I went to the movie theater five times in the month of June. I neglected to see the most recent addition to the Transformers franchise and The Mummy. Mostly because the former looked both ridiculous and terrible and the latter just looked plain terrible. No regrets.
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie is based on a cherished book series from my childhood. Was it as amazing as I wanted it to be? No. But I still enjoyed myself. As an avid fan of the books, I can see where the film took elements from at least the first four books to craft the plotline for it. I would have preferred a faithful adaptation of, say, the first two or three books. But “Weird Al” Yankovic did the theme song. And I cannot complain about that. It is a film I will likely see again, if only to show it to the younger relatives in my life.
SEE IT MORE THAN ONCE.
The DCEU films have all been box office smashes but none have been critical darlings. Until now! Wonder Woman is about even with my favorite film in the DCEU so far, Man of Steel. We got a well-crafted origin story for perhaps the most famous female superhero. Gal Gadot and Chris Pine worked well together. The comedy, thankfully, wasn’t laid on thickly and fit in organically. I’m just saying World War I was a rather brutal conflict in a way where jokes wouldn’t really work too often. All in all, I greatly enjoyed myself. And this would have topped June if not for a certain picture I saw at the end of the month. As for the sequel, it would appear instead of doing the easy job of having the initials for the film mirror that of World War II, they have instead opted to bring in the Soviets as the bad guys in an ‘80s setting. Maybe they can just use a flashback to explain what Wonder Woman was doing during the largest armed conflict of the last one hundred years. But whatever…
SEE IT A MILLION TIMES!
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is awesome. Should he have done Baywatch? Probably not. It gets a barely passing grade from me. A lot of the jokes don’t land, but I really enjoy The Rock in stuff. He’s easily the best part of the movie. We of course get a David Hasselhoff cameo, which, strangely, is only the second best David Hasselhoff cameo this year. We got some fun action and the occasional good joke. And The Rock being The Rock. Still, this should have been much better. Here’s hoping the Jumanji sequel/reboot turns out much better.
SEE IT ONCE.
Cars 3 once again proves its franchise is the black sheep of the Pixar family. I’ve never even seen Cars 2, mostly because people said it was incredibly dreadful. This one is OK, but I’ll probably never see it again. It’s well below the Pixar average, but that is to be expected. It’s passable. And that’s the low bar set for it after how dreadfully the second one tanked Cliff Clavin’s average film percentage on Rotten Tomatoes. What can I say? I went into this movie with near zero expectations. And it didn’t offend me on a personal level.
SEE IT ONCE.
Edgar Wright is a spectacular filmmaker. Much like Quentin Tarantino, his films defy genre. They’re just Edgar Wright movies. His latest, Baby Driver, handily wins movie of the month from me. Great acting, great story, great set pieces. The introductions of various characters are done in a clever way to reveal their personalities and flaws as they will play out later in the film. Let’s talk about that music. It’s amazing. I was even listening to the soundtrack while I was writing this article. This film, while I loved it, will probably require multiple viewings for me to fully appreciate it. Just go see it. It’s awesome.
SEE IT A MILLION TIMES!
As of this writing, I have already seen the film that will likely be movie of the month for July. It’s a good one.