Well the summer is winding down, and so is the summer movie season. So in honor of that, here’s a rundown of the movies I saw this summer. Slight spoiler warnings here and there, but I promise I won’t reveal too much.

Iron Man 3

It was pretty entertaining. About the same as the last two. Honestly, I think most super hero movies are just cleverly disguised kids movies anyway. There are a few exceptions here and there, like the recent Batman movies. Don’t take kids to see those. And of course, itty bitty kids shouldn’t go to any of them. But I can just see a bunch of boys thinking this movie was awesome. I still remember when we went to see Iron Man 2, a group of little boys at a birthday party were sitting behind us and cutting up during the previews (they were quiet during the movie, so it was OK, they actually made the previews more entertaining anyway). They went “Awwww!” at all the explosions and laughed during the ENTIRE rapping hamster car commercial!

Star Trek: Into Darkness

It’s just a remake of Wrath of Khan. They changed up a few plot points to keep you on your toes. Usually remakes aren’t as good but this was a really fun movie! The bad guy Captain reminded me of Cave Johnson, though. I swear, during one of his tirades I expected him to start a lemon rant!

Man of Steel

Since it was made by the same guy who did the Batman Begins and Dark Knight movies, I expected Man of Steel to be a little more like those. And it was in a lot of places. But in the end, especially during the battle scenes, it was still a ‘Duh, Duh, Duh, Daaaaaahhhh! I’m going to save the day!” Superman super hero movie. And that’s fine with me, really. I guess it’s just the nature of what Superman is all about. Only true complaint I had with the movie is the corporate sponsorship was WAY obvious. I wouldn’t be surprised if IHOP served Superman pancakes, they were shown in the movie so much. Or if they changed Superman’s mythos entirely so that he got his powers by eating pancakes! At any rate, I hope they make a sequel because then Lex Luthor could be the villain and he could have a funny sidekick like what he had in Superman Returns. I liked her.

Monsters University

This was cute, but nowhere near as good as the first one. The original Monsters Inc. had heart in the form of the show stealing little girl Boo. This new movie was missing that. I kept thinking while watching this movie that if it was done 30 years earlier, it would all be done with Muppets. That would’ve been cool. I found it interesting that in the movie, the two main characters didn’t even really graduate college. The message I got from that was that college doesn’t really matter. At least that’s the way it was for me. I graduated college and it didn’t do me a lick of good out in the real world. I had fun in college while I was in it, so I guess I shouldn’t be so bitter. It’s just that the real world after college kind of sucks sometimes.

Despicable Me 2

Again, like Monsters University, it’s not as good as the original. The sequel lacks the focus the original had. But hey, at least those little yellow Minions are still as funny and cute as ever. When I was at Universal Studios last year, they had toys and plush of those minions (and the fluffy unicorn) in all the gift shops! I’m surprised Capcom doesn’t sue since they look so much like their Servebots. But then, I guess Capcom would be worried that LEGO would sue them, since Servebots look so much like LEGO guys.

Pacific Rim

I actually had never heard of this movie before the weekend that it came out. Never saw a preview or anything. But when I read a description of it that had the word “Kaiju” in it, I knew I should see this over The Lone Ranger. Pacific Rim, or as I like to call it, “Anime: The Movie,” is a mish-mash of a Godzilla film and a live action anime mech adventure like Evangelion. It’s not very deep, but loads of fun, with every mech anime stereotype in the book. One of the computer voices sounds like GlaDOS, too! Only problem I had was the monsters were so big that it was hard to get a bead on what they looked like. Camera was always too close. I know this isn’t quite related, but maybe this movie will encourage others to bring some other live action anime movies to the US that I want to see, mainly Phoenix Wright and Star Blazers (Space Battleship Yamato). Both got live action movies recently, too.

R.I.P.D.

This is one of those cases where the preview made the movie look better than it actually was. It looked like a mix of Men in Black and Ghostbusters, so I decided to give it a chance, since Ghostbusters is one of my favorite movies of all time. You could tell that R.I.P.D. was trying to be a lot like Ghostbusters, but it was missing something. I’m not sure what, though. Maybe Ghostbusters had better celebrity comedian actors. Maybe it was just timing. I don’t know. You just can’t beat Ghostbusters, I guess.

Planes

Since it’s from Disney and not Pixar, this Cars spinoff isn’t near as good and the characters don’t have as much personality. But that’s to be expected. It’s a shame that Disney doesn’t do hardly any 2-D animation anymore. However, with that said, Planes was still a cute movie that kids will like, and that’s always OK with me. Plus it has a good message about helping others. And since it’s Disney, I also saw the preview for the new Muppet movie: Muppets Most Wanted. Can’t wait for that one!

Straight to Video Conclusions

There were some summer movies that I never got around to seeing. Some because I didn’t HAVE to see them in a theater. I can wait until they are on video and then Netflix them. And some I just didn’t want to pay a movie ticket price to see. Plus, with a funeral and a wedding that I attended this summer, things got kinda busy there toward the end of it.

Some movies that I had my eye on but never got around to seeing include Turbo, a cartoon about a super-fast snail who got his power from getting infused by nitro from a race car. The premise was so dumb I just wanted to see it out of morbid curiosity. Plus I reviewed the game of it. Another animated movie that came out earlier in the summer was Epic, but it wasn’t epic enough for me to want to see it. Cowboys of the Caribbean, er, I mean, The Lone Ranger also wasn’t interesting enough to warrant going to a theater for. And finally, there was a new Wolverine movie out that I missed. But wasn’t there one already?

Anyway, that’s all the movies I saw this summer! What were your favorite summer movies? Let me know in the comments section! –Cary

Tags: Movies with Children