Summer 2013 Movies

Happy June!  It’s hot out and the theaters are nice and cool, which means there are some fun blockbuster movies to check out.  Though I’m not the kind of online critic who sees the latest movies in theaters every week, I couldn’t help but catch a few that I have been looking forward to.  Here are what I have seen and how they measure up.  Enjoy the images of our stars sitting around:

Iron Man 3

Of all the recent superhero movies (both Marvel and DC universes taken into account) I have been most impressed by Iron Man’s story, as well as his team of Avengers.  Robert Downey Jr. brings Tony Stark to life wonderfully, giving him a real personality that is perfectly flawed yet believable and sympathetic.  Here, Tony as a character excels, so do his amazing Iron Man suits.

The film is a great mix of superhero action, comedy with just enough drama  to feel very human under all that armor.  There are some interesting new minor characters and a surprisingly funny twist in this terrorist plot.  Though Tony is on a mission to stop the Mandarin, his real obstacle is himself, and this vulnerability in our hero is what makes the film work under all those special effects.  This is easily the best of the Iron Man trilogy and I would welcome a fourth film.

The Great Gatsby

I might be a sucker for Baz Luhrmann’s films.  Those that I have seen (Moulin Rouge!, Romeo + Juliet and now Gatsby) seem the follow similar structures, but I really don’t mind.  The beginnings are each so intoxicating, luring me in with bright, enticing images and music that works no matter how illogical it is to the setting.  Once I’m hooked, things head downhill in a hurry, but I’m never quite over how drunk I felt at first.  Luhrmann’s movies are like partying all night and sobering into a hangover.  They lift you up to euphoria, then let you sink back to suck-tastic tragic reality.

While I like and appreciate what Luhrmann is attempting in The Great Gatsby, there are a few things that don’t work for me.  Tobey Maguire can easily pull off being an innocent young man but when he needs to change his character into a more jaded man, it doesn’t convey.  Also, the lingering love between Gatsby and Daisy is portrayed as too optimistic.  Sure, we’re rooting for Gatsby, but sadly he’s just too late and Daisy isn’t helping the situation.

I don’t think this is a great movie, but I did enjoy it, honestly.  DiCaprio is perfect in portraying Gatsby and I only wished his surrounding cast could rise up to meet him.  The visuals and setting, especially during the party scenes, are well accomplished and give me a grand idea of the roaring 20s that a modern 21st century person can relate to.  And the music, I was skeptical when I first Jay-Z was doing it, but it works!  It’s simply a translation to us young people of the 2010s to the 1920s.  I loved the mash-up between Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Let’s Misbehave.

The Great Gatsby is a whirlwind of color, glitz, glamour, romance and tragedy, and on so many levels it works, but where it stumbles, it falls hard.  If you let yourself go, it can be immersive and entertaining.

Star Trek – Into Darkness

I didn’t grow up on Star Trek, I was fully committed to Star Wars.  Trek was just too nerdy, so I thought.  I didn’t see a Star Trek movie until the reboot in 2009, and though I wasn’t moved to fandom, I have to say that I enjoyed it.

Admittedly, Into Darkness probably made a lot of great jokes and connections that Star Trek fans loved, that I didn’t get (at least that’s what the random fits of laughter in my theater told me).  I quite enjoy Spok and his logic to no end, Kirk with his red-blooded heroism and Scotty for being great comic relief with just enough support to the rest of the cast/crew.  The villain, a big Star Trek name, fell flat to me.  Yeah, he’s menacing but I didn’t find myself caring much.

However, Star Trek is fun.  It’s a film for all, welcoming to those who are not Star Trek fans, just movie fans. And that gives me confidence that J.J. Abrams will be good to Star Wars later. There’s plenty of action, big spacey explosions, fights and suspenseful beam-up moments.  Most of all, I never realized just how big The Enterprise is, because everyone is running all over that big-ass ship.  That must be how everyone on board stays in such great shape.  Seriously, there are so many shots of Kirk and the gang running down hallways.

Seabiscuit

The beginning of Seabiscuit paints a perfect image of America from the invention of the automobile, the progress of the assembly line, through the roaring twenties and then plunging into the devastation of the depression.  The idea of people packing what’s left of their lives in their car, their last possession, the very invention that changed the world within their lifetime, never made such an impact on me until I saw it all connected in Seabiscuit.  Right away, I knew this would be more than an inspirational horse story.

In the depression, everyone is down, especially the people surrounding the infamous horse.  Red Pollard (Tobey Maguire) is from a large family, but during the depression they were financially ruined and left Red to reach for this potential to become a jockey.  Problem is, Red is too tall to be a jockey, so he purges regularly to maintain weight.  He also falls into a rough lifestyle, participating in illegal boxing matches for money.  Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges)  has built himself up from a humble bicycle repairman to the most successful car salesman in California, but when he suddenly loses his only son, his life and marriage crumbles.  Then there is Tom Smith (Chris Cooper), a horse trainer who has lived a very simple life among wild mustangs, but realizes his world is shrinking.  He’s the one who first sees potential in Seabiscuit.

From previews, we assume the challenge is for Seabiscuit to win races and prove everyone he’s the little horse with a big jockey who could.  There’s so much more than that and the whole downtrodden feel of the depression only amplifies the sense of victory.  There is a point where it seems like Red and Seabiscuit are on top of the world, but when tragedies occur there’s more to fight for than winning.   Yes, double trouble to put both jockey and horse in traction, I was nearly heartbroken.

It’s impossible not to see how Red’s and Seabiscuit’s young lives parallel each other.  They both have been trained or breaded for great potential, but never given the chance to succeed.  Red was well educated and loved, but now has a good amount of abandonment issues and has to fight harder than most jockeys because of his size.  When Seabiscuit’s story is told, in sort of a storybook feel, we learn that he was bread to be a race horse, but is too small.  Instead he is trained to lose to other horses in order to build their self esteem.  When he is finally raced, he loses, just as he was trained to.

I found myself getting really into the races.  The rhythm of hooves thundering flinging dirt, the rivalries that start in the gate and intensify until the photo finish.  The mix of closeup images and quick editing help make every race extremely exciting.  I found myself cheering on Seabiscuit from my couch half the time.

If you’ve got a little girl going through her pony phase, this may not be the best film for her.  Her childhood fantasies may be filled with rainbows, tea parties and braiding the horses mane.  Seabiscuit is a horse so beaten down by the world, he’s just pissed and wants an opportunity.  I doubt a little girl would really understand or appreciate that.  And later in the film, she may just cry knowing how badly her precious pony is hurt.  It’s rated PG-13 with good reason.

“You know, you don’t throw a whole life away just ’cause he’s banged up a little.”