Summer Movie Madness

I am shamed. I haven't posted a review for waaaay too long.  So let's quickly get caught up on the most wonderful time of the year; summer blockbuster season:

(ratings out of ****)

Jurassic Park 3D: ****. Okay, it's from back in April, but I had to throw it on here.  It was so, so cool to see my favorite movie of all-time in IMAX 3D.  I was 12 years old again and loved every minute of it.  Amazingly enough the special effects have barely aged and still look amazing.

The Croods: **. Looks beautiful, great character and set design, awesome animation, but not much to get excited about here.  Needed a little more charm.  Wait for Red Box.

Iron Man 3: ***.  Better than part 2, not as good as the original.  Very entertaining with fun performances.

Fast & Furious 6: *1/2. Dumb, over the top, totally unrealistic action sequences and slightly entertaining.  I laughed out loud during three separate scenes that are not intended to be comedic.

Star Trek Into Darkness: ****.  Best movie of the summer.  Everything about it is top notch.  My wife even shed a tear...a tear! In a Star Trek movie!  Well done, Mr. Abrams.  You give us hope for Star Wars Episode 7...don't mess it up.

Man of Steel: **1/2. The trailers had me, the movie kind of lost me.  Fun action and amazing visual effects, but I feel they swung and missed on this one.  The last 45 minutes are all fighting and city destroying.  I can't imagine what the death toll and costs in damage would be if it really happened.

World War Z: ***. Very intense and entertaining.  Also very dark, maybe could have used an extra laugh or two to lighten things up...although that may not have fit the movie.  Thoroughly enjoyed it and a solid performance by Brad Pitt.

Monsters University:  ****.  Very funny with plenty of heart and visually stunning.  What we expect from Pixar.

The Lone Ranger: **.  Not sure it quite deserves the pounding it's taken from critics.  Fine performances from Armie Hammer as the Lone Ranger and Johnny Depp as Tonto (although it's a little Jack Sparrow-ish and isn't the hit it out of the ball park performance that Sparrow was).  It's entertaining but overall struggles to find an identity, is somewhat jumbled up as far as the edit and is 35 minutes too long.  I did enjoy the use of the William Tell overture when it finally showed up.

Despicable Me 2: **1/2:  The minions are hilarious and I kind of enjoy the Looney Tunes style comedy, to a certain degree.  Apart from that it's nothing too spectacular.

Pacific Rim: ***1/2.  Mix 20 cups of a well done Godzilla with 20 cups of Transformers and a cup or two of Top Gun and you have the hugely (pun intended) entertaining Pacific Rim. I'm a King Kong, Godzilla, giant monster fan, so this was right up my alley.  The special effects are some of the best ever to be seen on screen (although most the FX come at night and in the rain or water, which makes sense since that is cheaper and "easier" but I wanted to see a little more day-light/no-rain shots of the giant monsters and robots).  This movie will make you feel like a kid again.  My jaw literally was hanging open at one point as the giant beasts and robots fought each other.  There's enough heart with the human characters for what this movie is.  After seeing it I can't tell you any of the characters names besides the main giant robot, Gypsie Danger, but I was definitely entertained.  PS, I highly recommend IMAX for this movie, it's meant to be seen as big as possible.

Turbo: ***.  Funny and entertaining with plenty of heart.  Think a lesser Ratatouille with snails instead of rats and racing instead of cooking.

What's left of the summer? Elysium? The Wolverine?  See you at the movies.