Movies Features

Unseen Movie Review Special: The End of Summer 2011 Wrap Up

By Rob Dixter Aug 30, 2011, 14:38 GMT

Summer 2011 is almost over and while there have been some major successes (a few films even grossed more than Kim Kardashian’s wedding) there were a few that fell flatter than Selena Gomez’s singing. Here’s a look back at what we learned this season.

If you stake your claim to an early May release you should do fairly well at the box office. Thor has never been one of the major Marvel characters and some people think he’s a carpenter who needs a haircut.

But the public is so starved for summer blockbusters that they usually start showing up for them that first weekend in May. Thor was a decent film, but it had the jump on everyone else with its May 6 release date.

Woman can be just filthy as men. Or at least laugh at it the way men do. Bridesmaids proved there’s an audience for women who don’t necessarily like their comedy clean. Kristen Wiig has (rightfully so) launched her movie career and sadly once she leaves Saturday Night Live there really will be no reason to watch the show.

People still love Captain Jack Sparrow, although more so overseas than in the U.S. On Stranger Tides was the lowest grossing Pirates movie of the four domestically (although it still did cross the $200 million mark) but it did gross over a billion dollars worldwide. I would expect more mascara in Johnny Depp’s future (and maybe he’ll even shoot another Pirates movie).

Woody Allen is still relevant. Midnight in Paris was his highest grossing film to date and the secret behind his success seems rather obvious, he didn’t cast himself in the movie.

Everyone knows he can write and direct but his acting fan club seems to be the same size as the number of people who believe Nic Cage’s hair is slowly eating his head from the front to the back.

Just because you claim to be a superhero movie doesn’t mean people will show up. Thor and X-Men: First Class were pretty good movies, but Green Lantern was about as interesting and creative as taking a college class called “Men who wear tight green suits.”

The film had zero imagination and people stayed away. It doesn’t help that Green Lantern is not as popular as Batman and Superman, but Iron Man proved that if you make a great film with secondary characters people will still show up.

Robots that can change into cars are still popular. Transformers Dark of the Moon was the third in the series and the highest grossing of them all. It crossed the billion dollar mark worldwide and also proved that if you shoot your film in 3D the effect can work pretty well.

The story was still lacking but watching Transformers come out at you while they fight was cooler than asking William Shatner to say “Beam me up Scotty” and being denied.

Just because you’re considered the nicest guy in Hollywood doesn’t mean people want to see a movie you wrote. Larry Crowne was a huge disaster and all the blame can be laid at the feet of Tom Hanks who wrote, directed and starred in the movie. Will he lose sleep over it?

Maybe. But his two Oscars and millions of dollars should be able to buy him happiness or at least a really cool car with Sirius radio.

Friends with Benefits proved that if you’re competing with another movie that has a similar plot, it’s usually best to be the first one in theaters. No Strings Attached wasn’t a major hit when it came out in January, but it had more buzz than Friends with Benefits.

This is even after Mila Kunis tried to date the entire U.S. armed forces.

We’ve heard it before but Cowboys and Aliens proved that the western is really dead this time. Even aliens couldn’t excite people about a genre where men wear chaps, drink whiskey and never bathe.

If you know you have the goods, drop a sneak peek very early on. Remember when we first got a little five second glimpse of the ape effect from Rise of the Planet of the Apes? The filmmakers had really mastered the look of their apes.

These weren’t actors wearing ape costumes, they looked like real apes (or a shirtless Robin Williams). The movie opened much bigger than expected and has proved to be a late summer blockbuster.

Glee is a TV show, so why would people pay to see a movie about those actors performing songs from the show in concert? And why do I have to see it in 3D? And why does Gwyneth Paltrow want a singing career all of a sudden, when her vocal prowess can best be described as Goop.

Sorry Fright Night and Conan, but you weren’t big hits in the 80’s and there really was no need to reboot you. Will studios learn from these mistakes and curb the sudden greenlighting of more remakes? Probably not and we already have Colin Farrell in Total Recall to look forward to next year.

The summer definitely produced some surprises and had some huge hits (3 films crossed the billion dollar mark worldwide) but studios need to realize that just because you wear tight pants doesn’t mean there’s a superhero movie there.

If that was all it took, Mick Jagger would have been fighting crime for years.