February Movie Preview: Celebrate Valentine’s With British Zombies & Profane Superheroes

You can learn a lot about a new boyfriend/girlfriend by which movie they suggest you go see on Valentine’s Day. This year’s slate of February movies is pretty broad too. So there is a lot to choose from. If your date suggests Deadpool, they’re probably a keeper. If they suggest seeing Star Wars again, marry them immediately. Here’s our February movie preview.

From Sparks to Caesar!

February 5th– The Choice, Hail, Caesar!, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

With The Choice hitting theaters, it marks the fifth straight year a movie based on a Nicholas Sparks novel has terrorized boyfriends everywhere. In fact it’s the eleventh overall Sparks adaptation. That is a lot of southern US based love stories filled with tragedy and intrigue. The Choice fits that description with Benjamin Walker and Teresa Palmer playing the leads.

From the Coen brothers, Hail, Caesar! is an over the top look at 1950s Hollywood. George Clooney plays a movie star (what a stretch) who gets kidnapped during the production of an expensive film. So it’s up to a Hollywood fixer, played by Josh Brolin, to get him back without the public catching wind of it. Channing Tatum, Scarlett Johansson and Jonah Hill also star in the film full of Hollywood stars playing Hollywood stars.

Now this is a Valentine’s Day date movie I can get behind. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a retelling of the classic Jane Austen story, but this time there are zombies around. Lily James, who played Cinderella last year, now takes on Elizabeth Bennet. I don’t remember her being so good with a sword in the original. But maybe I missed that part.

February 12th– Deadpool, How to Be Single, Zoolander No. 2

It seems like Ryan Reynolds has been dropping NSFW sound bytes as the “Merc with a Mouth” in trailers forever now. But we’re finally going to get to see Deadpool this month. After a questionable experiment, a terminally ill Special Forces operative gains healing powers. That may be the official description, but we all know it’s actually a superhero movie where the hero is ultra-violent and kind of a jerk. Sounds awesome.

How to Be Single teams up Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Alison Brie, and Leslie Mann. As the title suggests, the hardships of dating have the leads seeking a change. The trailers aren’t totally clear if this is an anti-Valentine’s Day/ girl’s night out movie or if everyone ends up in a relationship at the end. But either way, it’s billed as a comedy, so it should give some laughs.

Ever since the original in 2001, there have been quiet rumblings of people itching for a Zoolander sequel. But now that Zoolander No. 2 is here, I don’t see that much excitement. Well I’ve laughed at the trailers, so I’m excited. After some of the world’s most beautiful celebrities are killed while sporting Derek Zoolander’s (Ben Stiller) “Blue Steel” pose, the model and his partner Hansel (Owen Wilson) are recruited by Interpol to help find the culprit.

February 19th– Race, Risen, The Witch

Telling the story of Olympic champion Jesse Owens (Stephan James) during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Nazi Germany, Race is one of those sports dramas that is about more than just what happens in the event. In this case it’s the fact that you have an African American dominating the sport while competing in front of Hitler, an Aryan supremacist. See what they did with the title of the movie? It’s about a running race, but also about race and racism. (Yes, Tom. We all saw that.) Fine, I’ll just shut up then.

Risen tells the biblical epic of the resurrection from the perspective of Clavius, a Roman centurion, played by Joseph Fiennes. Tasked with investigating the rumors of Jesus’ rising from the dead, Clavius must find Jesus’ body to stop an imminent uprising. The promos look like this is a fresh perspective on the Christ story. Cliff Curtis from Fear the Walking Dead plays Jesus, or Yeshua, and Tom Felton from Harry Potter also stars in the film.

It’s been no secret in these movie previews that I avoid horror films. With that being said The Witch, or The VVitch as it’s been stylized, looks absolutely terrifying. A Puritan family in the seventeenth century is torn apart when their baby vanishes and the daughter is suspected of witchcraft. The trailers show creepy woods and creepy children and a creepy goat! What does it all mean!? It means I’m going to have $11.50 saved in the old wallet because there is no way I’m seeing this.

February 26th– Eddie the Eagle, Gods of Egypt, Triple 9

It’s the team up we didn’t know we needed. Wolverine himself (Hugh Jackman) and Eggsy the Kingsman (Taron Egerton) star in Eddie the Eagle, a biopic about British ski jumper Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards in 1988. After screening at the Sundance Film Festival, the movie is getting rave reviews. So keep this near the top of your February movie checklist. Also, bonus points to Egerton for his awesome mustache.

A title that’s not getting such great press is Gods of Egypt. The plot has the Egyptian god of darkness Set (Gerard Butler) taking control of the Egyptian empire. So it’s up to a human (Brenton Thwaites) and the god Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) to save Egypt. There is quite a bit of backlash since most of the main actors are white. Butler is Scottish and Coster-Waldau is from Casterly Rock, so their being cast as Egyptian gods is a questionable choice. …This just in: Apparently Coster-Waldau is from Denmark and his Game of Thrones character is from Casterly Rock. I guess that’s true if we want to get technical.

For months, the only thing I knew about Triple 9 was that Norman Reedus was in it. So The Walking Dead fanatics have their plans for February 26th. But there is a plot beyond “the movie with Norman Reedus.” A group of criminals and corrupt cops team up to pull off a big heist after the Russian mafia is blackmailing them. Beyond Reedus, the cast includes Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anthony Mackie, Aaron Paul, Woody Harrelson, and Kate Winslet. So we have a winner for February’s best cast.

You never know what you’re going to get from February movie releases. But this list is a pretty decent one compared to previous years. I’m looking forward to Deadpool like I do for all comic book movies. But surprisingly that’s not my most anticipated of the month. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies looks really cool. So that’s my pick.