This summer’s hottest action movies in review

    Welcome to war-torn America, where cyber-terrorists are causing a traffic jam in Washington while giant robots attack downtown Los Angeles The underworld of magic suffers extinction at the hands of Voldemort while the Caribbean is in danger of becoming extremely wet.         All of this colossal mayhem in this summer’s blockbuster line-up is enough to keep the common college student occupied for about as long as its on the big screen, offering only a momentary escape from the trivialities of menial summer jobs and long nights searching for the restroom at the local bar. They are fun but, like a firecracker’s pulse of light in the sky, they just do not last.
    Not that fireworks over the summer are a bad thing. They definitely draw a crowd. And, like a fireworks show, no two are ever quite the same. Gore Verbinsky’s third installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean series was definitely fun, wet, and wild; serving up a triple dose of the beloved Captain Jack Sparrow who has now been plastered over every girl’s room in America. (I hear that Jack Sparrow posters are running two to one against modern telephones.) Frankly, I could have done without the scene where twenty Jack Sparrows run around with their shirts off trying to entice the female audience with fantasies best left up to the imagination. Crazy kids.
    Although the plot was twisted and convoluted to a point where even the characters weren’t sure what side they were working for, the action and effects were explosive enough to discharge all need for motivation. It’s a fun ride that nobody needs to take more than once unless you’re merely wishing to admire Johnny Depp; campy portrayal for three hours straight. Keira Knightly is hardly worth the effort in her never-say-die Barbie makeup, and Orlando Bloom… well, he’s Orlando Bloom.
    John McLane was also ready to deliver the bullet-riddled goods in Live Free or Die Hard; a movie that’s worth seeing for its title alone. As far as I can recall there was no actual dialogue in the movie. It merely began with things blowing up and Bruce Willis jumping out of the way while muttering razor sharp one-liners to internet terrorists. And it didn’t stop until everyone was dead. There were mild utterances of a story in- between gunshots that was obviously stripped from a special report from a Wired magazine, but it was really only a supplement to the extremely absurd and infinitely entertaining violence that saturated it.
    It is hard to watch a woman get hit by an SUV at 50 miles per hour and then just be a little angered by it after the cutaway. Even the terrorists were having a hard time contemplating how stupid-difficult it was to kill anybody who was not a nameless thug. This was another film that was great upon deliver, but single serving. Watching this movie twice is like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel after you’ve already done it. There’s no point, and really, you could get hurt.
    In case you are not already seeing a pattern here, Transformers was the final big franchise to release its guns on the unwitting public, and it made a similar impression. Michael Bay plays to his strengths of creating fun, over-the-edge movies for the gamer crowd that requires no attention span whatsoever. I love these movies because I always know what I’m going to see. The Rock, Bad Boys and Armageddon are really just the same movie with different computer generated effects. And this time, the CGI geeks have really outdone themselves.
    In the spirit of repeating franchises, Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix was released in theatres and IMAX in collusion with the final book’s release, which sent children spiraling into a multi-media orgiastic Potter-induced haze. Given that this movie had the most character and plot of any major movie to release this summer, I have to endorse it as the best. However, being myself a Muggle, I have to admit a discriminatory hatred for all witches and wizards and therefore  I am unsympathetic to the plight of Potter and his band of Muggle-hating friends. Goodbye Hogwarts School of Magic, may the Deceptions visit you in the night.
    Although no film produced any lasting punches to the cumulative minds of America, there were some great spectacles to be witnessed in the small Milledgeville theatre. Although, if you missed any of them, rest assured that you have saved your quarters for a night when your brain is full and needs a mind-numbing ride on the McLane Train. It will be well worth it. To the rest of you, stay in the theatre. 

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Aug 3 2007. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry