Summer’s winding down, so you know what that means. It’s time to write a blog about the movies I saw this past summer. There may be some slight spoiler warnings here and there, but I’ll try not to reveal anything major, just to let you know. OK, let’s begin!
Godzilla
When I was a kid, we didn’t have any 24-hour cartoon cable channels. The only time we could watch cartoons was maybe for an hour before or after school, and on Saturday mornings. So those Saturday mornings were always special because that’s when the good stuff came on, and it was a little sad when it was all over and you’d hear “Soooooouuuullll Train” on the TV. That’s how you knew the cartoons were done. Although as a kid I would stay and watch the first part of Soul Train because I liked the cartoon train that would run past in the beginning. But anyway, it wasn’t totally over on Saturdays because one of the local stations here would almost always show a Japanese monster movie in the early afternoon, and sometimes I would watch it. So I was exposed to stuff like Godzilla and Ultraman at an early age. And Mystery Science Theater 3000 later helped, too. This new Godzilla movie made me feel like a kid again. One cool thing is that there is a cable channel called Chiller, and they usually just show scary movies. But on the opening weekend of the new film, they showed a bunch of Godzilla movies! I wish they’d do that more often!
The other American-made Godzilla movie was done in the late 90’s when I was in college and it was awful. Godzilla didn’t even look like himself, and he didn’t do what Godzilla is supposed to do. He just burrowed in the subway and laid eggs. Godzilla doesn’t do that! Luckily in the new movie, Godzilla does everything that he is supposed to do: breathe fire, fight other giant monsters, and of course, that distinctive roar. Only problem I had with the movie is the same problem I have with all Godzilla movies. It takes too long to get to the good stuff: the monster fights! But other than that, I really enjoyed the movie. Godzilla looks like he put on a few pounds, though.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2
I don’t really get into Marvel Comics, or comic books in general. In fact, most of my knowledge of Marvel comes from the LEGO game, Marvel vs. Capcom, and the other movies I’ve seen. So each movie is always a learning experience for me. So in this movie, I learned that Spider-Man has to fight a lot of crazy bad guys. First he fights a guy made out of electricity. This “Elec Man” got his powers from plugging in two big wires without turning the power off, and then he fell into a tank with electric eels in them! Who keeps a tank full of electric eels in a power station? That’s just silly. So after Spider-Man defeats Electric Eel Man, he then has to fight the Green Goblin. Or at least I think that’s who it was. He’s the guy who rides on the flying skateboard, right? So after Spider-Man beats him up, then he has to fight a guy in a giant rhino mech at the end of the movie. I kind of wish he could’ve fought that guy more often, as I liked the rhino mech, and rhinos in general. In the LEGO game, he was just a big rhino guy, so I don’t know which one is right. But the other confusing thing is that in the first three Spider-Man movies, Spider-Man had one girlfriend, and in the last two remakes, he had a different one. So how many girlfriends does Spider-Man have? Oh well, it was still an entertaining, turn-off-your-intelligence type of movie, although it got sad near the end. Luckily, the rhino mech came along to cheer things up! Hooray for rhinos!
X-Men: Days of Future Past
There sure have been a lot of X-Men movies. Like I said earlier, I don’t know much about comic book characters, so there were a lot in this movie I didn’t know. I know who Wolverine is, and Professor Z, and the blue lady. In this movie there were a lot of others. Like an ice guy and a fire guy, a lightning lady, a metal guy, and a girl who could make portals like in, well, Portal. And then there was a fast guy and someone who had the power to make people throw up (yeah I bet that one’s useful). Another guy had a frog tongue, I kind of liked him. I think he was in another movie, too. Oh yeah, and a blue monster guy. And that’s all I remember. I want you comic book experts to tell me who these people were, and I also want you to pick out an X-Men character that you think I’d like. I know exactly how to defeat Magneto, though. All you need is a giant refrigerator and a kid’s drawing or straight A report card, and Magneto will stick right to it!
In the movie Wolverine had to go to the past to stop those purple Sentinel robots from getting more advanced in the future. See I know about the purple robots because they’re in Marvel vs. Capcom. So Wolverine goes to the 70’s before I was even born! I wish they would’ve played up being in the 70’s more. Sure there was a disco and a Pong machine and everyone wore those super thick neckties. But they could’ve given Wolverine an afro and a leisure suit. That would’ve been funny. Oh yeah, we had to stay through the end credits because nobody would leave their seat so they could see the last part that never makes any sense (to me anyway). So can one of you comic book experts explain that, too? Thanks.
You know, come to think of it, I’ve been blind in my left eye since birth because of an optic nerve mutation. So does that make me a mutant, too, like the X-Men? I think my only power is to write good game reviews, though. So watch out, evil game store employees! Next time one of them tries to sell you Titanfall, just remember my powers and buy that Kirby game instead! Of course, if more people played Kirby games, the world would probably be a happier place. So maybe that is a good power to have!
Maleficent
OH MY GOSH! It’s a movie about the villain in Kingdom Hearts!!! Just joking! I know who she is. I really wasn’t planning on seeing this, but a close relative really wanted to see it so I told her I’d take her to it as long as she asked for the tickets at the counter. I’d still pay, but I just wanted to hear her mispronounce the name of the movie! Yeah I know, I’m mean. The movie was OK I guess. It was pretty girly and definitely Disney. I thought it would be scarier than what it was, but it really wasn’t that bad. Lots of people had their kids in the audience and none of them cried or got scared. I think my favorite part of the movie was when Angelina’s own daughter played the part of the young princess as a toddler. She just hobbled over to her mommy, gave her a hug, asked her to pick her up, and then she played with mommy’s horns on her head. The older version of the princess came off as kind of ditzy, though.
Transformers: Age of Extinction
I don’t really like the Michael Bay Transformers movies that much, but they are great to see in the theater because the special effects are awesome and they do really make it look like you’re part of the action. The humans were not as annoying this time around, at least. I had no idea who some of the robots were, and those were some pretty weird takes on Galvatron and the Dinobots. I also thought the My Little Pony reference was amusing. But after playing the Fall of Cybertron game, I’ve been spoiled. The only folks who can do a Transformers movie right are game makers High Moon. If you’re a classic Transformers fan, you really need to play that game!
Rifftrax: Sharknado
My favorite TV show of all time is Mystery Science Theater 3000. Some of the cast is still around making fun of movies, minus the robots of course. And they show some of their movies in theaters. So yeah I paid for them to riff Sharknado. Wow, that’s a movie that almost doesn’t need anyone to make fun of it; it does that all on its own! And to think they made a sequel. Later in August Rifftrax is doing the awful 1998 Godzilla movie, and later I hear they’re doing Anaconda in theaters, too.
Guardians of the Galaxy
When I go see a Marvel movie, I almost always have no idea who all the characters are. But since this is a movie based on a more obscure Marvel license, I figure I was on more level ground. Only thing I knew about this movie prior is that it had a mean raccoon in it, and I only knew that from playing Marvel vs. Capcom 3, where most of my Marvel knowledge comes from. The outer space characters kind of reminded me of the Green Lantern stuff. I can’t remember the names, so I made up my own. There was Mean Raccoon, Tree Man (I also called him Wispy Woods), Green Lady, The Guy, and That Other Guy. Overall, though, it was a neat movie with fun music from the 70’s. I only wish the raccoon could’ve been nicer. At least his tree friend was cool.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Aside from some typical casting choices, even though this was a Michael Bay movie, it really wasn’t that bad. And fun for kids, too! When TMNT first came out, I was a little too old to be into that stuff. I knew it was a comic book first, because I saw kids carry them around and remembered the unusual title. I only watched the cartoon because I met some of the folks who worked on it at a convention and I wanted to see their name in the credits. But what I did get really big into was the arcade game and the SNES Turtles in Time. My brother Jeff and I have a history with those games, and that’s why we had to go see the movie. We were happy they even used a quote from the arcade game in it! Every summer, there is one movie that overdoes it on the product placement, though, and this year it was the Turtles movie. Can you guess which commercial product they had the most? That’s right, Pizza Hut!
I love the promotion that Pizza Hut has going on with this movie right now, though. They are serving four different pizzas, each one representing one of the Turtles. Leonardo, being the generic leader, gets a regular pizza. Michelangelo, being the crazy one, has a pizza with weird ingredients like pineapples and jalapenos. Donatello’s ‘smart’ pizza has grilled white chicken and mushrooms and other green ingredients. But the best turtle has the best pizza. Raph’s is an all meat pizza and I ate it today and it’s yummy. Yeah, surprisingly Raphael is my favorite turtle. But that’s simply because of the arcade game. His joystick was on the rightmost side of the cabinet, so when I would play the game, I’d always play as him so I wouldn’t have to squeeze in between two people to play. That’s the same reason why I always played as Lisa in the Simpsons arcade game! Oh yeah, and supposedly on the Pizza Hut web site, you can order your turtle pizza ‘katana cut’ with a real katana (yeah right) into four big turtle slices!
Leftovers
There were some movies this summer that I didn’t see, either because I didn’t get around to it or I’d rather wait until it goes on Netflix. One movie that I didn’t get around to seeing was How to Train Your Dragon 2. The first one was actually better than I thought it was going to be, and I would’ve liked to have seen the sequel. But it didn’t happen so I’ll either see it at the dollar movie or wait until Netflix. Other movies I’m happy to wait for Netflix are Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, because I saw the first one on Netflix, too. And Planes: Fire & Rescue, because the first one wasn’t very good. In the comments section, let me know which movies you saw this summer, and which ones were your favorites. Later! --Cary
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