Surreelfilm

Another summer has officially come to an end, and another summer blockbuster movie season with it. Please allow us to present our comprehensive summer review, featuring the best and worst of the season. The reviews will be broken into three parts and featured in chronological order of release, and followed up with our choices for the top five movies of the summer. Part one of the review starts today with Hollywood's other 'man of steel', and ends with a big furry Panda with a mean right-hand chop.

Iron Man

Director Jon Favreau’s Iron Man made for a decently entertaining distraction, but not much else. The film is a step in the right direction in terms of overall comic-book film quality, but it still suffers from the usual trappings of sacrificing plot and character development for the sake of eye candy and failing to utilize its cast properly. Gwyneth Paltrow is completely wasted as unnecessary damsel Pepper Potts, while Terrence Howard’s Col. James Rhodes exists only to plug the inevitable sequel, and a bald Jeff Bridges is awkwardly miss-casted as villain Obadiah Stane. Tack on an unoriginal plot and a Robert Downey Jr. that's not nearly as likable as he should be, (see 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) and you’ve got a juvenile and underwhelming experience that fails to live up to the hype despite a handful of really engaging action sequences.



Speed Racer

I cringe whenever nostalgic cartoon franchises are made into live action movies. Before finally being put down by tranquilizer dart, Brendan Fraser almost single-handedly made me lose all faith in the genre, (see George of the Jungle, Dudley Do-Right, Looney Toons Back in Action) but I still had hope for Speed Racer. I walked out of Speed Racer with a smile on my face and a pep in my step, but I new it wasn't for everyone. As far as eye candy goes, the film is simply beautiful. The sugar-coated visual style that the Wachowski brothers have brought to the screen is peerless. At times overwhelmed by the vibrancy of the sometimes dizzying race sequences, it's unfortunate that they vastly overshadowed any semblance of plot. Speed Racer has a completely outrageous and unbelievable story, but what do you expect with a source material that regularly depicts children and simians stowing away in futuristic racecars? The film tries to appeal to both families and fanboys, but fails at both. Perhaps its box office crash and burn could have been prevented with a more decisive driver behind the wheel.


Prince Caspian

I feel like this movie should have been labeled "The Death of Disney". Walden Media's The Chronicles of Narnia looked to be the golden prospect for Disney's live action department and with The Lion, the witch, and the Wardrobe hauling in big money and exciting Christian zealots everywhere, Prince Caspian should have been a slam dunk. Instead, someone in the marketing department dropped the ball big time. The surprising thing is that the film is good, much better than the previous installment. Floundering box office returns combined with the aging of its main actors most certainly spells doom for the C. S. Lewis Narnia series. Unfortunately, this will most likely be the final installment of the franchise, but if you liked the first one this is definitely one of the better films of the summer that no one saw. Oh well, there's always DVD sales.



Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

It’s not often that I feel embarrassed while watching a film. The final cut of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull represents the compromise from a never-ending argument between director Steven Spielberg on the one hand, and an increasingly bat-shit crazy George Lucas on the other. The result is an absurd caricature of Indiana Jones consisting of a plot that never seems to know where it’s going and some of the most forgettable characters of the entire franchise. Not only does Indiana Jones survive a nuclear explosion but he does so while hiding inside a lead-lined refrigerator which is magically propelled to a safe distance, even though everything else within the blast zone, lead or otherwise, is completely vaporized. Shia LaBeouf is supposed to be a 50s greaser a la Rebel Without a Cause, but he comes off as a bi-curious punk while Cate Blanchett portrays one of the most boring villains ever, who may have psychic powers, although she never actually gets them to work. An utter dissapointment.


You Don’t Mess with the Zohan

Zohan will most certainly please the army of Adam Sandler die-hards and pre-pubescent teenage boys that make up his fan base, but doesn’t make for an easy recommendation to just about anyone else. The plot focuses on top-secret Israeli commando Zohan Dvir (Sandler), who fakes his own death in order to travel to New York and pursue his lifelong dream of being a hairdresser. As can be said for most Sandler outings, the story quickly wears thin from there and the plot devolves into a mess of scenes desperately struggling to fill up the allotted time for the movie. There are a number of sincere laughs to be found here but you’ll have to be very patient, as you’ll be required to sit through approximately ten minutes of horribly crude comedy between each one. If you’ve read this far and it still sounds good to you...... fuck it, maybe you’ll like it. I’ve seen stranger things.



Kung Fu Panda

Created by DreamWorks animation, Kung Fu Panda is a delightful surprise of a movie that combines some of the most beautiful animation ever created, a compelling storyline full of laughs and adventure, and an excellent voice cast. An aspiring Kung Fu practicing Panda named Po (Jack Black) finds himself the reluctant hero when the evil snow leopard warrior Tai Lung (Ian McShane) once again threatens the Valley of Peace. The incredibly strong cast is rounded out by the voices of Angelina Jolee, Jackie Chan, Dustin Hoffman, Lucy Liu, Seth Rogen, and David Cross. This film burst onto the scene after an excellent premiere at the 61st Cannes Film Festival, and it’s easily recommendable for fans of the Shrek series or any of the Pixar films. Combined with Pixar’s Wall-E, it was a great summer for animated features.

Check back this Friday for Sureelfilm's Summer in Review Part 2.

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Surreelfilm's Summer in Review Part 2