Summer Movies: Update

Ironman 2 = hit. Everyone saw this coming and even though it's overall ratings are not as good, the fact remains that strategically speaking as far as releases go, this was the most well placed one of the year. The first summer blockbuster will always be a hit no matter how much it blows. Last year "Wolverine" took up this same slot and was a huge disappointment for many X-Men fans. Despite this, they still generated enough money to make another X-Men prequel. This time, featuring the story of Xavier which I hope will be much cooler. X-Men is my favorite comic book franchise and "Wolverine" had too many characters and was hard follow. It's not a complaint that is heard often in the genre but it seems the same can be said for Ironman 2 except it's fairly easy to follow.

Robin Hood = miss. The re-assessment of the Robin Hood role in a totally different way for the character more commonly known to us in English literature was a slap in the face. Hollywood has always been in the "lets correct history mode" but how can you correct a piece of literature? They could have made the same story but called it, "The Archer" and it would be a huge hit like "The Gladiator" and no one would notice the lack in creativity of the title because, "How creative is Ridley Scott anyways?" But they didn't and the studio, Ridley, and Russell Crowe are getting blasted for it.

All in all, the movie is a very good allegory about a poor man fighting a rich man's war who comes home wanting to take a little more than your average revenge out. I have no problem with the movie except that it should have been called, "The Archer" and not "Robin Hood" because it has nothing to with the real Robin Hood except for the fact they were both archers. This is such a basic law of big budget film making: If you're going to adapt something from a well known piece of literature, history, comic books, or any other form of media--stick to the essentials. They're essential for a reason. With that said, I'll take Errol Flynn as the man in tights any day. I'll even take Kevin Costner in a Mullet--at least Snape was the bad guy in that one.

***On that note, I propose to remake Robin Hood in the future where he's a sniper and using his expert skills to knock off big business CEO's that have gone corrupt. He then falsifies some documents so that their money lands in his bank account which he then uses to purchase bibles and blankets for children in Honduras. He's being hunted by every government in the world and for that--he's awesome. Oh, and he makes 007 look like a pussy. Oh yeah, and Lady Marriane is played by Lady Ga-Ga.

As for my other predictions, I'm obviously pretty horrible about predicting what chicks like and don't like cause apparently "Letters for Juliet" is not getting very stellar reviews. That said, the majority of reviewers tend to be male and therefore geared towards a male audience. Who would have predicting after it's first opening week that "The Blind Side" would go on to be as big of a hit as it was. Still, like watching horses leave the gate, I'm waiting on "Letters for Juliet" to pick up some speed.

Lastly, Get Him to the Greek is picking up some advertising momentum with a huge blitz and is like I said, looking to be this year's "The Hangover." I stand by my prediction that it's going to fall short of "The Hangover" buzz but will still probably make a lot of money. So is it a hit? Yes and no, even the bro-tastic audience knows how to call bullshit from time to time.

Stay tuned for more summer movie updates.