Summer Movie Reviews

I have a bit to say about this year's summer movies. Mostly I have unadulterated enthusiasm for what I liked, but if you stick with me, I have some intelligent things to say too.


Iron Man: (4 out of 5)
I feel like my demographic won a national contest. Comic book nerds rejoice; the theaters are ours! Iron Man was very good. Like Spider Man 1 good. It managed the fine line between fun and hokey and not serious, and holding my disbelief at bay. I bought in the whole time, which is the best most movies can do, and it rewarded me with a really fun time. It was actually worth seeing twice.

Batman: Dark Knight: (5 out of 5)
Damn. Damn yall. Did you see this on imax? DAMN! This film never let up. So cool. I don't have anything to say except that I want to see it again.
EDIT: I did see it again. DAMN! This film is awesome!

Hancock: (2 & 1/2 out of 5)
My expectations of this film were SO low that it couldn't actually have been as bad as I thought it would be, and so I actually enjoyed it. The original story is this: imagine a super hero who is a metaphor for America. He is lazy and ignorant. He doesn't care about anybody but himself, and when he finally does decide to help other people out he causes SO much collateral damage that it would have been better if he'd never involved himself in the first place. Then imagine a story where our super hero learns to take responsibility for his actions, including going to jail for his crimes, only to be let out because he is needed to save the day. Right. This is a fun fantasy land.

However, this redemption story wass not good enough, SO in the 8th rewrite of the script they added a whole new second half where we introduce two new villains and we learn that actually Hancock has been alive for thousands (think immortal Greek God) of years and doesn't remember because he has Amnesia. First, this is a stolen plot device from a FAR superior story, and it is sickening that they used it as such a throw away. Fuck them for ruining this awesome plot idea and wasting it like cheap crap. Fuckers. Anyhoo, it makes the second half of the film a little interesting and very confusing (to everyone who isn't familiar with this plot idea already...ie not me). The sucky thing is that it throws the whole Hancock as America metaphor out the window and replaces it with pulp comic book schtick. And then Hancock saves the day and does the right thing and then the film sort of ends.

It was cool to see a superhero crush the ground each time he landed and took off, if that is what you want to see, and apparently I do. The CGI was alright, so I'd say the movie was only half bad (the story half).

Chronicles of Narnia: (1 ouf of 5)
I actually got bored and started looking at the wall of the theater, which if you think about it, took a lot of people to build. The detail of the fabric on the wall was of particular interest. How thick do you think those walls are anyway? Anyway, yeah, the film... First off, abominable special effects. Unforgivable. Second, the morality this film presented was repugnant to me. Those who took action were either evil, or punished, and the film only praised those who submitted and became followers. The weak will inherit the earth bullshit. Submitting to God is not how you defeat an enemy army and makes for a shitty movie, so the protagonists had to keep awkwardly oscillating between being ineffectual "killing-is-wrong" prats to being action-stars slitting throats. Complete douchery from start to finish.

Speed Racer: (4 out of 5)
I am the only one I know, but I really enjoyed this film. It was a visual rollercoaster for 5 year olds, with lots of pretty special effects. Ask me on any given day and I am actually irked that I cannot get enough pretty special effects. So finally given that which I long for, I cried tears of happiness at the awesome retina-takeover ending. God I love spinning color.

Wall-E: (5 out of 5)
Wow. Wow. Uhm. I have a lot to say about this film. It has an insanely high rating over at metacritic.com and every review is aglow with praise. The review I like the best is actually the harshest (Salon.com). Their review basically goes like this: "One of the greatest films ever, however it is a little disjointed; the second half is not as amazing as the first, and the happy ending feels a little forced." <--Right. But still one of the most amazing films ever! I was most interested in what the film means. Remember "An Inconvenient Truth"? It was about the fear crawling into all our hearts that we may actually destroy the earth, and be unable to repair the damage before it kills us all. "Will we save ourselves before it is too late?" is an uncertainty that quietly tortures us. Such pent up emotion is exactly what the catharsis of movies is for. Films usually address this pent up emotion by answering our unspoken question with a "yes we will survive" as Bruce Willis blows up the Asteroid, or a "no, we are screwed" as Mel Gibson drives around Australia scrounging for gas. But even in the latter scenario, someone is left alive.

In Wall-E all life on earth dies. Humanity has destroyed the Earth, not through war, but through pleasure seeking and sloth. Rarely has a world as bleak as this been imagined. 700 years in the future we have completely destoryed earth, and it is unihabittable. But Humanity has survived (whew) thanks to space travel. But instead of boldly & intentionally pursuing another planet to live on, Humanity is dumb, complacent and purposeless. We are not trying to save the world or ourselves. Humanity is simply slurping away at soda and uncaring of anything beyond their own pleasure.

This is such a huge fundamental shift in thinking in film plot that it is easy to ignore. Normally there is an external force that oppresses people: a villain, or government, or matrix. If the force were defeated, then people would be alive and free and do wonderful things. The message here is that the force is not "out there" but in here, inside each of us. Our own laziness, apathy & pleasure seeking will be our demise. When was the last time you threw away a glass bottle rather than recycling it because it was easier?

It is hard to imagine a Disney film asking us this question. The group I saw it with had a 6 year old, and he was pretty confused/freaked by aspects of the film that he didn't have vocabulary to explain. He said it was sad that earth was so dead. I am amazed that Pixar got away with making this film.

The ship full of ambivalent materially-content humans looks like a metaphor for America (or the 1st world). Imagine people so content with their lives, and oblivious to any problems in the world, that all they did was amble around focused on pleasuring themselves, apparently unwilling to work on the world's truly pressing needs (or ignorant of them). That perfectly describes the world of Americans, and the state of humanity in Wall-E. Like Al Gore, Wall-E & Eve bring a message to the people that there is something to do. But that is where the similarities split. Unlike real life, the humans in Wall-E leap into action like a progressive's wet-dream.

This happy ending seems tacked on. Humanity returns to Earth, gives up their life of leisure and gets to the hard business of replanting the planet. In reality I think most people would want to go back to their lives of leisure. Instead, we whisk through the replanting of the planet during the credits, and soon kids are swimming in creeks beside green hills and willow trees. A good message to send to the children I suppose. "Kids, sure we're gonna f* this planet all to hell, but, we CAN fix it, you see? So don't cry too much, k? This IS a Pixar film y'know!"

This makes the overall message of the film come out a little schizophrenic: we may screw everything up worse than you can imagine, but it could still be okay.

Kung Fu Panda: (5 out of 5)
Up to this point there have been two classes of computer animated films; pixar & all the other ones. The quaint, forgetable films like Over the Hedge, Open Season, Barnyard, Chicken Little. I contend that Kung Fu Panda is the rare gem that breaks this mold, a film that transcends quaintness & forgetability. It is Awesome. Most notable is that the story is the anti-Shrek. It avoids references and cultural jokes in favor of being universal and timeless. And that would make it as bland as every other film, except it is funny. I and everyone in the theater laughed. A LOT. Hard explosive belly laughter. Time and again this film was funny. Jack Black brings that which he does best to this story. And the story is great. It is everything to everyone. "Follow your dream & self actualize" - but with bodacious fight scenes. I saw it twice in theaters and then watched it again on my computer. This might just be my favorite film of the summer.

Interestingly, this film totally broke the Box Office record in China for an animated film, earning 135 million, over 40 million more than the next closest animated film (wow!). The news in China is all like "dude, why can the Americans make a better film about China than we can? WTF!"