Summer is here! As measured by ever-earlier summer movie premieres, anyway. By the year 2010 Hollywood meteorologists predict that this trend will lead to the summer solstice clocking in sometime mid January. But that means it’s time to see which blockbusters will suck away your money, your time, and your reasoning faculties. No time to research, I’ll wing it from what I’ve seen in the trailers or from unfounded Internet rumors. Let’s go!
Spider-Man 3: My Super Ex-Boyfriend
Once again we join our friendly neighborhood wall-crawler. Life has been good for Spider-Man. The city adores him, he’s with the girl of his dreams, and he’s on Burger King cups. But, like other young people thrust too soon into superstardom, he gets a snappy new evil black suit and an emo haircut, gets into fights in nightclubs, smashes a paparazzi’s camera, pushes his girlfriend around, and fights a giant sand creature before finally snapping and ending up in a church tower. Same thing happened to Christian Slater in 1993. Coming in 2009, “Spider-Man 4: Escape from Rehab!”
28 Weeks Later
Once again we join the victims of a zombie virus that sweeps across the land and makes London marginally less dreary.
Shrek the Third
Once again we join everyone’s favorite reluctant hero Shrek the ogre, and his increasingly large collection of friends. This time they have to find a prince and help him grow up to someday become Richard Harris or something. But you don’t care about the plot, you want funny dialogue, more characters to hang around, more musical numbers, and more proof that Eddie Murphy is fantastic when you don’t have to look at him, and you’ll get it. Don’t miss the thrilling forest combat scene when the Keebler Elves attack, only to be thwarted by a magical lizard who saves Shrek a fortune in car insurance.
Pirates of the Caribbean 3: Yo Ho Yo Ho A Billionaire’s Life For Us
Once again we join Will, Elizabeth, Norrington, the Laurel and Hardy pirate guys, and probably a few dozen others as they travel to far off lands to fight computer animation, rescue Captain Jack Sparrow, and enlist all the pirates of the world in one big us-vs-them battle against the East India Trading Company. Meanwhile the RIAA will be watching pirates go down under the cannon barrages and saying to themselves, “We could just shoot them? Seriously?”
Oceans 13
Once again we join everyone’s favorite group of devilish rogues who concoct a cunning scheme to commit an outlandish caper that goes awry when Ellen Barkin unexpectedly becomes Venom and devours George Clooney.
Fantastic Four 2: Cowabunga, Earth
Once again we join the bickering heroes as they battle Dr. Doom, each other, and the guy from the Joe Satriani album cover. With special guest Stan Lee as the 140-story-tall, world-slurping Galactus, if I had my way.
Evan Almighty
Once again God decides to make life interesting for a reporter — God has little use for mainstream media, apparently — and he chooses Evan to be his new Noah because God can judge Q ratings as well as anybody and Steve Carell is huge right now. Huge!
Die Hard 4: Just Die Already
Once again we join John McClane as he battles terrorists or teachers’ unions or something, only this time they’re techy so he has to get a tech-savvy sidekick who will scream a lot and get all the good lines. His sidekick is played by the Apple guy from the commercials, which means that in the heat of battle, when things are at their worst, he’ll be able to whip out a wicked cool photo gallery in seconds.
Transformers
Once again we join a bunch of GM vehicles that can… wait for it… “transform” into great big robotty things that battle. As opposed to the 1986 version this one will be live-action and will not include Orson Welles as a living planet, so there goes the Oscar nod. Insanely anticipated by the online Transformers fans, Wal-Mart, and the plastic wholesalers of America whose output of tie-in toys will help boost gas prices to $6 a gallon by July.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Once again we join Harry and his friends as they fight against the evil machinations of He Who Must Not Be Named (a.k.a. Venom) while still trying to pass the FCAT. Fighting, magic, flying, practical jokes, evil teachers, conspiracies, and some startling relationships that will shock and surprise you, mainly because the screenwriter, in a daring move, dumped the last half of J.K. Rowling’s original plot and used one he found on some girl’s LiveJournal page.
The Simpsons Movie
Once again (on the big screen this time) we join the Simpsons family and their wacky yet heartfelt adventures. Homer does something monumentally stupid and barely manages to avoid the wrath of the entire town by using all the funny lines that haven’t been in the show these past few years.
The Bourne Ultimatum
Once again we join hyper-realistic super-assassin Jason Bourne as he — and I’m just guessing here — outsmarts the government with ease and gets into a lot of painful-looking car crashes. I don’t know what the ultimatum is, but I hope it’s “Stop shaking the damn camera!”
Rush Hour 3: We Just Don’t Care Anymore
Once again we join this lovable, improbable crime-fighting duo as they punch and wisecrack their way across… what city are in they in this time? Doesn’t matter, really. Tucker will talk incessently and Jackie Chan will do something amazing off a building. Or not, he is getting on in years. Maybe he’ll just roll over a few times. Couldn’t they just show us the bloopers and then run the movie real small next to the credits?
Mr. Bean’s Holiday
Once again we join the bumbling Mr. Bean, this time on vacation in Europe, where if there is any justice in the world he will be set upon by a malevolent alien black costume and become the Black Adder, who then goes off and stars in a far more interesting movie.
And there are a few movies coming out that aren’t based on previous movies, which seems foolhardy to me. Get your popcorn and smuggled-in candy ready, folks! It’s showtime!
These are the first reviews of the highly-lauded upcoming summer movies that I really enjoyed. Excellent! I’ll still go to a lot of these movies (with my smuggled popcorn in hand) but I can’t promise I won’t start to giggle during the films when I think of what you said about them in this column. 😉
HAHAHA, the Livejournal thing is awesome. 😛