Well, the last few weeks of summer are winding down, so I thought now would be a good time to take a look at all the summer movies I watched and give my brief impressions on them. Even though I saw a lot of movies, keep in mind that I went to the first early bird showing of each one over a weekend, so I really didn’t pay that much for tickets. I paid even less since I don’t go see movies in 3-D because I’ve been blind in my left eye since birth and can’t see the 3-D effects anyway. And I guess I should do one of those ‘spoiler warning’ things. I’m going to try and NOT spoil too much of these movies for you, but just in case something slips out, you’ve been forewarned. OK with all that out of the way, let’s get started!

The Pirates: Band of Misfits

Actually, TECHNICALLY I didn’t see this movie in the summer. It was more of a spring movie. But since I haven’t talked about it here yet, I decided to save it for my summer movie blog. ‘Pirates’ is a clay animated movie about, well, pirates, and it’s done by Aardman, the same folks who brought us Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit. The pirate movie wasn’t near as good as those other ones, but it was still fairly funny. Lots of dry, British humor if you’re into that, so you have to listen more carefully for it. Also tons of funny stuff in the background to look for. I took a just-for-fun clay animation class once, so I have an interest in that, and a lot of respect for the people who do it.

The Avengers

Lots of super hero movies this summer as usual. The Avengers was one of the better ones, though. Definitely what a super hero movie should be. I don’t really know much about the Avengers, but luckily nearly each one on the team has had their own movie that I’ve seen before, so I at least knew who the main characters were in this one. The only thing I didn’t like about the movie was when the Hulk punched Thor on purpose. I think the Hulk should’ve apologized to Thor for doing that, it wasn’t very nice. Really the only things I knew about the Avengers came from the old arcade game. I liked that one because you could pick up soda machines, the game had really funny “Engrish,” and when your character died, they said, “I…can’t…mooooooove!” None of that happened in the movie.

Battleship

I went to see this out of morbid curiosity since it was a movie based on a board game of all things. Actually, the movie wasn’t THAT bad, but you definitely had to turn off your intelligence before going into the theater. Typical summer movie popcorn fluff. Normally I don’t have a problem with suspending my disbelief when watching movies like this, but sometimes it was hard in the Battleship movie. Especially whenever as a last resort, the army used an old WWII battleship that had been converted into a museum. They just started up the engines and it was fully stocked with ammo already and everything! Yeah right! The movie was also very patriotic so it was good to see over Memorial Day weekend. I reviewed the Battleship video game, too, but it was just a Call of Duty clone.

Men in Black 3

I guess this movie was better than the second because I don’t remember ANYTHING about that one. The first one was pretty memorable, though. I think fans would like the third one. I also reviewed the game based on this movie as well. It was an on-rails arcade style light gun shooter. Which would’ve been a good idea, but the graphics were so bad (we’re talking PS2 era visuals), that it was hard to tell what things were in the game.

Madagascar 3

WARNING! If you go see this movie, you’re going to have the “DA, DA, DA-DA-DA-DA AFRO CIRCUS” song stuck in your head. They play that way too much. Really the only reason why I saw this movie was because the Penguins were in it, and they’re freaking hilarious. Sadly, the Penguins of Madagascar cartoon on Nickelodeon is better than this movie was. The penguin cartoon is actually pretty good; you should give it a chance sometime. I also reviewed the game based on this movie. I’ve reviewed all three of the Madagascar movie games, and the first two were actually fairly decent kids’ games. Unfortunately the third game was done by a different developer and not near as good. It’s full of boring fetch quests and bad circus themed mini-games.

The Three Stooges

OK here’s another movie that technically wasn’t a summer flick. I think you can buy it on video now. Anyway, when my dad was little, he was a big fan of The Three Stooges (they were popular on TV back then). He even told me a story of how he collected bottle caps and walked five miles into town so he could trade them in to see the first Three Stooges movie for free with his brother. So when the new Three Stooges movie hit the dollar theater, I took my dad and little brothers to see it for Father’s Day (yeah I’m such a big spender). The movie was dumb, as to be expected. But my dad was giggling throughout the whole movie, so that’s all that mattered. I will say the actors did a pretty good job imitating the originals.

Brave

Pixar’s newest was good, but not great. It was typical fairy tale fluff with a predictable plot. But then, Disney is known for fairy tales so that’s OK. It makes me wonder if Pixar wanted a piece of the successful Disney Princess pie. If that’s the case, then the Brave female lead will make a strong addition to that franchise, I think. Some of the voice actors overdid the Scottish accents, but this was a cartoon so I guess that’s OK. One time I saw a toy commercial advertising a doll based on the Brave princess. The funny thing is they also showed toys of the boy triplets from the movie. The triplet toys were much smaller, but the commercial made the mistake of showing both toys on the same screen, so it looked like the boys were either really small, or the girl was a giant! That cracked me up for some reason.

The Amazing Spider-Man

This one was OK. Not as good as the Avengers. But I’m not really a big fan of Spider-Man anyway. The new guy they got to be the hero in the reboot was just as annoying as the other guy. Plus, Spider-Man had a different girlfriend in this one, so I was all confused. I reviewed the Spider-Man video game, too. I thought it was all right, but I think big Spider-Man fans will love it as well as the film.

Ice Age: Continental Drift

My mom loves the Ice Age movies and characters, especially the little squirrel who always tries to get the acorn (and I think the sloth is hilarious). So I took her to see this one. We both agreed that it wasn’t as good as the others. Like the Penguins of Madagascar, I think Ice Age would make a better weekday cartoon on TV. But my mom said they probably wouldn’t do that because of all the celebrity voice actors. Which is true, but when I reviewed the Ice Age video game, the voice actors they used sounded just like the movie ones. And I doubt they got the celebrities to do the game.  The movie also had a cartoon short starring Maggie Simpson.  It was kind of ‘meh,’ but I’m always willing to support cartoon shorts before movies anyway.

The Dark Knight Rises

Some may disagree with me, but I think most super hero flicks are just cleverly disguised kids’ movies. That’s the major market for these films anyway. Of course I wouldn’t take a little bitty kid to see most of the super hero films, but older kids? Absolutely. However, the three most recent Batman movies? Definitely not for kids. But that’s what makes them so cool is that they are totally different from the typical super hero fluff. Believe it or not, I am an adult and like to go see more grown up movies every once in a while. Rises wasn’t as good as the other two recent Batman movies, but it was still pretty darn excellent. And since I watched a lot of the Batman cartoon from the 90’s when I was in high school, I know a lot of the characters already. Only problem I had with the movie is I could only understand about half of what Bane said, due to his mask. It was kind of like this:

Bane: “Batman! I’m going to mrph mrph your mrph mprh back!”

Batman: “What did you say? You’re going to break my back?”

Bane: (takes off mask) “No, I said was going to give your library book back! But I like your idea better!” *CRACK*

Batman: “Ouch! Me and my big mouth!”

In the previews for the Batman movie, they had one about a new Superman movie, made by the same director as the Batman ones.  I hope that Lex Luthor’s sidekick from Superman Returns is in it (Parker Posey), she was freaking hilarous as Luthor’s sidekick.  Also, Michael Caine is awesome as Batman’s butler in the new movies.  He’s actually one of my favorite actors.  He was also Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol.  It’s a good thing I’ll never meet him, though, because he’d probably be mad at the fact that that’s how I remember him.  He’d probably rather be remembered for more prestigious roles.

And that’s a wrap!

And that’s all the movies I saw this summer! The only one I missed that I kind of wanted to see was Prometheus. But then, usually in sci-fi horror flicks, the movie theater turns the volume WAY up, and I come out at the end of the movie with a pounding headache. So I can wait until that hits video and I rent it on Netflix or something. Now I don’t think there are any movies coming out that I want to see until Wreck-It Ralph in November! What movies did you see this summer?

Tags: Movies with Children