Summer Movies 2013: The Verdict.

So was it just me or did this summer kind of suck for movies?

The high point was the opener: Iron Man 3 but I liked that movie a lot because I enjoy Tony Stark. There really was not much Iron Man in Iron Man 3.

Further, walking out of the Theater, I thought Man of Steel and Star trek Into Darkness were okay but time is lessening my opinion of them all the time. The fact that Superman made not even a token attempt to save lives in Smallville and Metropolis really is unforgivable given that character. And the Fan Service on top of Fan Service a la Star Trek 2 in STID really didn’t age well.

The rest just varied between “Okay but not great” (Pacific Rim, The Purge, World War Z and The Wolverine) to “kinda disappointing” (This Is The End, Elysium, and Kick Ass 2).

I just don’t remember any recent summer as disappointing as this one (2010 comes close but it had Toy Story 3 and Inception and others and had the fallout of the 2008 Writers’ Strike as an excuse).

Fair summary. I only have two observations.

  1. this is the first post-Avengers summer…there was bound to be disappointment.
  2. Despite that, Pacific Rim was brilliant, and the high point of the summer season for me. Iron Man III was a close second, with everything else straggling in behind or best left forgotten.

If Riddick 3 counts, then it was a great little SF adventure film. Nothing wrong with it at all.

Watched Pacific Rim, was not overwhelmed. An OK film to watch in theaters, but not really dying to catch it again.

I saw Pacific Rim yesterday and I was surprised at how bad it was. A lot of people are praising it and I felt it was barely mediocre. And that’s putting it against other movies in its genre.

I may be easier to please, but I thoroughly enjoyed the summer movies. Iron Man III, Elysium, Star Trek, Man of Steel and *Oblivion *were all great. Pacific Rim wasn’t as good as I hoped, but still pretty cool. The Wolverine and *Riddick *were pretty much what I expected, fun and vaguely empty. Those are what I caught in the theaters, and there’s still quite a few to catch on Blu-Ray.

I thought “The Verdict” came out in 1982. Did they do a remake?

What?

Yeah, a lot of mediocrity in the movies I saw this summer. Off the top of my head, I think I saw World War Z, ST Into Darkness, Iron Man 3, and This Is The End. Of those, the only one I’d bother to watch again was This Is The End. I wasn’t expecting to be blown away by it, but it pretty much delivered the good dumb fun I was expecting from it. Not sure if The World’s End qualifies as a “summer movie” - not really in the mold of the blockbusters with huge box office expectations. But I enjoyed the hell out of that one.

We’re going to have an awesome Oscar season starting in a month or so. It all balances out I guess.