This was a good summer for movies. This was a good year for movies. Was already, and it’s only half over with many more promising films to go. I think it is fair to say that before now we have been having quite a few years of crap movies, where only a passing few slipped by that were actually worth paying $10 to see. But this year has been remarkably different. I was finally excited to go to the movies again, and almost every new preview I come across increases that movie-lover joy just a little bit more.

But I have come to realize something as I have gotten older and been able to look at films with a more critical eye. While there are still original ideas out there, the films that are made most often, that Hollywood knows are going to sell, usually have an already existing basis: books, comics, older movies, real life stories, etc. There haven’t been too many first-edition Star Wars, if you catch my drift. And while the films that are being made can still be very good, there is almost always something, one little thing about an actor, a scene, the ending, that makes me go ‘oh, if only this had been different’.

I can remember a time when I was blown away by movies. Now I’m going, ‘oh, if only this had been different’? It’s disheartening, to say the least, and it has not been getting any better. There are so few films that are truly well-executed, and it pains me to be disappointed time and time again.

Now, I’m not going to be talking about the movies that truly sucked this summer, because there are plenty of those, and always will be. That doesn’t disappoint me as much as a good movie that messes something up so that it can never be truly great.

There were a lot of remakes this year, sequels, and adaptations, covering geek topics like comics, fantasy books, and even 1980s cartoons. I will be discussing these in order from biggest disappointment to least—for me personally, anyway—until finally getting to the one film I feel did everything right.

5. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (June 24th)

First off we’re dealing with a sequel to an adaptation, so the bar is already set low, but because the first Transformers did so well, this film could have gone either way. As we all know, it ended up blowing away its competition to the surprise of many, and I couldn’t have been more proud. I loved this movie, but there is a reason Transformers 2 was my biggest disappointment of all.

The ending.

I am not going to get into a debate about why the movie sucked because it wasn’t true enough to the cartoon. When the first film came out, my husband and I prepared by watching the Transformers animated movie. You know, the one with Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, and that awesome soundtrack with “The Touch!”. Yeah, that one. It was awesome, and it was a lot of fun bringing back that kind of nostalgia. But even though I might complain about the things that aren’t like the original, I have no problem with the changes live action movies need to make, as long as those changes are smart.

Yes, I was disappointed that Arcee was triplet motorcycles that had no real part. Yes, I thought those offensive twins were annoying and unnecessary. But it was a fun film and would have been perfect if only it had an actual ending.

Let me recap for you. Sam ‘dies’. We see Bumblebee fall to his knees, everyone else also distraught. Then Sam is miraculously brought back to life by the Matrix of Leadership, he brings Optimus Prime back, Optimus kicks ass with parts from Jetfire, and…suddenly its over. We never see Bumblebee again. We never see any of the other Autobots again. We see Sam and Optimus on an aircraft carrier going home, and then we cut to Sam back at college. That’s it. You couldn’t even see the other Autobots, or their parked vehicles at the very least, on the carrier, or on any adjacent ones. Do they suddenly not matter because Optimus came back? I certainly hope not. I was left going, uhh…Bumblebee? And what the hell happened to Wheelie, the little RC truck? He was there in Egypt when they first landed, and then he was never heard from again.

The ending of this otherwise wonderful film felt rushed, and was in serious need of an extra five or ten minutes.

4. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July 15th)

Yes, I am a Harry Potter fan. I wasn’t always. I was totally against it once because I hate fads and sometimes fans can ruin a fandom for everyone else. But when the first film came out, and I was dragged to see it by my friends who at the time all worked at the local movie theatre, I loved it so much that I went out and read all four of the books that existed at the time. I have read them all now, seen all of the other films, and so has my husband. I know Harry Potter.

Naturally, we always go into these films expecting that a lot of things are going to be cut, because there is just too much content. Hence fans’ excitement that the last book will be split into two films to accommodate.

My favorite of the books was the third one, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The film version, however, was my least favorite, because as much as I love David Thewlis as an actor, he is not Remus Lupin. The third movie also cut out so many things that were necessary, and left in things I didn’t really care about. Cardinal Sin of adaptation. Now, I loved the fourth movie, the fifth was…okay, but I was expecting a lot out of this sixth one because it is such an action-packed book, paired with real teenage angst and growth.

To be fair, I really enjoyed the sixth movie, I laughed a lot, and I thought the young actors did a great job of portraying that hormonal time that is very much present in the books. I was even fine with most of the things they left out.

Until the end.

Where was that final fight? The whole reason Draco is trying to bring the Death Eaters to Hogwarts is so they can take over the school while he kills Dumbledore. There is no way they would come in just to make sure he kills Dumbledore and then leave. I felt so cheated by this, because that fight is so important. Okay, so I long ago accepted that Bill Weasley is never going to be in these movies, but still, I wanted that fight.

Now, a friend of mine justified this choice by saying that the creators didn’t want to end on another fight when the final movies are the climax of the whole series. This sixth installment needed to be more about buildup, so they added a battle in the middle, and took out the last one. Okay. I can go along with that. But it doesn’t make me feel any better.

Certain things need to be taken out for time, but when chunks of the original are tossed aside, ultimately shaping it into something too removed from its source, that is unacceptable to me. Like Transformers, the ending was suddenly just there, leaving me hanging. I recognize it was supposed to do that to an extent to prep for the next two films, but that just isn’t a good enough excuse for me.

3. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (May 1st)

Yet another movie that surprised naysayers by doing so well. Wolverine was fantastic, so much fun, visually stunning, and Hugh and Liev did an amazing job as Wolverine and Victor (they never actually say Sabretooth, you may have noticed). Sure, they changed a bit of the story here—okay, a lot of the story here—but in this case we’re dealing with something based off of a medium that changes its own stories so often it’s kind of nice to have something new.

In Wolverine, a new and different story for his origins that touched on several different interpretations did not detract from the overall film for me. What did distract was the unnecessary use of characters purely to please fans.

I would like to first qualify that statement by saying it is worth having Deadpool’s character mutilated in this movie because Ryan Reynolds is Deadpool, and without his appearance there would not be a true Deadpool movie on its way. To me, and to my husband, having a Deadpool film in the works is worth seeing him with katanas coming out of his wrists. Gambit, however, has no excuse.

I blame myself. I was amongst those fans always clamoring for Gambit to be in any of the three movies that came before this, and every time we were disappointed. But throwing him in here, where he doesn’t belong, wouldn’t actually be old enough to exist the age he was in this time period anyway, and served no real purpose that couldn’t have been fulfilled by someone else, it’s more of a blow than a nod. Worst was that as cute as that actor was, and fitting in most ways to be Gambit, he could not do the accent. Throughout the film he slipped in and out from maybe a moment of Creole, to Southern, to nothing at all, and occasionally to something totally unrecognizable.

If you’re going to have Gambit in the film, at least do him justice. That should be true for any character. Ever. Throwing him in just to please the fans only ends up hurting the integrity of the overall film and disappointing the fans instead of pleasing them. Bad call.

2. Terminator Salvation (May 21st)

The reason Terminator is on this list is not entirely its own fault. How is that possible, you may ask? Well, I would like to direct you to Fox TV and the now cancelled series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Many Terminator fans assumed that the creation of this series was to set up for the movies we knew were on the way. So my husband and I excitedly watched the first season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles and we really enjoyed it. We’re Whedonites so of course we jumped at the chance to watch River in something again (Summer Glau who played the female Terminator, Cameron). But the second season started to lose us and we eventually lost interest altogether. Regardless, we were still expecting some kind of tie-in when we saw the new film, because it was such a golden opportunity to make use of several mediums for one franchise.

In the series’ and films’ defense, there was a small tie-in. Summer Glau’s character Cameron was a new breed of Terminator that could eat food, seemed to have her own personality and emotions, and was definitely unique. That was what the core of Terminator Salvation was about, Skynet creating a more human Terminator that could infiltrate John Connor’s camps more effectively.

Okay, so that’s something, but that didn’t keep many of us avid fans from watching Anton Yelchin play Kyle Reese and go, hey, where’s your brother Derek?

I could complain that John Connor’s character wasn’t really necessary in this film, or at least that Christian Bale (much as I love him) wasn’t necessary as the actor for this role, but then we must remind ourselves that two more films are coming. I also thought it was a fairly predictable ending (and…he’s going to give John his incredibly strong heart), but my husband and I are pretty good with that sort of thing, so I usually forgive it.

I’ll just say that if in either of the coming films we get a glimpse, however brief, of Summer Glau, I will forgive everything.

1. Watchmen (March 6th)

Yes, I know I really shouldn’t count this as a summer movie since it came out in March, but I’m stretching things a little here because I think Watchmen really needs to be on this list.

When the movie came out, complaints seemed to fall into one of two camps. Either the person was not a fan of the comic and couldn’t stop bitching about Doctor Manhattan’s blue penis, or they were a huge fan and couldn’t stop bitching about the changes.

First of all, I am a huge fan, I had no problem with the blue penis because it was supposed to be there, but I also had no problem with the changes because unlike the example I gave with Harry Potter, the changes made to Watchmen did not affect the message of the story.

I’ll admit that when I first realized the character of Ozymandias was going to be blaming everything on Doctor Manhattan instead of an alien invasion, I was upset. But it didn’t even take the rest of the movie for me to stop and realize that what Ozzy was trying to do was still the same as what he did in the comic, in fact using Manhattan actually tied everything together more easily for the layperson watching, and made it easier to leave out the side characters.

Yes, I loved Rorschach’s shrink, the newsstand guy, the comic reading kid, and the lesbian couple as much as all of you, but we knew from the beginning that we couldn’t have all of them in the film as more than a passing ‘oh there they are!’ because it was already two and half hours long and there just wasn’t time. There wouldn’t have been time for the island and all of the details needed to go into the alien hoax either. Making the scapegoat Doctor Manhattan instead made it all much more cohesive, and didn’t take away any of the purpose of the comic, or of the film.

What did I have a problem with then? Well, there is a reason Watchmen earned the number one spot as having only disappointed me a little; it only had one tiny problem.

Malin Akerman as Laurie Juspeczyk/Silk Spectre II.

Oh, she was gorgeous and looked the part, but she was one of the worst actors I have ever had the displeasure of watching destroy a role. I didn’t mind her as much the first time I saw the film. But five or so times later, her acting gets worse and more distracting every time I watch this movie. She was hired for her look, clearly, but Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl II looked exactly like his character from the comic and he was fantastic, not to mention Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian, and Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach still give me chills. They could have done a better job casting Laurie. If only she had been someone else. Who could act. Then it would have been the perfect film.
 
 
 
 
 
AND THE WINNER IS…
 
 
 
 
 

Star Trek (May 8th)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Star Trek was perfect. I will hear no arguments to the contrary because I have seen it several times now and it is just as enjoyable with every new viewing. And not just to me, who is a proud Trekkie (not Trekker, that just sounds stupid), but also to my husband who has never been a Star Trek fan. This film, a re-imagining of a classic series and collection of movies, appeals not only to die-hard fans who were ready to be critical, but to people who never would have thought of enjoying a Star Trek movie in their lives.

The casting was superb. Everyone was ideal for their role, and took their character in their own direction while still being true to the originals. The story was creative, made sense, and made it possible to reboot the series without destroying anything of what we love about the original storyline. And all because of a time paradox, which is a great example of what Star Trek is all about. We even got to see Leonard Nimoy reprise his role as Spock Prime one last time, which I can honestly say made me sniffle.

I still remember the first time I saw Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and how I broke into tears at the end when Kirk said “…where no man,” paused and corrected himself, “where no one has gone before,” passing the torch to Piccard and the already begun Star Trek: The Next Generation.

This huge franchise has always been a large part of my life, and I was worried they were going to destroy it with this new film. But Star Trek XI (wow eleven) was nothing short of miraculous in a time when I am always disappointed with something about the films I watch. Every second of this film was wonderful. The humor. The inside jokes (red shirt!). The depth of emotion, seen most notably by Zachary Quinto who played Spock, ironically. The writing. Everything. Thank goodness for that monster chase scene before Kirk meets Spock Prime or I would have had no time in the movie to go pee without missing an integrally important scene part of what made this movie so fantastic.

Conclusion

Of course I know that the films I mentioned do not even come close to covering all of the Summer movies worth noting—District 9 was fantastic. I also shamefully admit that I have not yet seen GI Joe, though I am pretty sure it would also make this list. The ones I did mention, however, had the opportunity to be greater than they were, but for me, for the reasons mentioned, they all missed the mark.

I don’t feel like it’s asking too much for all films to aim for the kind of perfection that Star Trek achieved. Like Iron Man and The Dark Knight, Star Trek has set the bar higher, and I believe it is the duty of filmmakers from this point on to meet that mark. There are a lot of appealing movies coming up yet this year. Here’s hoping that every last one of them the rest of 2009 is worth every cent we spend on it.

~G³

Next time I’ll be discussing a classic television show and its affect on modern society, “Mystery Science Theater 3000 and a Generation of Movie Talkers”.

You know you’re one of us.

Thanks for tuning in.

Images taken from:
http://www.sheknows.com/articles/808777.htm
http://www.drexel.edu/cchc/studentlife/Campus_Life/Free_Movie_Series.html
http://www.transformers2.net/367/movie/transformers-2-mega-gallery.htm
http://www.filmofilia.com/tag/david-yates/
http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/video-new-terminator-salvation-trailer/
http://www.channel4.com/film/gallery/index.jsp?id=11215&imageId=3&pageId=1
http://www.allmoviephoto.com/photo/2008_star_trek_002.html
http://teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk/index.php/2007/06/23/coursework-20-an-evaluation/
http://www.timdrussell.com/fandom.htm

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