I'm a big movie guy, and I love summer time and all the great movies that come out, but I'm afraid I'm a little overwhelmed with all the movies that are hitting theaters in 2011.
The first one to start the summer was the Marvel comics movie, Thor. Basically a prelude story to introduce the world to the not so popular marvel character but popular mythological character. If you watched all of the credits at the end the film even told you "Thor will be back in The Avengers". The Avengers for those who are not comic geeks are a super hero team consisting of a line-up that is constantly changing, but the mainstay characters are Thor, Captain America and Iron Man. We also have Hawkeye, whom we actually got a glimpse of in Thor (the guy with the bow and arrow who was taking aim at Thor when he was trying to get back his hammer.) and Black Widow, whom we met in Iron Man 2 aka Scarlett Johansen.
This movie along with the soon to be released Captain America are being put out so that we can meet these characters since we all fell in love with Robert Downey Jr. and his Iron Man. The four mentioned along with a previous Marvel movie character The Hulk will be a part of the new Avengers movie to hit theaters possibly next summer.
But with all these summer movies comign out week after week, who has time to go see all of them?
I went to see Thor at a 9:30 show here at our local Regal theater on a Thursday night and had a great time, my son and I loved the movie and it moved so quickly and was so entertaining that it was really a suprisingly mature super hero movie that really made you enjoy the character. The night we went to go see it was the 26th, it let out around 11:30 and we noticed a lot of people coming in. Ohhhh The Hangover 2 premiere was starting, so yes, we just blended into the crowd grabbed two seats and enjoyed a second movie.
Karma would get me back when that Sunday night my three younger kids and I would head to the drive in to go see Kung Fu Panda 2 and Thor at The Transit Drive In. While we were there we were hit with an intense thunderstorm, and it poured rain for about 15 minutes. But we 'weathered through and watched the rest of Kung Fu Panda and the second showing of Thor.
X-Men first class kicked off June and it is a fantastic movie, Magneto played by Michael Fassbender stole the show. Its a great re-introduction to the X-Men universe an aside from a few geeky continuity issues the movie was great. Its over 2 hours long and it was needed to tell the whole story, but they probably could have trimmed 15 minutes out here and there.
Super 8 a JJ Abrams and Stephen Speilburg film came out on the 10th and now coming up on the 17th we have the incredibly over advertised Green Lantern. I am a huge Green Lantern fan from the comics, but the commercials for Subway, the LG Revolution Smart Phone commercial. Its all a bit too much. Plus for comic geek/movie lovers like myself I have all of my friends, family and co-workers coming up to me and asking "so who's this green lantern guy?" Am I the only one who watched Super Friends?
July doesn't slow down with more blockbusters, Transformers comes in for a third part minus Megan Fox. Harry Potter comes in for the finale in The Deathly Hallows part 2 and Captain America ends the month. It will be interesting to see if the boy wizard hurts Cap in the box office or if the shield slinger can knock Hogwarts off the top spot.
August brings us to an end however, well at least in my opinion. The first week of August gets us the new Rise of the Planet of the Apes and The Smurfs, but the weeks following look more like Halloween time than summer with Final Destination 5 on the 12th, Fright Night the 19th, and Don't be Afraid of the Dark on the 26th.
This sensory overload is great for the months of summer but its killer on the pocketbook. Thank God for the Drive in and double features. Transit Drive In is still a great place to go to if you don't mind the haul out to Lockport, maybe we'll see you there, as I plan on hitting it up several times to make sure I catch all of this summers popcorn goodness.
