Film Feature: Summer 2011’s 10 Most Anticipated Movie Moments

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Mrs. Weasley vs. Bellatrix Lestrange in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part Two” (July 15)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part Two
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

Forget Harry vs. Voldemort. We already know how that’s going to go down – we’ve been preparing ourselves for it ever since Harry went looking for the Sorcerer’s Stone. The big moment that we’re truly looking forward to in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part Two” is the most earth-shatteringly emotional battle in wizard history – Ron’s mom, Mrs. Molly Weasley, unleashing a mother’s rage all over Helena Bonham Carter’s Death-Eater femme fatale, Bellatrix Lestrange.

ANYONE who’s read “Deathly Hallows” knows what we’re talking about. There’s a moment during the final battle of Hogwarts, where Mrs. Weasley – the model of maternal patience and love throughout the entire Harry Potter series – after witnessing something truly, unspeakably horrible happening to one of her children, EXPLODES into a supernova berserker rage towards the sneering Lestrange, and the aftermath took our breath away. It could be seen as a small moment, a quick wizard v. wizard duel in the midst of a much larger war, but it’s a moment filled with more pain, sadness, fury, and passion than almost any other moment in the entire Potter series.

It’s the moment where we witness the ostensible head of the Weasley clan, the meekest, most decent people in the wizarding world, after seven books of being marginalized and dismissed, suddenly detonate like an atom bomb once her family is finally pushed too far. To put it bluntly, Molly Weasley goes there. We’ve no guarantee that director David Yates has even included this scene in his final cut, but it’s such a primal part of the story’s conclusion that, if he botches it or left it on the editing room floor, it could be the unforgivable Avada Kedavra that kills the Potter finale’s lasting impact.

Chris Evans Going All “Benjamin Button” in “Captain America: The First Avenger” (July 22)

Captain America: The First Avenger
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

When it was announced that Chris Evans was going to be playing Steve Rogers in this summer’s “Captain America: The First Avenger,” an inordinate amount of comic fans immediately began complaining about Evans’ hair color (“But, but, he isn’t blond?!”), which really is an odd complaint. James Cameron can make an entire movie filled with blue people, but fanboys can’t trust that the people behind the “Captain America” movie know where to buy hair dye? It’s a non-issue.

On the other hand, we were really interested to see how director Joe Johnston was going to handle Evans’ transformation from lowly Steve Rogers into Captain America. For those unfamiliar, Steve Rogers starts out as a 90-pound weakling, but, thanks to super-soldier serum, he transforms into the patriotically buff Captain America. Anyone could see that Evans had the necessary musculature to play Cap, but how do you make a 200-pound heavyweight into a stick-thin 4F loser? (Not even Christian Bale could lose that much body mass.)

The answer was, apparently, through special FX, the same kind that transformed Brad Pitt into various ages and shapes throughout David Fincher’s “Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” We saw the first footage of Evans’ transformation in the first Captain America trailer, and the results are equal parts impressive and creepy. Regardless of whatever scheme the Red Skull is up to in The First Avenger – Nazi robots, Cosmic Cube, whatever – we can’t imagine the visuals being any more striking than watching a CGI-ed malnourished Evans with his shirt off. The footage was undeniably intriguing, but we’re mostly interested to see if Evans’ FX-aided performance will appear seamless in the final product, either making us forget that the effects are there in the first place or making us squirm through the whole pre-Cap prologue as the anorexic Steve Rogers wanders into the uncanny valley.

The “Pervasive Scariness” of “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” (August 12)

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
Photo credit: Film District

On the surface, it might seem weird to be looking forward to a summertime horror remake of an old TV movie with Katie Holmes in the lead, but, once you get under the hood of “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” you can understand why it’s got more potential to be epic than any “Saw” or “Paranormal Activity” sequel ever could.

First, it’s written and produced by Guillermo Del Toro – giant stamp of quality there – who co-wrote the movie with writer/director Matthew Robbins, who’s worked on a ton of iconic fanboy projects, ranging from “THX-1138” to “Close Encounters” to “Dragonslayer” to Del Toro’s sadly-unproduced “In the Mountains of Madness.”

Second, the director is Troy Nixey, a first time director, whom geeks will know as the fantastic comic book artist who brought such insane Lovecraftian projects to life as Mike Mignola’s “Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham” and “Jenny Finn.”

And, third, have you seen the trailer yet? It’ll make your skin crawl.

But those undeniable selling features aren’t the REAL reason why we’re so jazzed for this movie. We’re mostly excited about the film’s R-rating. Why? Because “DBAOTD” was NEVER supposed to be rated R. According to Del Toro, “We created Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, thinking we would be safe looking for PG-13 because we had no profanity, no sex, no gore, but we made a very intense movie in a very classical mold. And the MPAA gave it an R. They said the movie was too intense for a PG-13.” In another interview, Del Toro said, “They gave us an R for ‘pervasive scariness.’ We asked them if there’s anything we could do, and they said, ‘Why ruin a perfectly scary movie?’”

THIS is why we’re chomping at the bit to see Don’t Be Afraid. It’s a movie that got an R rating simply because it’s SCARY, really, really scary. The rating can’t be blamed on boobs or blood or any other surface detail. It earned its R because the MPAA thought that, on its merit as a horror film alone, it would MESS UP a thirteen-year-old. And that’s fantastic. That’s the best endorsement of a horror movie we’ve heard in years.

Watching Doctor Who Get His Yankee On in “Fright Night” (August 19)

Fright Night
Photo credit: DreamWorks

Much like “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” we are strangely intrigued by this summer’s forthcoming remake of “Fright Night,” the 1985 classic-ish vampire flick. It’s got a solid team behind the camera – “Lars and the Real Girl” director Craig Gillespie and former “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” writer Marti Noxon; the “vampire next-door” thing is a fun premise; and it has a very respectable cast, including Anton Yelchin (“Star Trek”), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (“Kick-Ass”), Toni Collette, and Colin Farrell taking over the Chris Sarandon role from the original.

However, there’s one other major cast member and it’s his presence that has really put the new “Fright Night” onto fanboys’ radar – David Tennant, the 10th Doctor, and one of the most popular lead actors in the venerable history of the BBC’s “Doctor Who” franchise. Tennant will be taking over the role of Roddy McDowall’s Peter Vincent, with McDowell’s aging horror movie host reimagined as a leather pants-wearing, Criss Angel-esque magician. Tennant is an amazing actor (his “Hamlet” for the Royal Shakespeare Company was fantastic), but our anticipation for his role in “Fright Night” is, regrettably, one part support, one part schadenfreude.

This is Tennant’s first major role in a U.S. film (he briefly turned up in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”), and it’s a tough one. Redoing a venerable Roddy McDowell role as an eyeliner-ed stage magician is a rough feat to pull off, particularly when people already have questions about Tennant’s ability to pull off an American accent. When footage of Tennant’s long-anticipated U.S. TV debut, the pilot “Rex Is Not Your Lawyer,” hit YouTube last year, his American accent was so terrible, no one questioned why NBC didn’t pick it up to series. So, while we’ll be checking out “Fright Night” this summer to revel in ’80s nostalgia and support the man who made us fall in love with the Doctor all over again, there will be a tiny, evil part of us who’ll be anxious to see if Tennant can actually sound American without making us giggle. Here’s hoping that David stakes that nastiness right in the heart the second he opens his mouth.

By TOM BURNS
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
tom@hollywoodchicago.com