May Movie Preview Extravabonanza!
Boy, time sure flies...when you fling a clock through the air (ba-dum cha...sorry...). But seriously, blink your eyes a few times and suddenly that introspective Oscar-bait becomes steroid-injected, FX-slathered summer smashes. I hope you brought your sunscreen because this summer is going to be bathed in the ultraviolet essence of epic and explosion. But which to bask in and which to shield your eyes from and run far, far away? Hit the jump to check out Daily Monotony's go/no goes for this summer's first batch of blockbusting behemoths.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine - May 1st
The starting pistol on both the summer's blockbuster movie season and the X-Men Origins series, with a Magneto version in the pipeline for 2011, see Hugh Jackman step down as Oscar MC and step up as everyone's favorite stabby-handed screen sensation (sorry Freddy Krueger).
Goes: If you were a fan of any of the X's thus far or are a fan of the Stan Lee comic book creations, don't kid yourself, you're going to see this no matter how much it mangles the Wolverine lore. Other big pluses include the first appearance of fan-fave Gambit.
No-Goes: First X-movie sans Patrick "Professor Xavier" Stewart, plus a fairly rookie director and writer for such a big movie.
Star Trek - May 7th
The creator of Lost and Alias reboots the famous Rodenberry series with his younger, more lens-flare-y version of boldly going where no man one has gone before. Abrams' Trek made news recently by deciding to release at 7pm on a Thursday, likely hoping to hit Warp 10 by its opening B.O. weekend (and that's TNG Warp 10, not TOS Warp 10...don't lie, you know what I mean).
Goes: Abrams appears to be boldly taking this series where no Trek has gone before by ramping up the "cool" factor and easing off on canonical commitment in an attempt to appeal to non-trekkies. And quite frankly, any Trek will be better than the last one (whose name will not be spoken on this site).
No-Goes: Definitely has a "Startrek Troopers," high-schoolers in space vibe and may additionally suffer from actors trying to imitate their original cast analogues. Also, despite Star Trek 10 breaking the trend, the "Star Trek even/odd rule", this move is an odd and by that logic should suck.
Angels and Demons - May 15th
I almost feel bad for even mentioning this one, but for some reason you crazy people went and saw the previous Dan Brown adaptation train-wreck, and this is what you get. Let's just hope Tom Hanks isn't as painful to watch this time around.
Goes: It's the literary prequel and cinematic sequel to the surprisingly well received DaVinci Code, with a plot that involves more action and intrigue and less puzzleboxes and groan-tastic walking on water jokes.
No-Goes: It's the literary prequel and cinematic sequel to the surprisingly well received DaVinci Code, which actually sucked, a lot. Plus, the Illuminati are clearly going about it all wrong. A gram of Dan Brown's prose is far more potent a destructive force than a gram of antimatter. Zing!
Terminator Salvation - May 22nd
From the ashes of the apocalypse comes mankind's last hope for this franchise, a Terminator without the campiness of Ahnold or the suckiness of television. Christian Bale helms as the aged John Connor who has as much contempt for machines as distracting DPs.
Goes: A set of stunning trailers set the tone nicely and despite Christian Bale being a @#$%wad, he's a damn fine actor. Early leaks of the movie's ending show a willingness to hold nothing back, despite its alleged re-write after the leak.
No-Goes: Director "McG" is an unproven force for such an action epic and writers John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris were responsible for the previous, and somewhat lacking, Terminator 3 as well as the Razzie magnet Catwoman. To their credit, they did attend the Razzie Awards along with actress Halle Berry.
Pixar's Up - May 29th
Like a geyser that shoots out rainbow colored, 24 karat happiness, Pixar is set to release its yearly Oscar generator, this time following the antics of retiree turned re-flyer-ee in a house held in the heavens by hundreds of perfectly ray-traced balloons.
Goes: Pixar is literally capable of doing no wrong, and even their worst films have more merit and enjoyability than 99% of any other studio's output. This will also be their first foray into the fad of the THIRD DIMENSION.
No-Goes: This is neither a Lassiter or Brad Bird helmed Pixar film, and Pete Docter's last directorial work Monsters, Inc. was geared for a slightly younger audience than last year's WALL-E and the previous year's Ratatouille. It looks like this film might be the same in that regards. Besides, how do you live up to WALL-E?
More to Come
As June comes around, expect more previews to hit the site, including such summer titans as Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen and Year One. Well, maybe summer "demi-gods" is more proper.