Confused Reviewer: Summer Blockbusters Roundup

I see films so you don't have to. But I also don't see them, so everyone wins.(Columbia Pictures Hollywood learns that with great branding potential also comes the opportunity to make millions of dollars. When Peter Parker is bitten by a film made in 2002, he underwent a fantastical transformation...

I see films so you don't have to. But I also don't see them, so everyone wins.

The Amazing Sequel (Columbia Pictures)

Hollywood learns that with great branding potential also comes the opportunity to make millions of dollars. When Peter Parker is bitten by a film made in 2002, he underwent a fantastical transformation only ever seen a few times before quite recently. But now he faces his biggest threat - a man made of blue or whatever.

In an interesting production choice, Paul Giamatti puts in an appearance playing his wine-loving character Miles from Sideways. Miles, last seen having a slow-burn existential crisis in California's vineyards, has put aside his distaste for Merlot and instead donned a four tonne robotic rhinoceros suit. Giamatti's transformation into the movie's rage-fuelled second villain occurs in an early scene when, during a lunch with Spidey, the web-slinging hero misguidedly orders the 2006 Fattoria Petrolo to go with the veal.

Godzilla (Warner Bros)

New York is threatened by a simply enormous amount of CGI. The citizens flee the city fearing the worst - that every film in the future will feature Andy Serkis sort-of playing the titular role. Bryan Cranston puts in a staggering performance as a man surrounded by green screens wondering if Breaking Bad was his career peak. Eventually Serkis, mad with power, insists the CGI is halted so audiences can see the 'real him', blue leotard and all. The film ends with the chilling sight of what is essentially a 900ft-high Smurf eating the Chrylser building.

X-Men: Days of Past Futures Present Before (20th Century Fox)

Michael Fassbender and Hugh Jackman return to the screen as ordinary men with an extraordinary twist: names that sound like they should be rude but which no one can quite make an innuendo out of. In one particularly gripping scene, Professor X nearly overheats his super-powered brain exploring this linguistic paradox: "HUGE Jack...man...Hugh JACKman...HUGE JACK, man...Hugh JackMAN..."

LOOK AHEAD

The Hobbit: The Felling of the Ainur (New Line Cinema)

Bilbo Baggins explores a world devoid of the human characters that were the most interesting part of Lord of the Rings. Based on notes Tolkien wrote on a Rizla paper in 1936, this sequel answers the clamouring demand for the story of how the Valar created two great towers of light, Illuin being set upon Helcar and Ormal upon Ringil . Though in the beginning the light from the towers was peacefully mingled, trouble is afoot when Melkor (a non-physical theological concept of darkness) assaults Utumno (by casting a slight shadow over it). Melkor, who appears as a slightly dim patch on the screen, is voiced menacingly by Bruce Willis and performed by Andy Serkis.

Close

What's Hot