Summer Movie Preview – Though this year’s slate of summer movies looks promising, it’s hard to find a real bright spot among the dark, foreboding fare about to land in theaters.
Though this year’s slate of summer movies looks promising, it’s hard to find a real bright spot among the dark, foreboding fare about to land in theaters. This will be a dangerous summer at the movies. Here are early takes on seven films everyone will be talking about.
The gist: It’s hard out there for a vampire. Tim Burton adapts and updates TV’s first—and only—Gothic soap opera, which followed the life of a bloodsucker encountering various ghosts and ghouls during his increasingly difficult day-to-day.
The good: When Johnny Depp gets into the make-up kit, audiences are in for quite a ride.
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The bad: 2010’s Alice in Wonderland may have signaled the death of Burton’s creativity.
Recommended if you like: Sweeney Todd, Shadow of the Vampire, Studio 54
Likely grade: B
The gist: A young boy and girl run away together, sparking a comically exhaustive search by everyone in their small New England town.
The good: Frances McDormand and Edward Norton look right at home in director Wes Anderson’s quirky, storybook milieu.
The bad: Shot using now-rare 16mm film with a sepia tint and period French music, could this finally be the Wes Anderson movie that is too precious by half?
Recommended if you like: Pierrot Le Fou, Rushmore, merit badges
Likely grade: B+
The gist: A black-magic queen puts a bounty on the life of a young woman whose beauty is destined to surpass her own.
The good: Charlize Theron looks deliciously chilling as the evil queen.
The bad: Kristen Stewart can bite her lip and look awkward with the best of them, but the Twilight star may not have the chops to portray a sword-wielding warrior believably.
Recommended if you like: The Lord of the Rings, Troy, preemptive war
Likely grade: B-
The gist: When scientists discover a tantalizing clue to the origins of life on Earth, a team of explorers is sent into dangerously unknown stretches of the cosmos and faces a threat that could annihilate humanity once and for all.
The good: This sort-of-prequel to Ridley Scott’s landmark sci-fi thriller Alien seems to have the director back on point and hungry to break new ground again. Plus, that faux-TED talk marketing video starring Guy Pearce was brilliant.
The bad: Alien worked so well because its struggle and its frights were elemental and easily understood. Will Scott fall into the modern pitfall of adding too much convoluted pseudo-science to his sci-fi return?
Recommended if you like: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, fire
Likely grade: A
The gist: With the world coming to an end—thanks, asteroid—Steve Carell’s wife leaves him in a panic, so he heads out on a road trip with his neurotic neighbor to reunite with his high-school sweetheart.
The good: When there are only three weeks left, anything goes, and it looks like Carell has found some unexpected chemistry with the usually tormented or brooding Keira Knightley.
The bad: Writer-director Lorene Scafaria is best known for the romantic comedy-by-numbers Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.
Recommended if you like: Crazy Stupid Love, Dr. Strangelove, counting down
Likely grade: B
The gist: Brainy teen Peter Parker finds a clue that could unravel the mystery of his parents’ disappearance, but a fateful accident puts him at odds with his mentor, Dr. Connors.
The good: (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb is a strong storyteller who won’t let special effects or too many characters get in the way of a good hero’s journey, like Sam Raimi did toward the end of his overstuffed and often cheesy Spidey series.
The bad: Garfield’s emo Peter Parker looks like Eric Stoltz in the working version of Back to the Future—and Michael J. Fox replaced him for a reason.
Recommended if you like: Batman Begins, Teen Wolf, biology class
Likely grade: B+
The gist: Ruthless revolutionary Bane takes Gotham hostage by initiating an uprising of criminals and the poor, including Catwoman, who engage Bruce Wayne and the city’s wealthy elite in an all-out class war.
The good: Director Christopher Nolan is pulling out all the stops for the final Batman movie for him and star Christian Bale. New additions Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway are talented enough to hold their own in a film that already includes all-stars Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman.
The bad: Speaking in a wheezing accent behind a black mask, Tom Hardy’s Bane was occasionally difficult to understand in the six-minute IMAX prologue released in December. Heath Ledger’s tragic death means there will be no cameo from the Clown Prince of Gotham.
Recommended if you like: Bronson, A Tale of Two Cities, Occupy Wall Street
Likely grade: A+
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