I love going to the movies, but for most of the year, I refuse to go see anything that I believe would be less than great. My standards are so high, that I can sometimes go more than a month without going to the movies.
I’m not going to pay eight bucks to see the latest Adam Sandler movie or a remake of a great film I saw ten years ago. I mean, OK, I may be a film snob, but I’m not a moron.
During the summer, however; I am willing to sit through inane, overly produced special effects extravaganzas. Maybe it’s the heat, or maybe it’s the hype, but during the summer months, which have come to represent the worst films Hollywood has to offer, my standards go right out the window.
So far, I have seen four of the big summer movies, Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith (prequel), Batman Begins (re-imagining), Land Of The Dead (sequel), and War Of The Worlds (remake). Are there any writers left in Hollywood? Batman Begins was by far the best, but before I tell you about it, let me just go over what made the other three so predictably sub-par.
Despite it’s masterful digital effects, dark storyline, and total lack of Jar-Jar Binks, Revenge Of The Sith failed to be anything greater than the sum of its far too many parts. The acting and dialogue were so poor that people didn’t seem to notice how ridiculous every major plot point was. That being said, whenever I wasn’t making a sarcastic comment or an annoyed “ugh,” I was actually enjoying the movie. Close, but no cigar. Who am I kidding? Not even close!
The zombie genre is one of my favorites, and I welcome new interpretations of it. I didn’t mind the running zombies of 28 Days Later and the Dawn Of The Dead remake. And I didn’t mind Land Of The Dead’s thinking zombies either, at first. The movie opens on a town of zombies attempting to function like their pre-zombified selves with little success. Yet the fact they the even have a sense of self is a fascinating, but subtle twist to the genre. The fact that some of the creatures were even done in the dying art of animatronics gave me a lot of hope for the film. Hope quickly turned to annoyance as simple zombie thinking evolved into full on zombie inelegance complete with communicating by grunts. I completely gave up on the movie about twenty minutes in, when the smartest of all the zombies snatches a gun from a soldier. The zombie has no concept of how to use the weapon, yet he knows how to use the strap, and he slings it over his shoulder.
In War Of The Worlds, Spielberg dishes out the same kind of tension we all savored in Jaws and Jurassic Park, for about a half of the film. The rest of it consists of totally illogical and nonsensical science fiction. I liked the look of the three-legged, killer alien robots, and whoever did the sound effects has a great sense of how to make eerie, threatening sounds. Where the film falls apart, is in the details. The aliens have almost unimaginably advanced technology, yet the snake like probe that seeks out survivors, searches buildings like a mall security guard in training. I just can’t buy that a superior race could travel across the universe to exterminate the inhabitants of a planet, if they can’t find two grown men and a little girl hiding in a bombed out basement.
The only worthwhile summer movie so far, was Batman Begins. It’s one of only two superhero films I’ve seen that explores it’s subject, not as an excuse for lack of realism, but rather in the context of realism (Relative Realism). The story could have been a bit less obvious, but at least everything made sense. It reminded me of this Batman puzzle I had when I was a kid. The pieces were huge and fairly easy to put together, but when it was finished, it was a totally accurate depiction of it’s subject. Like the puzzle, Batman Begins is not intricate, but it comes together perfectly.
The cast is, if anything, too full of great actors… And I don’t mean movie stars, I mean great actors. It’s very dark, as Batman should be, and with the use of hallucination, they managed to work in some horror movie imagery. (Makes sense for a movie about fear.) The movie explains everything you want to know about The Dark Knight, where he got his car and all of his toys, why he is able to take on numerous opponents without any superpowers, and where the whole ‘Bat’ concept came from.
The one thing I didn’t like was the blatant setup of a sequel to a movie about a specific stage in a characters life, a stage that ends with the movie. My hope is that the sequels will have a purpose other than making money. Perhaps they’ll be smart and do a trilogy that depicts the three major phases in Batman’s life. Batman Begins (How Batman Became Batman), Batman or a cooler title would be The Dark Knight (This film would detail the hero in his prime, not physically, but in how much he is respected by the people and feared by criminals), and The Fall Of Batman (About his fall from grace, his corruption, or his death.) Or they could just do ten sequels where he faces a new villain in each, whatever.
Enjoy your summer, and maybe I’ll see you at the movies… Seeing some awful summer schlock. God help us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Email Luke at Wanderingluke@hotmail.com