A Ho Hum Movie Summer

So far I've seen Iron Man, Speed Racer, and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. I enjoyed Iron Man the most, which surprised me since I thought it would suck. Robert Downy Jr. was great as Tony Stark/Iron Man, and the story unfolded without the long winded dramatic bull crap that made me hate the Spider-Man films. Okay, Spider-Man 2 was decent, but the others . . . . pure crap. Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker? Organic web shooters??? Oh don't even get me started. Jon Favreau did it right with Iron Man, he directed a great comic book movie. And Gweneth Paltrow was not at all annoying.



With all the bad reviews and negative hype, I actually even enjoyed Speed Racer. My Chief Photographer recommended I rent the old cartoons and watch them first, which I did, and I think it definitely added to making the movie experience a positive thing; for the movie adheres to some of the cult classic cartoon's silliness and over the top action. Watching the original cartoons made me wonder if the Wachowski brothers, the directors of the Speed Racer movie, got most of their ideas for camera angles and camera movements for their earlier films (The Matrix Trilogy) from the Speed Racer cartoons. If you don't know the cartoons, you will probably sit uninterested and annoyed in the theater as you watch this. Seeing the cartoons is a plus!



I saw the latest Narnia installment as well. It was just okay, but the ending battle sequence was great. I gotta say though, the oldest two of the four kids, they bug the hell out of me. I can't put my finger on it, but the older brother is such a pretty boy little prat I just want to push him into a puddle of mud. And the older sister constantly has this tough girl scowl that makes her look, and forgive my shallowness, it makes here look ugly as all hell. Ugh, and to think Prince Caspian actually enjoyed kissing her. The special effects were better than the first, and the creature make-up and effects were great too. I think I liked the first Narnia movie better.



So far, it's been a pretty ho hum movie Summer, aside of Iron Man. And my hopes for Indiana Jones 4 to be an epic masterpiece of adventure movie making have come to a depressing shortfall now that the first critics reviews are out. None of them are good. Hey, the critics have been wrong once before (Ebert hated Back To The Future).