PixlBit

Well, summer’s almost over, so you know what that means.  It’s time for me to talk about the movies I saw this summer (and some in the spring, too), as well as movies I wanted to see but didn’t get a chance to.  I’ll try to keep things spoiler-free, but there may be a few that slip out, so just be warned.  So let’s do this thing!

Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice

A lot of mixed reviews on this one.  I think the first hour and a half was pretty boring, but the last hour was pretty good.  It really felt more like a sequel to the last Superman movie more than anything.  But yeah, I didn’t like the first half of it.  It was just a bunch of people talking and Batman and Superman making frowny faces at each other.  And I don’t get why Batman had to go through some strength training montage.  No matter how strong he got, I don’t think he’d make much of a dent in Superman with his strength alone. 

So Batman and Superman started fighting until they decided to not fight anymore and save some important people.  And then Lex Luthor Jr., who is just a punk kid (at least punk kids are easy to hate), decides to make a giant King Kong with superpowers so Batman and Superman start fighting it and then Wonder Woman decides to show up and help.  That’s when the movie started getting a little better.  I don’t remember her having a sword and shield, but I don’t really know anything about Wonder Woman so that’s why.  I was disappointed they didn’t have her spin around and around like in the old Wonder Woman 1970’s TV show (I bet there were a lot of dizzy little girls in the 70s), and they didn’t use her theme song from the TV show either (but they did in LEGO games).  Maybe they should make a Wonder Woman movie?  Or how about a She Hulk movie?  I don’t know who should star in those movies, but I guess they’d have to pick a pretty strong lady.  At any rate, I think they only reason why they made this Batman vs. Superman movie is so they could lead it into a Justice League movie so they can compete with the Avengers across the street.

Ratchet & Clank

This movie was fun, but not more fun than the games.  I felt most of the scenes were just glorified cutscenes from the games.  I really like the Ratchet and Clank characters, though, but I feel they’re better suited for 30 min. Saturday morning cartoon material.  I do think the Ratchet and Clank games were some of the best 3-D platforming in the PS2 generation.  Here’s an interesting note.  I just learned that the guy who did some of the murals at the National Videogame Museum designed a lot of the characters in the Ratchet and Clank games.  He also designed the mascot for the National Videogame Museum, a little robot who I said looked a lot like Clank, so I wasn’t really far off!  The guy’s name is Oliver Wade, and he also was involved with the animation of the movie, too!

Capt. America: Civil War

Why can’t all the superheroes just get along?  I imagine the Civil War story was more detailed in the comic books.  I don’t really know what side I’d be on.  I figure good guy superheroes should get rights like the rest of us, but not the bad guys.  But luckily we live in a world where people can’t lift houses over our heads so I don’t have to worry about that.  Anyway, this movie was pretty fun, but it did get pretty ridiculous at times.  Like when Captain America was running faster than cars, and when he pulled down a helicopter with just one arm.  That just looked silly and I was laughing all the way through those scenes.  But most superhero movies are just cleverly disguised kids’ movies, so that’s probably why.  And there was more Winter Solider in this movie than in Captain America: Winter Soldier!

Angry Birds

I actually waited until this was at the dollar theater to watch it.  And I’m glad I did, as it was one of the worst movies I saw this summer.  But since it was video game related, I felt like I had to see it.  I guess if I had to say anything good about it, it would be that the movie closely follows what goes on in the game, and it’s a colorful vibrant looking film.  So what’s next?  A Doodle Jump or Fruit Ninja movie?

X-Men: A Popsicle

Yeah I know this is called Apocalypse, but I like my name better.  Anyway, this movie is set in the past like some of the other X-Men movies.  Like the one where they’re all kids and are just starting out.  Anyway, this movie is set during the 80’s and pretty much just explains in an overelaborate way on how Professor Z, their leader, got bald.  Oh yeah, and in this movie they really needed to have those “Hello My Name Is…” name tags on every one of them, because I had no idea who most of them were.  So I pretty much just made up names of my own.  There was Metal Wing Guy and Fast Man and Purple Lady.  I actually recognized Purple Lady because she was also in Marvel vs. Capcom 2!  She could make these pink bubblegum weapon things come out of her hands.  But in this movie, she was a bad guy!  I didn’t think she was a bad guy!  Maybe one of you X-Men experts could fill me in.  All my knowledge of Marvel mostly comes from Marvel vs. Capcom.  Hey, they should make a movie out of that! At any rate, despite not knowing everyone’s names, I still enjoyed this movie for just a fun summer flick.

There is one instance in the movie that I’m going to nitpick about.  In one scene, Fast Man is playing Ms. Pac-Man in his basement.  He turns around to talk to his mom, and you hear the Pac-Man death sound in the background, letting you know that he lost the game.  But the game he was playing was Ms. Pac-Man.  It has a different death sound effect than Pac-Man!  Also the maze he was playing on wasn’t one of the original mazes, it was a hack.  So they needed to have a Pac-Man consultant on this movie.

Come to think of it, I’ve been blind in my left eye since birth because of a genetic anomaly.  So does that make me a mutant?  Could I be part of the X-Men?  Yeah!  I wonder what mutant powers I should have?  Let me know what you think about that in the comments section!

Finding Dory

Finding Nemo is one of my top five favorite Pixar movies.  While I didn’t like the sequel as much, I still enjoyed it a lot.  It’s full of great laughs and moments, and the underwater scenery is beautiful.  Ditto goes for the short before it.  It’s amazing how well they do CG water, which I hear is supposedly really hard to do.  This movie made me want to visit an aquarium, which is something I actually really like to do.  One of my favorite places in EPCOT Center is The Living Seas exhibit, and I loved it when they remade it to have a Nemo theme.  Anyway, you’ll definitely want to stay after the credits for this movie for a funny extra scene!

MST3K Reunion

Most of you who know me, may know that one of my all-time favorite TV shows is Mystery Science Theater 3000.  Some of the cast members of the show do something now called RiffTrax, which is pretty similar.  Sometimes they do live shows that are simulcast in theaters across the country, and this summer they did a big one where they brought back most of the original cast from MST3K.  They did a bunch of hilarious shorts and it was one of the best I’ve seen.  When Joel was on stage he was as funny as ever.  My favorite character was always “TV’s Frank” and poor Frank Conniff on the stage looked like he was ready to leave.  Maybe he just wasn’t feeling good that day.  He’s still my favorite character regardless.  They also did two other shows this summer.  Time Chasers was originally a MST3K episode, but I didn’t remember it until I watched it here.  I wish I would’ve done more research to see if it was on one of my MST3K DVDs because I generally don’t like to see movies they’ve already riffed before because the tickets to these things are a little bit more expensive than what I like to pay for.  And finally in August they did Mothra (a couple of weeks ago actually).  That was really good.  When I was a kid, on Saturday morning after the cartoons and Soul Train were over, they would usually show an old Godzilla, Ultraman, or other giant monster movie on one of the local stations.  And if I wasn’t doing anything or playing outside, I’d watch it.  So yeah, those old movies were a big part of my childhood.

The Secret Life of Pets

This was a cute movie.  Nothing special, just a fun little flick you can take the family to see.  Especially if you like pets.  It was made by the same people who do the Despicable Me and Minions movies, and I think they capitalized on that popularity with this movie, too, as it had a Minions short before the movie and cameos in it. 

Ghostbusters

Let’s just get this out of the way. I still think the original movie is better.  It had a better cast and I prefer the comedic pacing in the first one more.  Also I’m a bigger fan of the older comedians like Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray.  But it’s not really the new movie’s fault that I’m not familiar with the new cast.  Also, I thought the movie would be a sequel, but it’s more of a reimagining.  But with that said, the new movie wasn’t THAT bad.  I still laughed a lot.  What’s funny is that in the old movie, my favorite characters were the secretary (Janine), and Slimer.  Well, in the new movie, my favorite characters are still the (new) secretary, and also Slimer!  Although I think Girl Slimer should’ve been pink.  The blond lady with goggles was sometimes funny, too.  The cameos from nearly all the original cast were pretty neat as well.  One of my brothers, who watched the movie with me, made a good point.  He said the cheesiest parts of the movie were where they referenced the original.  While I liked those references, I do agree that if they tried to make this movie more its own thing, it might’ve been even better.  But the original film is so iconic that it would probably be impossible.  Oh yeah, and every summer, there’s always one movie with way too much blatant product placement.  Well, this is that movie.  Everything from Pringles to Papa John’s Pizza was in here.  But good or bad, this movie caused Hi-C to bring back Ecto-Cooler, if only for a while, so I’m cool with it.

Ice Age: Collision Course

It’s been a tradition for me to take my mom to see the Ice Age movies, as she loves the little squirrel who always tries to get the acorn.  But these movies just get steadily worse and worse.  This one just flat out sucked.  Even worse than the Angry Birds movie.  I don’t think I laughed one time through the whole thing.  I think the Ice Age characters would be better suited as a 30-minute TV cartoon anyway. 

Movies I wanted to see, but couldn’t

Well, that was a lot of movies for me to see this summer.  There were a few more, but it’s hard to see EVERY movie I want.  That’s just the way it is.  Part of the problem is that a lot of the theaters around me have remodeled to have bigger seats that recline, but less of them.  So they sell out of tickets faster because they have less seats!  And if you don’t go see a movie in the first three weeks it’s out, you may not be able to see it in theaters because they close it that quickly unless it makes a lot of money (like Frozen or the new Star Wars).  I remember a long time ago when movies would be out for three months and you’d have plenty of time to see them.  But not anymore.  It’s a little annoying. 

Kubo and the Two Strings

I REALLY wanted to see this movie, and I still might if I get a chance.  But I couldn’t on opening weekend because everyone I planned to see it with backed out or overslept at the last minute.  Kind of ticked me off, but what’re you going to do?  Anyway, a long time ago I took a class on clay animation, so I’ve always had respect for those who do stop motion animation like this movie.  The folks who made this movie are Laika, and while I never got into Caroline and didn’t care much for Paranorman, I did kind of like BoxTrolls.  This newest one looked awesome so I was hoping to see it soon.  But like I said, if you don’t go see a summer movie in the first three weeks, you might miss it.  And the next couple of weeks I’ll be busy working or at PAX West.  Oh well.

TMNT: Out of the Shadows

When my brother Jeff was little, it was always kind of a tradition for us to go see the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies.  So I thought it would be fun to see this one with him, too.  But that didn’t happen unfortunately.  I’m sure the movie wasn’t that good, though.  The only other reason why I was curious about it was they brought back my favorite TMNT villains: Bebop and Rocksteady.

Independence Day: Resurgence

While the first Independence Day was a mindless explodey summer flick, it was still pretty entertaining back then.  I didn’t get a chance to see this one unfortunately.  I heard it wasn’t so great, but it’s always fun to go see science fiction movies on a big screen.

Star Trek Beyond

I’m not too big of a Star Trek fan, but the last couple of movies were more exciting.  Kind of sad that the new guy who played Chekov died.  I know I said this before, but when I was a kid, I had a Russian Blue cat and I named him Chekov because I didn’t know any other Russian names!

Pete’s Dragon

When I was making a list of movies I wanted to see this summer, I put this on there, but then looked back and thought, “Hey wait a minute, I don’t want to see that after all!”  But I still kept it on the list so I could talk about it a bit.  When the first movie came out back in the late 70’s/early 80’s, I remember it being fairly popular.  I remember a lot of people I knew had it on video, and we watched it a lot in school, too.  But I never really liked it that much for some reason.  Although I did like the Pete’s Dragon cameo in Epic Mickey (wasn’t he in one of the Kingdom Hearts games, too?).  So yeah, looking back on it, why would I want to see a crappy remake of a movie I didn’t like in the first place?

I know one movie I definitely did NOT want to see, and that was Sausage Party.  It just looked so awful.  I also decided to skip out on Suicide Squad because it just didn’t look like a “Cary” movie to me.  At least I know who Harley Quinn and The Joker are.  But if one of you think I would like it, let me know.

And that’s a wrap!

And those are all the movies I saw or wanted to see this summer!  I think the worst movie out of the bunch for me was Ice Age.  The best movie?  Well, other than the MST3K Reunion Tour, I was actually pleasantly surprised with the new Ghostbusters movie.  In the comments section, let me know what you think of my list, and tell me what movies you saw this summer!  Later!  --Cary