked the first movie quite a bit, I see no reason for me to not be stoked for this one.

If I still haven't sold you on Soldado yet, I recommend that you do yourself a favor and watch the trailer, or just watch Sicario if you still haven't. Hell, you can even watch this just to get an idea on what to expect.

Goyo: The Young General

I'd actually been waiting on Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral (in English: The Young General) much longer than I'd been waiting on much of the other movies on this list. No joke; the minute Heneral Luna ended, the first thing on my mind was, "So when's the next one coming out?"

All the promotional material points to this coming out later this year, and I'm all the more pumped for it. It's still directed by Jerrold Tarrog (who I happen to really, really like) and has a pretty good cast put together. This one tells the story of Gregorio del Pilar - who, for those who don't know, is a Philly hero who kicked a lot of ass - and, hopefully, was given the same sort of treatment that Heneral Luna got.

As far as Filipino blockbusters go, there are a lot to look forward to, which I think is a good thing. The fact that we're getting blockbusters that feel like actual blockbusters these days is enough to make me happy and excited as a moviegoer. Hopefully, this and BuyBust set the standard high enough for other Filipino big-budget filmmakers to follow.

Honestly speaking, this has to be the most aesthetically-pleasing Spider-Man movie we've ever gotten so far. If you haven't seen the trailer for it yet, do yourself a favor and watch it first, then get back to the rest of this section.

For those of you who have seen the trailer and are as pumped for this as I am, let's get talking about Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse and why I'm absolutely stoked for it. First, the animation in here looks absolutely immaculate - hell, it's some of the best I've seen in years. Second, there's a pretty solid group of people working on this movie together. Peter Ramsey - who directed Rise of the Guardians - makes up one part of the directorial team, while Shameik Moore dons Miles Morales' (animated) suit. Mahershala Ali is also in this movie, and Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were part of the creative team. Honestly, that's a recipe for success if there ever was one.

And, third, this movie already looks like unadulterated eye candy, which is something that the Spiderman movies have always had. Each movie has a scene or a moment of just really great visual story-telling, if not just straight-up great visuals. Hopefully - and it seems likely - Into the Spider-Verse has that eye candy and is packing it by the truckload, because the trailer looks hella promising, and I can't wait to go see it.

I truly am itching to see Annihilation. I absolutely loved director Alex Garland's previous outing Ex Machina - which has sorta become a big inspiration to me - so, when I found out that he had a new movie set to come out in 2018, I was excited. And I mean, e x c i t e d.

I've been trying to avoid plot details as much as possible, and the trailer did a very good job of giving you just enough, but at the same time very little. All I know is that Oscar Isaac and Natalie Portman are in it, and that it looks absolutely gorgeous. There's just something so enthralling about the surrealism of all the visuals I've seen in the trailers, and the more I watch the same trailers over and over again, the more I wanna watch this movie.

I feel like this is one of those times wherein I have to recommend that you watch a certain film to understand where all this hype I'm feeling is coming from, but I just have to. Go watch Ex Machina first, then come back here, watch the trailer to Annihilation, and feel what I'm feeling. I can't wait for this any longer.

Let me get this out of the way: I'm hardly the biggest fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sure, I enjoy many of the movies, but I'm not as sold as everyone else is on the franchise. That, and I find the fanbase to be incredibly entitled and annoying.

That out of the way, I gotta say that Infinity War is shaping up to kick all sorts of ass by the time it comes out. Not only does it look awesome, but it seems as if it's gonna take the crew to difficult places, emotionally. That alone is enough to get me somewhat interested in the movie.

But the most interesting thing that Infinity War's got going for it - at least, in my opinion - is that this could be the movie that positions itself as an actual turning point. This could be the one that has casualties and losses of life, and that could be a concluding chapter for a lot of people. People could die in this movie and, personally, I'm most interested in seeing how this affects the MCU going forward. And that's why Infinity War is my most awaited movie of 2018.

So, those were my personal and very biased picks for my most anticipated movies for 2018. Like I said, this list could be subject to change, with release dates changing and new movies being announced, and all that jazz. But, I wanna know your list of the movies you're looking out for this 2018 - leave a comment, let me know. And, as always, this has been Rafa. Stay classy.