There were actually quite a few movies that came out this Spring that interested me, so here’s a blog about them.  I’ll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, and I’ll try to make any spoilers I make very subtle, but just in case, I’ll put a spoiler warning here anyway.

Early Man

OK so technically this movie came out in February so I guess it’s really a Winter movie, but I’ll put it here anyway.  This was a stop motion clay animated movie done by the folks at Aardman, who also did Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run.  They’ve also done a lot of popular ads like the Chevron cars and Serta mattress sheep.  I’m a huge fan of Aardman so I had to see this movie.  It’s a movie about cavemen trying to save their land from the upcoming bronze age tribe.  Lots of Flintstones-like jokes involving animals imitating modern appliances.  I almost expected the cockroach acting as an electric razor to say, “It’s a living,” when one character was done shaving his face with it.  Anyway, the two tribes challenge each other to a soccer (or football) match, so it becomes a sports movie after that.  And since it’s about soccer (football), it has a very European feel to it.  But Aardman is in the UK, so most of their stuff is like that anyway.  I think many of the soccer jokes would probably go over most Americans’ heads, unless they were avid international soccer fans.  But it was still a fun movie and I’m glad I saw it.

Pacific Rim Uprising

The first Pacific Rim movie kind of came out of nowhere for me.  My family was like, “Hey, let’s go see Pacific Rim,” and I was like, “What’s that?”  And they said, “You’ve never heard of it?  It’s a giant monster movie.”  And as a fan of those, I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of it.  But I loved it.  I didn’t like the sequel quite as much, as it had some slow spots here and there and there wasn’t enough giant monster fighting and I think parts of the plot were written by a five-year-old.  But it was still pretty entertaining and you shouldn’t expect much from these kinds of movies anyway.  And I’m happy to report that the voice of GlaDOS returns as the computer voice in this sequel, too.

Rampage

My brother Jeff and I played the heck out of Rampage World Tour back in the day, and I remember the original Rampage game before any of my brothers were even a thought.  So since we have such a history with the games, you know we HAD to see this movie.  I kind of wish there was more giant monster carnage, but otherwise it wasn’t that bad.  About on par with Pacific Rim Uprising, which isn’t shabby.  And again, you really shouldn’t expect much out of these movies anyway.  They didn’t get the story quite right, but then, Rampage didn’t have much of a story to begin with.  I can’t believe how crowded the movie theater was, though.  I guess the Rampage games were more popular than I thought.  World Tour did get two sequels on the PSOne, so, yeah (and a GBA puzzle game and a GameCube remake).  A little girl in the seat behind us was very concerned with George the Ape’s welfare, though, asking her parents every so often if George was OK.  They did have a classic Rampage arcade machine in the movie, just to remind folks what this was based off of.  And the lab rat from one of the World Tour sequels made a cameo appearance.  After the movie, my brother Jeff and I thought about what other classic arcade games could be made into movies.  Asteroids?  Spy Hunter?  (that actually almost happened)  Jeff asked if I would see a SiniStar movie and I said NOPE!

Avengers: Infinity War

Out of all the movies I saw this Spring, the Avengers one was definitely the best.  Lots of action and never a dull moment.  I don’t really read comic books, so most of my knowledge of Marvel comes from the movies, LEGO games, and the Marvel vs. Capcom series.  This movie pretty much had the same plot as Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite, except with no Capcom characters and I liked the ending better in the Marvel vs. Capcom game.   So in the movie, a purple guy with a big chin takes all these Skittles stones for his Power Glove so he can be really strong.  And the good guys try and stop him.

You’ll have to forgive me, I don’t remember a lot of the characters’ names.  And the movie didn’t help matters either.  They really needed “Hello My Name Is…” tags to wear.  In the first quarter of the movie, they kept referring to a guy named Steve Rogers, and I had to turn to my brother Jeff to find out who the heck that was.  Oh, it’s Captain America.  WELL WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST SAY THAT IN THE MOVIE!  And Captain America, please wear your uniform so I know who you are.  Same goes for Black Spider.  If you have red hair in the other movies, don’t dye it here to confuse me.  Guess she wanted to separate herself from Red Magic Lady.

And boy you had better see ALL the other Marvel movies so you know who everyone is here.  Even though this was an Avengers movie, they could’ve called this Guardians of the Galaxy 3 or Captain America 4 or Iron Man…what are they on now?  12?  Even the new Spider-Man is in this one.  Luckily I just saw that one on Netflix (or not, as I didn’t like Spider-Man Homecoming at all).  Unfortunately I skipped out on Black Panther in the theaters, so when he was in this movie, I didn’t know what was going on.  OK the last past of this paragraph is the most spoiler-y, so skip past it if you don’t want that.  So you know they’ll make another Avengers movie so the good guys can “Kefka” their way out of this one and “Dragon Ball Z” the whole thing.  I wonder if they’ll make a movie based on my favorite Marvel character.  Can you guess who that is?

Spring Movies I Missed

Like I just said, I skipped out on the Black Panther movie when it was in theaters.  I just didn’t know who that character was and figured I would just watch it on Netflix.  There were a few other movies I did that with this Spring, so I figured I’d go over those as well.

I have a strong interest in children’s books, so I was curious about the Paddington Bear movie that came out a few years ago.  I didn’t see it in theaters, but I did watch it on Netflix and it wasn’t that bad.  There was a sequel a few months ago that I didn’t see, but I might on Netflix as well.  I found it interesting that the mom in the movie was played by the same lady who was in one of the new Godzilla movies.  Plus I think she’s pretty, but don’t tell anyone I said that.  I wonder if she’s in the Paddington sequel.  Strangely enough, even though I’m interested in children’s books, the new Peter Rabbit movie didn’t reel me in much.

I never really got into the Tomb Raider games, so I skipped out on the new Tomb Raider movie as well.  But I’ll try to see it on Netflix.  And even though Ready Player One is about video games, it seemed more like pandering to me (like the Scott Pilgrim movie), so I didn’t see it either.  Maybe one of you folks can convince me to see it on Netflix.  And finally, when I went to see the Early Man movie, they had a preview for another stop motion movie called Isle of Dogs.  But I don’t think it was showing in any theater near me as I don’t remember seeing it out at all, so I’ll have to Netflix that one as well.

Summer Movies I Want to See

There’s not really a whole lot of movies this summer I want to see.  Just four (or five).  I’ll list them here and maybe when I see them all, I write a blog about them like I did here.  Anyway, the ones I want to see are: Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Incredibles 2, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and Ant Man and the Wasp.  Rifftrax is also doing the 80’s movie Krull in late August, so I’ll try to see that one as well.

In the comments section, let me know what you think of the movies I saw, and tell me about the movies you saw and want to see.  That’s all for now!  Later!  –Cary

Tags: Movies with Children