SerpentVenom

I had a long weekend for the Fourth and got to see a couple more summer blockbusters, "Cars" and "Superman Returns". Throw in "The Da Vinci Code" and "X-men: The Last Stand", and I've seen just about all the blockbusters I wanted to see this summer. Here are my thoughts about each film.

The Da Vinci Code
Certainly not as good as the book, but that's to be expected. I also don't understand why they changed some important details about Sophie's family. I expected that Tom Hanks would be totally unconvincing as Robert Langdon but he actually did a good job. It was at least worth the price of a matinee ticket.

X-men: The Last Stand
I really wanted to like this movie. I liked the previous two and thought that the third would be just as good. I was wrong. I've read the X-men since I was a kid, so I'm very familiar with the characters and major storylines. For some reason, the creators decided to throw in a whole bunch of stuff into a 2-hour movie that occured over the course of several YEARS in the comics. The filmakers also treated the character of Cyclops very poorly and then had him killed off-camera. Not the kind of treatment you would expect for the leader of the X-men. The result is an unfocused plot that leads to a dark, hard to see, final melee between good and bad mutants.

All things considered, I would have rather waited for the DVD than pay the student discount price.

Cars
I got to see "Cars" with my 11 and 5-year-old cousins. The movie is long by kid-movie standards, but it kept their attention even during the slower parts. There are a lot of little fun details that you'll need to review when the DVD comes out. I especially liked the nod to Emeryville (Pixar's hometown). The racing scenes had just enough suspense to keep you interested. The story itself is a cross between "Doc Hollywood" and "Days of Thunder" without the naked woman coming out of the lake ("Doc") and thankfully, no Tom Cruise ("Days"). The movie was worth the ticket price and the eventual cost of a DVD.

Superman Returns
The last Superman movie totally stank. So I was worried when I heard that the new movie was not a reinvention, but a continuation based on the previous movies. But Singer's take on Superman helps bury the memories of the third and fourth Superman movies. Some nice details include the soft rustling sound of Superman flying. Afterall, you shouldn't hear jet or rocket sounds when he flies by, just a little rustling or a sonic-boom if he going fast enough. The depiction of Lex Luthor was great and Kevin Spacey really delivers in this role, but I was disappointed to see that Luthor is still obsessed with real estate. Why can't he just set out to destroy Superman? What about world domination? They need to give him new ambitions and drop the whole land-grab thing.

The effects are certaily improved compared to the earlier films and they definitely help to advance the movie without being eye-candy distractions as many were in the Star Wars prequals.

This one is worth the price of admission and the cost of the extended, special, S-shield shaped boxed edition DVD with gold foil wrap.

Posted under Close to Home on Thursday, July 6th, 2006 at 15:41

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