Summer Movies 2011

Looking over the movies I saw this summer, I was struck by the emptiness in most of these films. But that's what summer flics are all about, so without further ado, here's a pretty vapid list, in chronological order. Oh, and these are all 2-D, the third dimension sucks.

THOR

I actually saw this twice, once with my wife Dawn on opening night (she loved it), then later with my 11 year old boy (who also loved it). I liked it the first time, and was surprised how well it held up on the second viewing. Solid characterization that was true to the source material (well, except for Jane Foster and Hawkeye), some impressive visuals, and a nice story arc for Thor compel me to give it 4 out of 5 stars.

KUNG FU PANDA 2

Kinda surprised I didn't like this one more, since I really enjoyed the first film. Gary Oldman's peacock character was fun, but other than that I found it kind of bleh.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

On the other end of the spectrum, I enjoyed this more than I expected. The story's clear, the characters have depth (well, most of them anyway). I was only disappointed in the death of a certain character near the end, but otherwise I was really into this movie. And it has Banshee! Awesome!

GREEN LANTERN

Haters gonna hate, but I thought this was fantastic, a really good introduction to the Green Lantern. I'm not going to refute every complaint I've seen online about this movie, I'll just say it was a total geek out to see GL on the screen.

BRIDESMAIDS

I liked this one, but I forgot almost everything about it half an hour after leaving the theater. Seeing the ads for the DVD release recently reminded me of how many times I laughed, but it wasn't enough to make it a really top-tier comedy for me. Plus that frickin' Wilson Phillips song really makes me ill. Here's a link to some great out-takes, Jon Hamm is pretty funny.

CAPTAIN AMERICA

Loved this one, Chris Evans gave a performance that surprised me, he really evoked what I thought Steve Rogers should be like. And the Red Skull! Holding the Cosmic Cube! Total geek moment.

COWBOYS & ALIENS

Huh? Wha...? Did something happen? I think I fell asleep for a couple hours there...

Ok, that's not really fair, I didn't hate the movie, but in a summer of (mostly) empty movies, this one just seemed like the worst offender for some reason. Harrison Ford was good, but that's about all I remember.










No, I didn't see HANGOVER 2, I didn't think the first one was all that funny, and you can tell by the trailers that the sequel is just a re-hash of the first one. Plus, I liked that movie better when it was called DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR?