Oddernod

2011 Mid-Year Popcorn Jockey Report

Walking out of Rango earlier this year, my friends and I realized we were looking at a poster-filled lobby and were on the precipice of a jam-packed summer season. Talk about potential – almost every week for three straight months there was something one of us was mega-excited about.

Let’s see, we had 3 important Marvel movies plus a risky new DC entry, sequels to recent animated features, big ILM-fueled VFX extravaganzas, and the closing chapter to the most loved film franchise of all-time.

Since I normally tweet out a review right as I’m walking out of the theater, the only bias here is the anticipation I had walking in.  After the jump, there’s the breakdown of what I had to say on Twitter fresh from the end of the credit roll. It’s a long post.

Attack The Block: 8/10

 - If John Carpenter made an R-rated Goonies set in London, it wouldn’t be half as good as this

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes: 6/10 (originally 7/10)

 - Nothing to say may never have looked this good. Great direction in what coulda been schlock.  

Another Earth: 4/10

- Neat sci-fi premise wasted on trials of youth. Brief moments of tension + heartache hidden in total boredom  

Cowboys & Aliens: 5/10

- Stuff sure blew up good but who was I rooting for again? Charismatic cast saved it from being a dud  

Captain America: 8/10

- Joe Johnston didn’t disappoint - great blend of character driven humor + action   

Harry Potter part 8: 8/10

- Spectacular if not safe finale to the journey. Wizards at war in Hogwarts was astounding.  

Transformers 3: 6/10 (originally 7/10)

- As a kid who ran home every day from school to get to a TV in time to see Transformers, the last 30 minutes is as close I’ll get to something decent out of Bay.

Cars 2: 5/10 (originally 6/10)

- The first Pixar movie that didn’t have a reason to be made. And the first one aimed exclusively at kids. Commercial, boring, and no heart to be found. Direct to video disappointment.

Green Lantern: 3/10 (originally 4/10)

- So, Angela Bassett still looks good?

Super 8: 8/10 (originally 9/10)

- Haters gonna hate, but I’ve still got my soul. Pulp Fiction for 80s kids. So much good, but that last act could have been tightened up.  

Kung Fu Panda 2: 8/10

- insanely well staged and animated action. Cinematography built for stereo 3D - best use since Avatar.  

Pirates 4: 5/10

- Lack of stakes for our hero and no visual impact from the direction drags down a smaller scope Pirate adventure.  

Priest: 6/10

- better than Legion or any Resident Evil movie. Sometimes not saying anything is better than what was in the script.  

Marwencol: 10/10

- if you liked Exit Through The Gift Shop you owe it to yourself to watch Marwencol. Immediately.  

Thor: 8/10

- Branagh pulls off impossible by making believable cosmic Norse actioner. On par with Iron Man 1. Hemsworth is a star.  

Fast Five: 7/10

- What it would look like if your high school football team made a stage play version of Ocean’s 11. With cars.  

Sucker Punch: 5/10 (originally 7/10)

- An anime Wizard of Oz, music video game cinematic on the big screen. All the positives and negatives that implies.   

Battle LA: 4/10

- I wish Neill Blomkamp got to make Halo instead of this.  

Rango: 9/10

- dirtiest, weirdest, most absurd Western ever. ILM just made the animated movie of the year @halhickel killed it

After hypothetical additional viewings, I’d probably drop Cowboys & Aliens, Cars 2, and Green Lantern a point, but I wouldn’t waste my time on any of them again.

That’s a bitter pill to swallow, particularly on Cars 2. I can imagine how my Apple friends felt with the release of Final Cut Pro X. Betrayal. Shock. Disappointment. Silly emotions for a movie about talking cars.  But Pixar never disappoints – and having thoroughly enjoyed the first Cars, growing up with NASCAR, and fascinated with Route 66, this episode was dumb, plodding, and oddly enough, crassly commercial in a early Dreamworks sense.  If only they set their sights on a straight-up spy movie set in the Cars world, kinda like the opening scene, this could have been better than the original.

At least we have Buzz and Woody: that Toy Story short before it felt like Edgar Wright locked himself inside Pixar’s render farm for a weekend. I really hope Monsters University falls into that territory and not this cash grab disappointment.

Super 8 may go down a notch as I fear I let nostalgia get the best of me – nothing I’ve seen before this has ever given me a legitimate and honest Goonies vibe. Either way just about anything JJ Abrams touches warrants at least a second viewing, but I hope it wasn’t a nostalgia bomb propping up that 9 outta 10.

Would I push anything up? Probably Fast Five. I’m a sucker for those stupid movies and the move to switch the franchise from racing to heists bought them at least 1 more sequel.

For some reason I didn’t rate Bridesmaids or X-Men: First Class. On the strength of Maya Rudolph I’d give the former a 5/10, and on the back of some wicked Fassbending I’d give X-Men a 6, but they dropped the ball on Emma Frost in that one.

Top Five of 2011 So Far*

1. Rango
2. Captain America
3. Super 8
4. Kung Fu Panda 2
5. Source Code

*A top five of 2011 so far is almost irrelevant considering November and December are so stacked. Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Hugo Cabaret, Tintin, The Muppets Movie, Sherlock Holmes, and Brad Bird’s Mission: Impossible are all stacked up for an overloaded holiday.