Summer Movie Roundup: June 2011 Edition

I prefer to write about older movies rather than new releases, primarily because movie reviews are more undiluted after all the hype and hoopla have died off and the movies have aged a little.  Nonetheless, I get lots of questions about new releases all the time, like I'm some kind of authority on movies or something.  So, by popular demand (well, plain old regular demand), and since I have some ground to make up for taking some time off, here are my thoughts on some movies that I've been asked about lately.  Roll on, flicks of June. . .


X-Men: First Class

The first two "X-People" movies were great, the third one average, and "X-Men Origins: Wolverine", well, was stinky ass butter.  You can quote me on that.  This new entry, directed by "Kick-Ass" helmer Matthew Vaughn, is on par with the original two.  A prequel, it tells the story of how young Professor X/Charles and Magneto/Erik met up in the 1960's and fought Kevin Bacon during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  It still has some of the problems that all the "X-Men" movies have - too many mutants, causing a certain degree of undeveloped character work and some shaky special effects, but it recaptures some of the feel of the original movies and adds a dash of 60's-era James Bond coolness into the mix.  Plus it features one of the most amusing cameo appearances you're likely to see all year.  I liked it.  Now please stop with all the prequels.

-Spoiler Alert-

Lots of people seem to think that events in "First Class" contradict the backstory that was revealed in the other movies, but I'm not so sure.  Also: -Geek Alert-  At the end of "First Class", Prof. X is paralyzed from the waist down by an ill-placed bullet, and Magneto firmly establishes himself as X's antagonist.  Yet in the third movie, in a flashback scene to the 1970's, we see the Professor walking, and he's still friends with Erik, and we also see X walking around Three Mile Island in 1979 in "Wolverine".  What gives?  Well, 10-15 years have passed in the movie timeline, and in the comics Professor X is constantly gaining/losing the ability to walk through various means, and his friendship with Erik also changes, so can't the same thing be true in the movies?  There are many years of history we aren't seeing.  Which means we'll be getting at least 30 more prequels.  Urk.


Super 8

J.J. Abrams strikes back.  A bunch of kids in 1979 are making a zombie movie when, suddenly, a government train crashes nearby, unleashing Something Sinister upon their small suburban town.  Alright, it's an alien.  Produced by Steven Spielberg, this movie is meant to evoke nostalgic feelings for 1980's "kids on a wondrous and dangerous, but not whimsical" adventure movies like "E.T" and "The Goonies" (personally, I preferred "Explorers" or "The Monster Squad", myself), and "Super 8" accomplishes that mission.  But it ends up doing a little too much homaging, never quite carving out its own identity.  And when it comes to all the secrecy surrounding the plot, well, there's nothing here that hasn't been done before and there's no major plot twist at the end or anything.  Basically, it's just juicing up the hype machine.  Don't misunderstand, though.  I really liked this movie.  Didn't love it, but really liked it.  The kid actors all did fantastic jobs, especially the two leads.  And the adults weren't bad, either (the actor who played the ill-fated teacher from "Gremlins" is in this movie - playing another ill-fated teacher).  There are plenty of scares, laughs, and good drama to be had here, but it didn't quite come together 100% for me.  Hey, at least it's not a sequel, prequel, remake, or sequel to a prequel of a remake!  I recommend it.


Green Lantern

Purple Flashlight?  I know nothing of this comic book character, so I am not as pissed off as some fanboys seem to be about this movie.  It's a silly space-opera with superhero guys in ridiculous outfits fighting nasty aliens and secret betrayers with wacky space jewelry.  This movie has a lot in common with "Thor", but that movie managed to get it right and this one, well . . . not quite.  Hot shot fighter pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) gets recruited by the Green Lantern Corps (space police) and must overcome self-doubt and relationship problems in order to save Earth from a giant space cloud with a scary alien head called Parallax.  Yup, there's nothing more exciting than fighting a cloud.  "Green Lantern" has all the origin story cliches/problems that all other superhero stories must overcome, only this time it just ends up being kind of boring.  I'm getting tired of origin stories, really, but you gotta put up with 'em I guess (some of my favorite superhero movies - "Spider-Man 2", 'The Dark Knight", "X2: X-Men United", "Superman 2" - not origin stories, all 2's).  The cast is pretty good - Ryan Reynolds is decent (depends on your Reynolds tolerance threshold), Peter Sarsgaard is an unnervingly creepy villain, Blake Lively is "The Girl", and Mark Strong is great as Green Lantern honcho Sinestro, even though a few of his scenes were cut from the film, making his post-credits transformation seem very unmotivated.  There's too much time spent on Earth.  The 3-D was adequate.  Some cool special effects.  So-so musical score.  In the end, it's average.  Could have been better.


Cars 2

In the year 2XXX, intelligent vehicles take over the world, brutally killing their human masters and wiping all trace of them from the face of the Earth.  The Present Day:  these living vehicles have modified the world to fit their artificial needs.  This is the backstory of Disney/Pixar's "Cars", the worst movie in the Pixar library.  Which means it's still a decent, okay movie.  Now comes "Cars 2", a decent, okay sequel.  Actually, I enjoyed it slightly more than the first one.  Still "okay", though.  The original movie was a fish-out-of-water yarn about a big city car (Lightning McQueen) in small town U.S.A. - this one is an international spy thriller about a small town dude (Mater) getting mistaken for an American agent and falling wheels-deep into the fight against a massive conspiracy.  You need to have a high tolerance for Larry the Cable Guy (Mater) to be able to enjoy this movie.  Mater annoys me, but he's still a slightly more interesting character than McQueen.  There's lots of great action, some humor, lots of car deaths, and a great 1960's James Bond vibe (like "X-men: First Class"), and some great voice work (including Gods of Cool like Michael Caine, Bruce Campbell, Franco Nero).  And the 3-D was pretty well done.  Still, it registers as an average moviegoing experience for me.  Let me put it this way - the "Cars" movies are good kids movies, whereas most Pixar movies are good Movies, period.  There's also a cute "Toy Story" short film that plays before "Cars 2" - it's better than the main attraction.


Bad Teacher

Let me put it this way - I have owned three Cameron Diaz wall calendars over the course of my life, so there's clearly some crushin' going on here.  "The Mask", "There's Something About Mary", "Charlie's Angels", "Being John Malkovich", "Gangs of New York", "Vanilla Sky", and more - I guess I'm a fan.  Over the past couple of years, her movies haven't been all that great (although I quite liked her performance in "The Box" - no jokes please), but I'm adding "Bad Teacher" to the list of goodness.  It's her best movie in a long time and the funniest movie I've seen so far this year, and it's been a great year for comedies!  Here she plays a mean, shallow bitch with only one goal in mind - marry a rich guy.  For now she's working as a teacher (her own personal hell), but when a new, rich faculty member arrives (Justin Timberlake) she hatches plans to snag him - including raising enough money to buy some fake boobs with which to lure him in.   It's a tough role to pull off, and Ms. Diaz does it remarkably well.  She's morally reprehensible, yet fun to watch, and by the time the movie ends, you like and even understand her.  She's also surrounded by some great comic talent like Jason Segal, Lucy Punch (as her chipper/psychotic rival), and Justin Timberlake.  Jake Kasdan does a great directing job, and while the movie can be quite predictable now and then, it's some funny shit.  Welcome back, Cam!  Shame about that last name, though.  How about "Cameron Bastard"?  Sounds great to me!

So here's the Summer Movie Roundup as it stands right now, presented in three categories:


The Good:

Fast Five
Thor
Kung Fu Panda 2
13 Assassins
Bridesmaids
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy: Extended Edition
X-Men: First Class
The Tree of Life
Super 8
Bad Teacher

The 'Meh':

Green Lantern
The Hangover 2
Cars 2

The Bad

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Priest

I have no idea where "Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer" would fall on that list.  Nor do I have any pressing need to find out.