Techpedition’s Summer Movie Preview!

It’s going to be a long summer and the Mississippi heat will be fierce, but one thing we can all look forward to is big summer Blockbuster movies. Last summer was really good to fans. High quality flicks like X-Men: First Class, Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, made the summer of 2011 one for the record books.

This year has the potential to be ever bigger and better. There’s a potentially amazing 1,2,3 punch of highly anticipated comic book movies and some dark horses that could break the bank. Here’s the run down of Techpedition’s my top 10 upcoming summer movies.

10. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
Its no secret that I really hated the first G.I. Joe movie. Some people had issue with casting others had problems with deviations from the fiction, I disliked G.I. Joe because it was a horrid movie. Outside of a few action scenes, The Rise of Cobra seemed like a big budget B movie. Retaliation seems to know how bad the original was and has made huge changes to the cast, by bringing in heavy hitters Bruce Willis and Dwayne The Rock Johnson. I’m not too excited to see how it turns out, but it really can’t be worse than the first one if only because Marlon Wayans is missing.

9. Battleship
Battleship seems to be Hasbro’s experiment in de-Transformers-ing a Transformers movie. Based on the omni-present board game of the same name, Battleship stars Taylor Kitsch (AKA Gambit), Alexander Skarsgård (AKA one of the the True Blood guys), Liam Neeson (AKA Qui-gon Gin Ra’s al Ghul) Rihanna (AKA, yeah THAT Rihanna) and if the trailers are any sign, its been heavily influenced by Michael Bay’s over the top Transformers films. Needless to say, I think this will suck. I could be wrong, but signs are not pointing to excellence. I wonder what the vegas odds are on someone saying “you sunk my battleship” at some point.

8. Total Recall
Total Recall is a remake of the classic 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger film. Its sticks more closely to the original’s source material the short story, “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”, and it stars a frantically clinging to his failing career Colin Farrell. I really want this movie to be good, wait no, I want this movie to be great. The debut trailer looks VERY promising. I’ve always found the premise behind Total Recall to be really intriguing and Its about time for a good high-scifi blockbuster. As I understand it, they will not be going to Mars…kinda disappointing…but not a deal breaker.

7. Dark Shadows
Its been awhile since Tim Burton has done a proper comedy. Films like Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice helped shaped Burton’s career. When I found out Dark Shadows was a comedy waning interest in yet another Depp fronted Burton movie turned into a genuine excitement. I’m a huge fan of nearly all of Burton’s work, but was not impressed by Alice in Wonderland. Ironically that turned out to be his most successful film to date. The cast in Dark Shadows seems to be strong and it looks to treat vampires like they should be treated, like monsters.

6. Brave
Despite Cars 2 stinking up both the box office and rotten tomatoes last year, the Pixar name still carries alot of weight when it comes to summer flicks. Brave is a their first original property since 2009’s UP and UP was amazing. No one does animation like Pixar so, it doesn’t take any convincing to put squarely in the middle of the top 10 list. I know very little about the story, but theirs red hair, archery and big green fields of grass. Again, just the Pixar name is driving interest here. If they can make a film about an old man flying his house around the world with helium balloons work I’m sure they can handle anything.

5. Prometheus
Speaking of high Scifi…Prometheus is weird, really weird. Its not a Alien movie but its in the same “universe”. Its directed by Alien director Ridley Scott and is set before the events of that film. While technically a prequel in sequence Scott has made it clear that the events of Prometheus do not tie into the events of Alien. So, to repeat, Prometheus is weird. Why make a prequel that is not a prequel? Is the Alien universe really so rich that dropping the Prometheus story into it is smarter/easier than just building a new universe? Who knows? What I do know is that I’m kind of excited, but only because of the ties to Alien.

4. Men In Black III
Men in Black is one of those movies from my childhood that shaped my taste in films as an adult. The second movie was pretty disappointing, but a nifty timetravel story could really make MIB3 shine. Also, its about time Will Smith got back to playing Will Smith in his movies. I get it, you’re an actor and each role should be different…now stop that shit and just be Will Smith, the guy people love spending money on. I’m happy that Tommy Lee Jones is back, and that Josh Brolin is playing a young version of him. It makes sense because Tommy Lee Jones is really really really really really (I think you get the point!) friggin’ old now.

3. The Amazing Spider-man
Clearly rebooting Spider-man is more of a business decision than anything. Sony has to keep making these movies in order to not lose the license. Would I have rather seen another tired Tobey Mcguire Spider-man? Probably not. The casting in The Amazing Spider-man is fantastic, and the franchise will benefit from a tonal change. Also, go back and watch the first Spider-man movie. You’ll see that its pretty tame and Spidey needs something with a bit more teeth. There may be alot of naysayers when it comes to this movie, but I seriously think it has the potential to be the dark horse comic film this summer.

2. The Dark Knight Rises
Let me get this out of the way now. The Dark Knight Rises WILL NOT BE better than The Dark Knight, and no one should expect it to be. Its almost guaranteed to be good, because Chris Nolan doesn’t make bad movies. The third chapter of a trilogy is rarely the best (I’m looking at you X-men: The Last Stand, Spiderman 3 and Return of the Jedi). I’m really looking forward to Anne Hathoway’s Catwoman (for obvious reasons) but the character of Bane is pretty boring. With a rogue’s gallery that includes The Riddler, The Penguin and Harley Quinn, choosing Bane seems weak and predictable. I’m almost willing to bet Batman’s back gets snapped like a twig. It would be an appropriately tragic end to a tragic Batman story, but way too predictable. Geez, I really hope I’m not right.

1. The Avengers
Of course it’s number one, did you fools think I would choose anything else over this colossal Marvel mash up 5 years in the making? Since Ironman in 2008 Marvel’s track record of putting this team together has been damn near flawless. Even the fantastical and potentially disastrous Thor movie was pretty badass. I can’t think of a better director to tackle such a project than Josh Whedon. His ability to tickle the senses of nerds around the world is unrivaled. The question isn’t “will The Avengers be successful?” its “how successful will it be?” Anything less than 400 million and 1 billion worldwide is a failure. Not a failure in that it will lose money, but a failure in that the audience did not respond appropriately…its the Avengers, why don’t you already have your tickets…COME ON!

Techpedition should review at least a few of these. I know I will setting up shop at midnight launches for several of these, so expect some sort of posts forthcoming. Happy summer Techpeditionland!