Movie – Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

First things first: this movie is not a sequel or prequel to the flawed 2001 Planet of the Apes movie.  It is also not directly related to any of the five Planet of the Apes (POTA) movies that came out from 1968 to 1973, although it is somewhat similar to the fourth one – Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.  No, this movie is essentially a reboot of the franchise and it starts it at the beginning of the story.  It’s a very good movie, and it is better than all the other POTA movies, with the exception of the original 1968 classic.

Movie – Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Captain America is the last of the movies Marvel Studios is releasing prior to next May’s Avengers movie.  This movie introduces the last major character for the coming film.  Captain America: The First Avenger has something that none of the other lead in movies had – an honest to God hero.  This is a big, old-fashioned superhero movie, one where the good guy is actually worthy of being called a hero.

Movie – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)

As the poster says, “It all ends.”  This is the eighth and final Harry Potter movie.  The prior seven have all been very popular and this one may end up being the most popular of them all.  Critics almost universally approve of the movie.  People who have read the books have been a little more critical of it, and not in a nitpicky “he wore a RED shirt in the book, not a GREEN one!” kind of way.  Reactions have been the strongest to the moviemakers choosing to weaken the intensity of the final Harry vs. Voldemort battle.  The result is that many readers who were looking forward to this incredible scene got something that was more anticlimactic than they were expecting.  I share this feeling.  Personally, while watching the movie I was figuring I would give this film five stars, but the last 15 or 20 minutes were a little bit of a let down.  It’s still a very good four star movie, though.

Movie – Bad Teacher (2011)

Bad Teacher is full of rude humor, bad language, and doesn’t teach us An Important Lesson.  In other words, it’s not like most of the comedy pablum that Hollywood has been pumping out for years.  It’s a movie with enough laughs to recommend it, if you are not in one of two major groups – 1. Idiot parents who took their children to see it because it was about a teacher; and 2. People in the “Justin Timberlake is so sexy no matter what he does” club.

Movie – Cars 2 (2011)

So what’s up with this movie?  It’s from Pixar, which has been a guarantee of quality over the years, yet for the first time movie critics have largely given a Pixar movie bad reviews.  Audience scores are quite high, though.  Why the big difference?  One word: Mater.  If you don’t like this character then you won’t like this movie.  If you love this character you will love this movie.  I may be one of the few people in the middle.  I think that this sequel is as good as the original, but I feel the original is one of the weaker Pixar movies.  I like Cars 2 well enough to recommend it, but not to say it is a must see.

Movie – Green Lantern (2011)

Green Lantern is a movie about the DC Comics character of that name that has been around for more than fifty years.  Never as popular or well known as Superman and Batman, DC never made a live action movie about the character until now.  If Marvel can have successful movies about second tier heroes like Ironman and Thor, then DC should be able to do the same thing, right?  It depends on who you talk to.  Critics say no; audiences and I say yes.

Movie – Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)

This film is the sequel to the highly popular 2008 movie Kung Fu Panda.  [see review here]  All of the voice actors return from the first one (Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, Seth Rogan, David Cross, and James Hong.)  Joining them this time around are Michelle Yeoh as a soothsayer, Jean-Claude Van Damme as another kung fu master, and Gary Oldman as the bad guy.

This is another enjoyable adventure with these characters.  This is one sequel that is almost as good as the original.

Movie – X-Men: First Class (2011)

This movie is a semi-reboot of the X-Men franchise.  It takes place in 1962 when Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) became friends and gathered their first group of mutants to train.  1962’s Cuban missile crisis plays a big part in the climax of the movie.  I’ll explain what I mean by “semi-reboot” a little lower in the post, but the key thing you should know is that you do not have to have seen the prior three X-Men movies, or the Wolverine movie, to understand who people are or what is going on in this movie.

Movie – The Hangover Part II (2011)

This movie is the sequel to the huge 2009 hit The Hangover.  It returns all of the same cast (Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, etc.), except for Heather Graham.  Jamie Chung replaces her in this movie as a new love interest for Ed Helms’ character.

Like many sequels, and most comedy sequels, this movie is not as good as the original.  They repeat a lot of the same jokes, and while some are still funny, they are not as side-splittingly funny as when we saw them in the first movie.  Still, there are enough laughs to recommend the movie.

Movie – Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

This is the fourth movie in the Pirates of the Caribbean (PotC) franchise.  This time around only Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, and Kevin McNally (Master Gibbs) return.  All the other characters, including Keira Knightley’s and Orlando Bloom’s do not appear.  Director Gore Verbinski also did not return for this movie.

Is it still a PotC movie with just these few?  Yes.  It has the same feel as the others, probably because the writers carried over from the other movies.  Overall it is a step down from the first two; about on par with the third one.

Movie – Thor (2011)

Thor is the first of two movies this summer that Marvel is releasing that will eventually lead up to their huge 2012 Avengers movie.  This film introduces the character of Thor (Chris Hemsworth) to movie audiences.  Other key characters are Jane Foster, an astrophysicist played by Natalie Portman; Odin, the king of the Asgardians played by Anthony Hopkins; Loki, the brother of Thor played by Tom Hiddleston; Erik Selvig, another astrophysicist played by Stellan Skarsgard; Darcy Lewis, an intern played by Kat Dennings; and Agent Coulson, the continuity character from the other Avengers-related movies played by Clark Gregg. 

2011 Big Summer Movies Schedule and Reviews

"And I can tell you/ my love for you will still be strong/ after/ the boys of/ summer/ have gone" - Don Henley

The purpose of this post is to give you a quick reference for the big films that are coming out this summer movie season.  I will be writing separate posts for the reviews of the movies I see and I will put the links to those posts in this one, so you may want to save this post for future reference.

Note – so many movies come out every summer, and so many of the smaller ones get moved around or even postponed, that I am going to concentrate on the “big” movies.  These are the ones that are heavily advertised, expensive to make, have big names in them, and/or have had their opening dates scheduled for a long time.

First, the list, then a little more about each movie: