Summer Flicks: Blockbusters busted
With the jolly, uncaring flings of summer behind them, students are now faced with the oncoming fall semester. Fraught with reports and exams that do nothing more than drive them closer to inevitable blindness and possible deafness, what can they rely on more than the sense-pleasing euphoria of Hollywood cinema to carry them through the year’s darker half?
Alas, winter holds little for the starving brains of the fall semester student. With the upcoming movie season looking so bleak, “Corpse Bride” and “The Chronicles of Narnia” are about it. What can one depend on? Luckily, there were so many that the spill over should ease the winter drought by at least three hours.
You can reserve your copy of “Star Wars Episode III” for its November 1st release. As the final round-about episode in the series, “Revenge of the Sith” does a decent job of finalizing Anakin’s descent to the dark side but fails to fully capture the immensity of the story being told.
Packing more plot in the final episode than the two prior entries combined, the movie tends to bulge in places where it should flow. The outcome is a great movie for Star Wars fans, but not so great for everyone else. Unless you’ve got the Jar Jar Binks bed sheets and the Darth Vader slacks, just wait for it to go down to $13.95 at Wal-Mart.
On the other hand, Christopher Nolan fires away at fans of all genres with his movie, “Batman Begins.” The movie finds connection with just about everyone who sees it. It’s about honor, love, redemption, and a man in a silly looking bat mask. It’s got everything.
Christian Bale also proves to be the most passionate Batman of the franchise and is able to breath new life into the character that George Clooney killed in “Batman and Robin.” This is definitely the best movie to be released this summer and should find a place on everyone’s shelf when it’s released on DVD in October.
Another movie suited to particular tastes is the Tim Burton film, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Johnny Depp plays the most annoying character that I’ve seen since Jim Carrey in Ron Howard’s remake of “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,” effectively removing all of the charm that made Willy Wonka such a memorable character in the original film.
The classic Oompa Loompa songs are redone into very forgettable flashy dance numbers, and the children are almost completely ignored once Depp takes center stage. I would say that this movie was terrible, if it weren’t for all of those who claimed that it wasn’t.
A movie that was seemingly glanced over this summer was Steven Spielberg’s epic, “War of the Worlds.” The movie’s first harrowing act features the best on-screen destruction since “Independence Day,” and Spielberg’s direction is nearly flawless. What lacks throughout the movie, however, is a comprehensible story that viewers have yet to see.
“War of the Worlds” tells the same sci-fi story audiences have been seeing since the 50s. The aliens come, destroy everything and then die. There is no great resolution, and while this worked in the 1953 version, it hardly stands up to today’s standard of storytelling.
The summer of 2005 gave something to everyone, from “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” to “The Fantastic Four.” If you missed any one of these big blockbuster Hollywood movies, you won’t be disappointed in the coming off-season because there’s sure to be a steady flow of cinematic backwash in your living room.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Sep 2 2005. Filed under Other.
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