Movie – Brave (2012)

Note: when doing my 2012 Big Summer Movies category I did not get a chance to see Brave, so I was not able to review it during the summer.  I have now just seen it and am writing this review to complete this category.  You can read the parent post for it to see the other summer movies I reviewed here.

Brave is the latest movie from Pixar Studios.  It is also the most “Disneyfied” to be released since Pixar was acquired by Disney.  It features a princess, a witch, cute animals, and a couple intended-for-the-pop-charts songs.  Those are steps backwards.  On the other hand, Pixar was attempting to emphasize they were moving forward by making their first film for girls with a female lead character in a movie written and directed by a woman.  They hit some speed bumps along the way, though, and were not completely successful.  I will explain.

Movie – The Expendables 2 (2012)

I debated with myself over whether I should recommend this movie or not.  While I felt it was not as good an overall movie as the first film, there were scenes within it that were more fun than anything we saw in the original.  I finally decided I would recommend it, although mostly for people who are fans of the 80s action heroes that appear in it.  Both Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger have larger roles in this film, and this leads to one of my favorite scenes in the movie.  On the other hand, Jet Li’s role is reduced to being no larger than these two.  I will explain below.

Movie – The Bourne Legacy (2012)

There were some big questions going into this fourth movie in the Bourne franchise.  The biggest was whether people would go see a Bourne movie that didn’t star Matt Damon.  Results on that are still mixed as I write this.  It’s not doing anywhere near the box office of the last Bourne movie, but that had a built in audience.  It is tracking roughly like the first Bourne movie where people had to be convinced Matt Damon could be an action star.  One place where this fourth film is far better than the prior one is the fact that movie audiences can actually see what the hell is happening in the action sequences.  For that and other reasons, I consider this the second best of the Bourne movies.

Movie – Total Recall (2012)

I admit that when I heard that the Total Recall remake was going to exclude the entire Martian storyline of the original that raised a warning flag for me.  It was with some hesitancy that I went to see this latest version.  The good news is, the settings on Earth still function to create “haves” and “have nots” for the plot, just like the original.  This version of the film has some great action sequences.  In fact, the action scenes and the future world that was created for this film are the reasons to go see the movie.

Movie – The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

I might as well address the elephant in the room right away.  There was no special security at the movie theater this afternoon when I went to see The Dark Knight Rises.  It was pouring outside, so I had to use an umbrella to get from my car to the building.  I was wondering if I would be asked to open it just to show nothing was concealed in it, but no one did.  I’m not proud of this, but I do admit that when a lone man walked into the theater about 10 minutes after the film started I watched him all the way to his seat before I turned my attention back to the movie.  I’m not sure if this says more about me or the times we live in.  I suspect it’s a bit of both.

Movie – Rock of Ages (2012)

Rock of Ages is a musical comedy based on the original Broadway show.  It is directed by Adam Shankman, who knows a thing or two about musical comedy – he did the musical version of Hairspray.  While Rock of Ages is no Hairspray it still is entertaining for both the music and the humor.  I would say that Rock of Ages is more closely related to movies like Across the Universe or Moulin Rouge in that the plot is constructed to use existing popular songs at appropriate times.  Where Across the Universe used Beatles songs, Rock of Ages uses songs from the 1980s.

Movie – Prometheus (2012)

Ridley Scott set out to make a prequel to Alien, but then changed his mind.  He instead decided to make an “original” movie.  He then sort of changed his mind back and decided (most likely for marketing and box office purposes) to say that this film is set in the same universe as the Alien films.  Anyone expecting to see the aliens from the earlier films will be severely disappointed, though.  Scott decided people had grown tired of them, so he had new creatures designed.  They essentially do the same things, just not in the same ways.  I avoided all of the viral marketing campaigns beforehand.  I knew that if I went into the film with too many expectations it would ruin it for me.  As a result, I was not bothered by the fact that there are no traditional aliens in this movie.

Movie – The Avengers (2012)

First things first, I realize this is probably the umpteenth review of the Avengers you’ve come across.  I want to say thanks in advance for taking the time to read it and comment.

Anyone who has read enough of my reviews and comments knows that my expectations for a movie usually end up affecting how I feel about it.  If those expectations are low I can find myself pleasantly surprised by an okay movie; if they are high, I can find myself disappointed by an above average one.  My expectations going into The Avengers, a film written and directed by Joss Whedon, were very high.  I am here to tell you that not only was I not disappointed by this movie, it even exceeded my expectations.  It had everything I could have ever hoped for from a Joss Whedon Avengers movie.

2012 Big Summer Movies Schedule and Reviews

“Summer lovin’, had me a blast.” – Danny Zuko, Grease

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 reviews of the movies I see that are good enough to recommend, and I will put the links to those here.  If the movie is not good enough to recommend I will add a short review to this post.  Either way you may want to save this post for future reference.

[By the way, you can see my 2011 Big Summer Movies post here.]

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: