The 2013 Summer Movie Preview – Part 2

Ok, everyone, here we go! The second half of the Summer slate for 2013! There’s plenty of big movies in store, and of course, a handful of DOAs.

Click through to check out the second half of this Summer!

The 2013 Winter Movie Season Preview

Ok, boys and girls. The Holiday Season is over… and the Spring Season, full of mini Blockbusters, is still months away.

Between now and then lies Hollywood’s dumping ground. The Hollywood fields lie fallow in the winter, bearing little quality product. It’s the two months of the year we need to “Get through”. While January typically offers some limited releases from the prior year going wide, there’s typically little else to get excited over.

Will this year be different? Are there any movies to get excited about these next two months? Let’s take a look at the release slate and see what we’ve got!

The Three Stooges

I now realize there’s something worse than a remake.

A reproduction.

Now Showing on Cable: “The Smurfs”

Making its debut this weekend on Starz was last year’s CGI/Live action kid’s movie, “The Smurfs”.

Based on the 1980s cartoon (which in turn was based on a Belgian comic strip), “The Smurfs” takes a small handful of the creatures and has them magically teleported to our world. As they struggle to find a way to get back to their village, they’re pursued by the fiendish magician Gargamel and his cat Azreal, and struggle to find their way in this strange new, decidedly un-Smurfly environment.  

The question becomes, is “The Smurfs” Smurftastic? Or un-Smurfing-necessary?

Happy Feet Two

I’ve been trying to think of a way to put this into words… I mean, that IS the trick of this whole thing after all.

“Happy Feet Two” is very pretty to look at, it has the requisite amount of “messages”. There are funny scenes and characters, and a decent enough storyline for an animated film. All the parts SHOULD be adding up to a better movie when I do the movie formula math in my head, but they don’t.

Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe its too calculated, too formulaic, over-produced.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t connect with me, and as a result it winds up feeling superficial.