A Few Words Archives - Half Formed Thoughts 2/18/03

2003 Summer Movie Preview

Those who know me well know that I consider myself an expert. On Everything. I have an opinion on just about any subject there is, and it’s usually the correct one. Just about any organization or industry you can name would be unquestionably be improved by my leadership. Just to name a few: World Wrestling Entertainment, The Boston Red Sox, any television network, the Internet (The entire thing is in such dire need of some quality control it never ceases to amaze me how it became so popular.), organized religion, the Justice League of America (Who the fuck let Plastic Man in?), the U.S. Executive Branch, and the pornography industry.

But the subject on which I might have the most authority is film. It’s rather remarkable, but every time I watch a movie, I invariably come up with at least half a dozen mistakes or ways it could have been better. The only reason I’m not working in Hollywood right now is that I enjoy living in New England too much.

My gift for appreciation of motion pictures is so great that I can invariably tell how good a film will be before I even see it. With that in mind, I present my First Annual Summer Movie Preview. I will rank all of these movies based on how good I predict they will be, on a scale of 1-10, where 10 is Return of the King, and 1 is any movie starring Madonna.

In chronological order of release date:

The Core (2) – This movie is going to suck. But I know how the experience of watching it can be saved. Dave and I could see it together, and through the whole movie we’ll shout at the screen in the style of Boss Nass and Jar Jar Binks things like, “Ooo-sen got to go into… the PLAAAANET COOOOORE” and “Oh No! They-sa in muy muy trouble!” and “AAAAAAH! Gooberfish!”

X2 (7) – The first X-Men was very nearly flawless. With everyone involved coming back for the sequel, another good time should be had by all. The worrisome aspect of this movie will be to what degree it can avoid the fate that doomed the Batman movies: character overload. There were already too many characters in X1 (as demonstrated by the fact that Storm had absolutely nothing to do), and they’re adding even more for the sequel. That means that the odds of Mystique getting more screen time decreases.

Matrix Reloaded (6) – I don’t believe the filmmakers when they say they envisioned The Matrix as a trilogy from the beginning. If so, the ending of the first movie makes no sense. Neo’s become all-powerful in the software realm. So the only way to create suspense is through action taking place in the wetware realm. But everything in that realm was just another boring ripoff of the Alien movies. People want to see Neo kicking ass in virtual world, but in order to create any threat to Neo there, they’re going to have to blatantly contradict the first film. This will be the biggest disappointment of the summer.

Finding Nemo (9) – Pixar rules the world of animated cinema. That’s all you need to know. The genre of movies about talking fish has never really recovered from The Incredible Mr. Limpet, but that’s about to change.

Freddy vs. Jason (3) – This movie is going to be atrocious. But it will be worth attending just to see what inane story idea they’re going to use in order to tie together the worlds of Elm Street and Crystal Lake. What they should do is something along the lines of a contest between the two on the creativity of the ways they can kill teenagers, and have it be judged by Beavis & Butthead, Ben Stein, and Jaye P. Morgan. And then also include as participants Michael Myers, Chucky, Pinhead, Leatherface, and Janet Reno.

The Hulk (9) – For the second straight summer, the biggest movie is based on a Marvel comic. However, unlike Spiderman, the makers of Hulk resisted the temptation to alter his origin to include genetic engineering. That alone is a very good sign. If, like Spiderman, they manage to include a completely gratuitous wet t-shirt scene for the female lead, (Jennifer Connelly in this case) this movie goes up to an 11. While I’m on the subject, why is it that lately only Marvel comics can get made into big budget movies? They made a frigging Daredevil movie! Who’s next, the Sub-mariner? Meanwhile, Batman and Superman get bounced around like hot potatoes and no-brainers like Wonder Woman and Green Lantern rot on the shelf. What’s wrong with Hollywood and DC?

Sinbad, Legend of the Seven Seas (5) – This could have gone up to a seven if it had starred Sinbad the stand-up comedian as Sinbad.

T3: Rise of the Machines (4) – This franchise is done. But like the Jurassic Park movies, no one involved has anything better on their plates, so expect this movie to make a quick 100 million dollars, disappear, and be shortly followed by T4: Terminator vs. Rambo. This movie will also be greatly improved by me and Dave shouting at the screen, “I still can’t find my damned cue cards!” but sadly we’ll be the only ones who will get that joke.

American Wedding (6) – The guy with the pie and the girl with the flute get married. Is America the greatest country the world has ever seen or what?

Johnny English (8) – At last Rowan Atkinson gets a chance to show America that Jim Carrey is only the second greatest living actor of physical comedy.

Kung-Fu Soccer (6) – To tell you the truth, I don’t know anything about this movie. Yes, I know the title. I know that one thing. That, and that every six-to-ten-year-old in the country is going to see it a hundred times. Just those two things. And that it’s guaranteed to at least be better than Gymkata. Three things.

If You Were My Girl (0) – There have been approximately 12 billion movies made in the history of the world. And out of all those movies, someone decided to produce a remake of Can’t Buy Me Love, that heartwarming 80’s ode to prostitution. What happened, they couldn’t get the rights to Just One of the Guys or Adventures in Babysitting? Did someone do this on a dare? Interestingly enough, the director felt that, even at the age of 36, Patrick Dempsey still looked young enough to play the nerdy high school kid even though the part eventually went to Ralph Macchio.

Email Steve with any comments at aenor@aurora.mv.com