What to watch? ~ 2016 movies: December

It's the last month of the year! But wait, before we put our attention to the 2017 movies, there are still some movies in December that look pretty interesting. Below are some of them that caught my attention. It's almost new year but I hope I'm not too late to share this. Check them out below.


1) Sing

Release date: Dec. 2, 2016
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Taron Egerton, Seth MacFarlane, Tori Kelly, Nick Kroll, John C. Reilly

There are quite a few trailers for this movie and I must say that all of them look super entertaining, and the variety of music that were featured in those trailers definitely will help in getting people's attention to the film. It looks like the animated animal version of American Idol where the characters in the film compete in a singing competition. Singing competition is definitely popular in pop culture so I think the film hopes to capitalize on that as well. It does looks like it has a good and uplifting story of overcoming hardship, so I hope the movie will not only be fun but inspiring too.

Watch Sing trailer here.


2) La La Land

Release date: Dec. 9, 2016
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, John Legend, Rosemarie DeWitt, J. K. Simmons, Tom Everett Scott, Finn Wittrock, Meagen Fay

Here's another musical but this time it's not an animation but a live action musical film, which I must admit I don't normally watch in cinema but La La Land does intrigued me with it's fabulous trailers; the songs, the settings and the cast look amazing. The film received universal acclaim from critics and had won numerous awards with tons of nominations. It is also currently seen as a front runner for the Oscars. Quite the buzz, right? I'm considering to check this out at the cinema when it is released in my country.

Watch La La Land trailer here.

3) Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Release date: Dec. 16, 2016
Cast: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Mads Mikkelsen, Donnie Yen, Jiang Wen, Riz Ahmed, Alan Tudyk, Forest Whitaker

This is the only movie in this list that I had already watched so far, and I really liked it! It's a really good movie and surprisingly a very sad movie as well. Well acted, good action scenes and a very emotional ending. So far the film is quite successful at the worldwide box-office earning more than half a million already (and counting!) and getting a lot of good reviews as well.

Watch Rogue One: A Star Wars Story trailer here.


4) Assassin's Creed

Release date: Dec. 21, 2016
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Charlotte Rampling, Brendan Gleeson, Michael K. Williams

I feel so bad for this movie because it received so many bad reviews. The trailer looks great to me personally but I guess that didn't fool the movie critics? I'm still planning to watch this though and I hope I will like it. The film is based off a very popular video game franchise but it is an entirely new story set within the video game universe. Films based on video games have always struggled at the box-office and with Assassin's Creed having less-than-stellar performance in cinemas (despite heavy marketing mind you - at least from what I can see here in Malaysia), it seems that trend will still continue for awhile.

Watch Assassin's Creed trailer here.


5) Passengers

Release date: Dec. 21, 2016
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, Michael Sheen, Laurence Fishburne, Andy Garcia

Here's another movie that received bad reviews from critics but at least from what I can read from the comments section of the trailer for this movie in YouTube, the people who watched it seems to like it, so at least it got that going for it. I love films about space exploration, the mysteries and wonders of space really captivated me, so although the movie has two currently big stars attached to it, I'm definitely drawn to it because of the story of deep space exploration.

Watch Passengers trailer here.


6) A Monster Calls

Release date: Dec. 23, 2016
Cast: Lewis MacDougall, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Liam Neeson, Toby Kebbell, James Melville

I heard that this is a very sad movie of how a young boy deals with death in a family. It sounds heartbreaking but at the same time I'm very curious to find out how the movie plays. Based on the novel of the same name by author Patrick Ness (who also wrote the screenplay), the film is directed by J. A. Bayona who also directed two high-praised movies before which are The Orphanage and The Impossible. He is also currently set to direct the sequel to Jurassic World. The director certainly has raised his profile with great movies under his belt so hopefully A Monster Calls will be a great watch.

Watch A Monster Calls trailer here.


Those are the December movies that I'm excited about. Did they caught your attention too? Or do you think there are some movies that I've missed?

So this will be the final edition of What to Watch for 2016. Have a happy new year everyone!