This summer's Silver Screen.

Last night I caught a screening of Cowboys & Aliens which was the last film I needed to see on my "summer 2011 must-see movies" list (the other four being Thor, X-Men: First Class, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, and Captain America: The First Avenger). For a nerd like me it has been a great summer for movies and instead of writing about each film individually, I decided a while ago that I'd write my thoughts about each film (and rank them by my preference) in one big post. So this is that post. The way I rank and discuss these movies is my own opinion and is therefore obviously open to criticism. I should also note that I think all these films are good, this listing is just a matter of personal preference in how I enjoyed the films or the priority in which I might recommend someone watch these movies. My rankings will be in descending order and I'll try to keep my opinions on each film as concise as possible while avoiding major spoilers (but I'll let you know if one is coming up).

5. Cowboys & Aliens

Ever since the first couple of trailers for this movie came out, I have been excited for this film. The premise of having cowboys and aliens fight it out seemed so ludicrous that I had to check it out. The direct mashing of two film genres (western and science fiction) was also a selling point. While I am a huge fan of science fiction films, I am not so acquainted with western ones. So the prospect of having a movie that would at the same time be familiar and new was very appealing. Overall the movie was decent enough. Decent action, decent effects, fun premise, etc. Seeing Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford do their thing on screen was also really great as they both seemed to really enjoy their roles in the film. Despite all of this however the movie ultimately fell somewhat flat in my opinion. The film was a little too familiar with respect to each film genre and it didn't challenge me (the viewer) in anyway. The plot was predictable, the characters were one-dimensional (for the most part), and while the film had some fun with the ridiculous premise, I felt like it could have taken the fact that these were COWBOYS fighting ALIENS to a higher level. The tone of the film never seemed to hit the mark with me and I couldn't help but notice some nonsensical plot holes (noticing and pointing out holes in the plot or premise of any movie is my Achilles heel when it comes to if I enjoy a film or not). Overall this movie is a good popcorn flick and will provide for an entertaining couple of hours. It is in no way a bad film, but in the same respect it is not one of the best that was released this summer.

My rating: 3/5

4. Captain America: The First Avenger

When I heard that Johnny Storm would be Captain America I was not happy.

When I first heard they were bringing Captain America to the silver screen I was excited. Then when I heard that Chris Evans was going to playing the dear Captain I got really nervous. Not that Evans is a bad actor or anything, I just couldn't picture him fitting the role. To me Evans plays secondary characters, usually as an outlet for comic relief. Also, he played Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four films and it just didn't make sense for him to play another Marvel superhero (canon continuity is really important to me, and the folks at Marvel Studios thankfully avoided the Johnny Storm-Captain America-looking-like-the-same-guy issue by not including said Fantastic Four movies into the current Marvel film "universe", which is a good thing as both FF movies were awful). Upon seeing the film, I realized that my initial fears about Evans were misplaced as he did a superb job and is probably one of the best things in this movie. Really great acting on his part. Like all the recent Marvel movies, Captain America was fun. It's a good time. Action, comedy, romance (although a bit downplayed) all working together to make a completely sizable summer film. The film also scores points simply due to the fact that it is contributing to the previously mentioned Marvel film universe, whose culmination in next year's Avengers is going to be epic and probably the super-awesomely film event of the year for me. If you're a fan of Marvel comics, Captain America, or the new Marvel Studios take on superhero films, Captain America is a must see. I did have some issues with the movie however. This film suffers from what I like to call "Stormtrooper syndrome", as in all the run-of-the-mill bad guys at no time pose any obvious threat to Captain America and he mainly just steamrolls through them. This drains the action scenes from tension as you know Capt. will make it through any and all obstacles in his way. The motivation of the bad guys was a little too unbelievable for me as well. I expect a little bit more out of my villains in modern cinema than what Captain America had to offer. Also Captain America (or his civilian name Steve Rogers) is very one-dimensional as a character. He remains the absolute good guy throughout the whole film and this makes him somewhat boring (he has no character ark, he doesn't learn anything through his trials and tribulations). My biggest grief with the film though (MILD SPOILER ALERT) is that the "end fight" scene, the culmination of all of Capt.'s efforts where he confronts his villainous nemesis the Red Skull is totally lame. There really isn't even a fight between the two of them. I wanted to see a fist-to-fist brawl between these two enhanced beings (the film even makes a point to demonstrate that like Capt., the Red Skull also has stronger-than-normal strength. Just nothing ever comes of this demonstration). For me, this lack of an epic end-battle between good-versus-evil really hurt the film. Despite these qualms, Captain America is a great film for any comic book fan and again is a must see for those eagerly awaiting The Avengers like myself.

My rating: 3.5/5

3. X-Men: First Class

I didn't really know what to expect from this film, and to be honest I wasn't expecting much. The X-Men as a film franchise was severely hurt by 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand and was wholly destroyed by 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the initial trailers for First Class didn't make the film seem all that interesting to me either. However once the film came out and the initial critic reaction turned out to be very positive I just had to see it, and I am happy to report that I quite enjoyed myself. Great story, action, characters, and comedy (when appropriate). Like most of the recent Marvel movies, First Class was simply fun. Seeing these super-beings flying all over the screen using their powers was awesome and the special effects and scale of some of the action scenes was top notch (the culminating scene of First Class hit that "grandiose" mark that I was waiting for in Captain America). My only real complaint with this film is that it features the stereotypical characteristic moment that some films that have (and suffer from). In First Class, it is (spoilers) the black character who is the first to die (and in not even a dignified way). The film is in no way racist (or at least I don't believe so, I have read things online that would disagree with me), but the fact that the film took this route with this character was disappointing. Another criticism I have is that a lot of the supporting characters (mutants) don't really get fleshed out as well as I would have liked, but I understand that this film is primarily about the relationship between Charles Xavier (Professor X) and Eric Lehnsherr (Magneto) and the film does the exposition on these characters and their relationship superbly. See this movie if you can.

My rating: 4/5

2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

I have already discussed my initial reaction to this movie previously on this blog and as explained before, my relationship with this film is somewhat special and therefore different from what I had when anticipating viewing the other films on my list. I can't recommend or even discuss this film without talking about Harry Potter's entire story and plot, as I really feel that anything Harry Potter has to be viewed within the context of the universe as a whole and how said universe makes you feel. The Harry Potter universe is one of my favourite fictional universes and this film isn't something I can merely recommend. If you like Harry Potter you don't even need to be told to see this film. You will see it. With that being said, EVERYONE should be a fan of Harry Potter and if you aren't, then you should be. It really is as simple as that. I was eagerly anticipating this movie, not because I thought it was going to be some grand masterpiece, but because I enjoy Harry Potter. The film itself was good enough to fulfill my expectation as a rabid Harry Potter fan and that's all that really needs to be said (although I will note that it generally received good reviews as a film in-and-of-itself).

My rating: If you like Harry Potter, you'll enjoy this movie. If you don't like Harry Potter, you should like Harry Potter.

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1. Thor

I really liked Thor, and it is the movie I liked the most out of all the films I had wanted to see this summer. I've said it before in this post when discussing the movies that came out this summer, but Thor is just fun. Crazy fun. Thor is a movie that really anyone can enjoy; if you like movies, you'll find something to here. This movie had everyhing: an epic fantasy story about ancient gods duking it out for inter-dimensional superioirty, action-packed fight scenes, cool special effects, great acting (Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Idris Elba Heimdall really stealing the show), a romance subplot (in which Natalie Portman plays a dorky, typical "everygirl" who falls for Hemsworth's Thor who is totally buff and runs around half naked most of the time - a role-reversal in typical cultural portrayal of male-female sexual dynamics that I appreciated), an over-the-top premise that knows its limits but excels within them, a cool "end-fight" scene, a moral lesson, sneaky (but totally awesome) revelations into what 2012's Avengers may have in store (adding to the continuity of the Marvel film Universe), it really just  has the whole package. Thor is in no way a masterful movie, one that will greatly affect me or change my life, but it's a damn good film and I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it (well, not every bit, I feel that Thor's companions the Warriors Three could have been fleshed out a bit more, but I'm sure we'll be seeing more of them in future sequels). I think the reason I liked Thor so much was because I had a real fear that the film would be disastrous. Of all the major characters in the Marvel Universe, Thor is by far one of the quirkiest and weirdest. He's an ancient Norse god who lives in some far-away fantasy world, who speaks in Old English and fights giant monsters across mystical plains of existence and gets magical powers from some higher (but never identified) magical (divine?) source. If done improperly, this film could have been terrible. Luckily for us all, not only was the film good it was really great. See it.

My rating: 4/5.