With Summer comes every imaginable blockbuster fighting for your money. For the past ten years comic book movies have been all the rage and 2012 was no different; throw in a few comedies and action men, snd you’ve got the perfect movie summer.
July
Let’s start with the most anticipated, powerful and epic movie in a very very long time. THE DARK KNIGHT RISES shook the internet with its blurry teaser trailers, rumours of villains, and revelations of a thigh high boot wearing Catwoman. The world was divided between the disappointed and those who thought TDKR was pure perfection. Whichever camp you belonged to no one can argue the fact it is an epic film worth every penny gained at the box office.
Tobey Maguire’s suit wasn’t even cold when THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN was announced. With the trailer leaving me unexcited, the reviews that followed surprised; raving over Andrew Garfield’s performance, chemistry with Emma Stone and the solid plot. Marc Foster’s THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN just about deserved its place atop the box office.
ICE AGE 4: CONTINENTAL DRIFT arrived re-teaming Ray Romano, Denis Leary and friends to help educate our children on the Ice Age – even if this one involves pirates. To some, ICE AGE has run its course, but numbers don’t lie and the kids will love it over, and over again and even THN’s Dan, felt the prehistoric love as well.
SAVAGES, on the surface a movie about a girlfriend sharing crime duo who get threatened by an overacting Salma Hayes, turned out to be much more with THN’s Sam seeing the fun missed by other critics: ‘SAVAGES will not set your world alight with its originality but it’s something often missing from cinema these days – a purely enjoyable way to spend two hours. It won’t appeal to everyone, and has arguably been marketed incorrectly, but SAVAGES does pretty much everything it aims to do, and crucially those aims aren’t too high (although Stone may well have been during production)’.
August
Originally NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH, going through a name change after the Trayvon Martin shooting, THE WATCH arrived with much expected from Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, Ben Stiller and producer Seth Rogan. It may not hit the heights hoped for but THN’s Mr Sharp explains the best way to watch… ‘ would be to make like the characters; watch with friends, beer and pizza. Laugh at the constant dick and cum jokes and enjoy the guilty feeling that something so crude and crass can make you smile so much.’
Matt Damon was out and Jeremy Renner in for THE BOURNE LEGACY. Similar to HONEY 2 without Jessica Alba (or a character named Honey) the BOURNE series continued without the titular Jason Bourne. Despite this marketing flaw movie-goers found their way to the multiplex… leaving two hours later largely disappointed.
With the 6th of November approaching who better to make fun of the US election than Will Ferrell and Zach Galifanakis. THN’s Martin McDonagh reasoned that ‘Will Ferrell’s brand of absurdly unapologetic humour has become a mainstay in the hearts of many over the years, and if yours is one of them, then you’ll be pleased to discover THE CAMPAIGN contains a veritable ocean of it‘. So, if you don’t fit into that category, give it a miss.
Sylvester Stallone never gets enough credit for his brilliant business sense; in his late sixties Sly refused to let young blood take over the action world when reuniting the EXPENDABLES for a sequel much akin to the first as ‘Schwarzenegger, Willis, Stallone, Statham, Lundgren, Li and Norris all vie for screen time THE EXPENDABLES 2 mimics its predecessor by feeling muddled and overblown. Fortunately this sequel makes room for laughs in its screenplay, something sorely missing first time around‘. A third is currently in production.
You wouldn’t think that many people are interested in the sex lives of old people, but you know who is? Old people. In fact they’re so interested in Meryl Streep performing fellatio in a Cinema that HOPE SPRINGS made it to the top of the box office. Not as bad, or dirty, as that snippet makes it appear co-stars Tommy Lee Jones and Steve Carrell ensured this remained enjoyable throughout.
TOTAL RECALL should never have been re-made; everyone knew it would struggle, particularly with Len Wiseman on board, and THN boss Paul Heath couldn’t help look back to 1990 with envious eyes: The problem is that nothing wowed me. It’s perhaps a little over long at 118 minutes, and while new fans may warm to it more than those of the original, I can’t say that I did. While it had a lot of action, great effects, a talented cast, beautiful city scapes and three-breasted women, it lacked any emotional investment in any of the characters, any form of humour, engaging storyline, bloody violence and edge of your seat tension. Basically it lacked Paul Verhoeven.
Box Office Round-Up
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES $160,887,295
THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN $62,004,688
ICE AGE: CONTINENTAL DRIFT $46,629,259
THE BOURNE LEGACY $38,142,825
THE EXPENDABLES 2 $28,591,370
Check out the rest of 2012 all this week right here.
