Kaboom. These are the guys that toss a lit cigar at a gas station.

Here’s the breakdown of the biggest and best new action movies, 2014.

– JANUARY –
Lone Survivor
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Eric Bana, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster
Director: Peter Berg
Out: 10 January 2014 (U.S. Release Dates)

In 2005, four-man ‘SEAL Team 10’ is tasked with capturing or killing a notorious Taliban leader. But the mission goes spectacularly wrong, and despite rescue being on the way the result is a considerable loss of American life. Based on the true story, this was adapted by director Peter Berg several years back while he was embedded with a SEAL team in Iraq. He couldn’t get studio support to make it then without agreeing to helm ‘Battleship’ first. Consensus is it’s uncompromising, brutal and paints a vivid picture of the challenges fighting in Afghanistan. In other words, it’s given ‘Battleship’ a reason for existing. [Critics (via Rotten Tomatoes): 75%] [Public (via IMDB): 7.7] – Excellent

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
Starring: Chris Pine, Kenneth Branagh, Keira Knightley, Kevin Costner
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Out: 17 January 2014

A young covert CIA analyst (Pine) uncovers a Russian plot to crash the U.S. economy with a terrorist attack. Knightley plays his fiancé, Branagh is the Russian oligarch villain, Costner the CIA liaison. This is the first Jack Ryan movie not based off one of Tom Clancy’s novels. They’ve already tried to reboot the series with Ben Affleck to little effect. Chris Pine, despite a couple of interesting early roles, has become a dull leading man and isn’t a patch on Harrison Ford, or the Alec Baldwin/Sean Connery team-up that were the cornerstones of the earlier movies. This a serviceable thriller, and Costner is always watchable, but its without any high points whatsoever, every sequence has been done better elsewhere. They’ve forgotten how to make an analyst interesting, instead effectively turning Ryan into a bland Bond. [Critics: 55%] [Public: 6.2] – Ok

I, Frankenstein
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Yvonne Strahovski, Bill Nighy, Miranda Otto
Director: Stuart Beattie
Out: 24 January 2014

Frankenstein’s creature (Eckhart) has survived to present day due to a genetic quirk in his creation, and is now an intelligent, evolved man. Making his way to a dark, gothic metropolis, he finds himself caught in an all-out, centuries old war between two immortal clans. Soon he is being hunted by demons wanting to learn the secret of his creation to build an army of the undead. Otto plays the queen of the gargoyles. Nighy is the film’s villain, a former angel who descended with Satan. It’s an adaptation of the graphic novel, from the producers of ‘Underworld’. Director Stuart Beattie is an established screenwriter (‘Collateral’, ’30 Days Of Night’) who recently made a shaky directing debut with ‘Tomorrow, When The War Began’. The lead actors did 3 months of martial arts training. If ‘Underworld’ was your thing, expect this to have a similar tone. Reviews have been absolutely dreadful. [Critics: 4%] [Public: 5.2] – Avoid

– FEBRUARY –
Robocop
Starring: Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Sam Jackson, Abbie Cornish
Director: José Padilha
Out: 12 February 2014

Joel Kinnaman (TV’s ‘The Killing’) is the new Alex Murphy and the plot’s still about a crime-ridden city, this time in 2046, where a fatally wounded cop returns to the force as a powerful cyborg, haunted by submerged memories. However Robocop himself looks and acts very differently to the 1987 original – there will be no twitchy robotic moves. This version focuses much more on the transitional phase, about a man becoming part-machine. Oldman plays the scientist overseeing the transformation, Keaton is the possibly-villainous CEO, Jackson is a powerful TV mogul, Cornish is Murphy’s wife who’s led to believe her husband is dead. From the director of Brazil’s highest grossing movie of all time, ‘Elite Squad’. This is a solid effort made with the right intentions, and definitely more intelligent than it looks with a string of clever updates. Still by focusing more on the disability and emotional relationships it’s also more downbeat and overall not as badass/satisfying as the original. [Critics: 48%] [Public: 6.3] – Good

Pompeii
Starring: Kit Harington, Emily Browning, Carrie-Anne Moss, Kiefer Sutherland, Jared Harris
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Out: 21 February 2014

In 79 A.D. a slave turned invincible gladiator (Kit Harington, ‘Game of Thrones’) finds himself in a race against time to save his true love (Emily Browning), the beautiful daughter of a wealthy merchant who has been unwillingly betrothed to a corrupt Roman Senator (Kiefer Sutherland). As Mount Vesuvius erupts in a torrent of blazing lava, Milo must fight his way out of the arena in order to save his beloved as the once magnificent Pompeii crumbles around him…. Aiming for the ‘Titanic’ action-romance-in-midst-of-disaster-tragedy, this is coming from dreaded director Paul W.S. Anderson (‘Resident Evil’, ‘Alien vs. Predator’, ‘The Three Musketeers’). With a bland pair of leads, there’s little chance it’ll be anything more than mildly entertaining. [Critics: 29%] [Public: 5.6] – Mediocre

3 Days To Kill
Starring: Kevin Costner, Amber Heard, Hailee Steinfeld, Connie Nielsen
Director: McG
Out: 21 February 2014

A dying Secret Service Agent (Costner) who has retired to reconnect with his estranged daughter (Steinfeld – ‘True Grit’) is offered an experimental drug that could save his life in return for one last assignment. Now he must complete the mission while coping with the drug’s hallucinatory side effects. McG is directing. Luc Besson’s production company (‘Taken’, ‘From Paris with Love’, ‘Transporter’) is behind it, and Besson also co-wrote the script. It’s similar to those movies in budget and ambition. It lacks the pace and energy of ‘Taken’, this time the mix of violence and family sentimental drama don’t click as they should. It sorely lacks decent villains or any sense of threat. It’s overlong by 20 minutes with extended stretches of sub-par family-drama, enough to make you forget it’s an action movie. When the action comes it’s immaturely-written with Amber Heard in a cartoony performance spouting some of the worst lines I’ve heard all year. It’s nice to see Costner back as leading man in a thriller, he has star power, but deserves better. [Critics: 29%] [Public: 6.2] – Ok

More 2014 Action Movies (MARCH) >

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