3 Sequels and a Robot Funeral

Movies and Television

Like I have time for four posts.

Despicable Me 2. Ever seen a sequel without having seen the first movie? The last time I did that, maybe The Expendables 2: Testosterone Boogaloo? The first I remember well – The Empire Strikes Back.

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Special effects that were actually special. Damn. © 2013 Warner Bros.

I liked Despicable Me 2. It was cute and fun, some stupid humor but smart stupid. I imagine it to be the opposite of Grown Ups 2: IQ Points Swan Dive.

Lovely animation, sweet kids (the one girl totally favored Boo from Monsters Inc.) and entertaining good vs. bad story.

Pacific Rim. Don’t judge me. This was better than most Michael Bay crap. No wait, I’m trying to say that shockingly enough this wasn’t a total waste of brain cells, I could still operate lightweight machinery after watching this.

Not sure what’s so fun about destroying the Earth with crazy science nonsense, but at least Pacific Rim was actually kinda fun considering my bottom of the Pacific expectations. Robot battles, pretty 3D and no big name stars pretending to act; oh and there was Ben from True Blood.

Red 2. Not as fun as the first, certainly more predictable, Red 2 is more of the same as the not-so-retired spies come back for more guns, chases, globe trotting and wise cracking.

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Da-yum. Wolverine. © 2013 20th Century Fox

Willis and Louise-Parker started to bug me by the end but whatever; this one is watchable for Mirren, Malkovich, Hopkins and Byung-hun Lee.

The Wolverine. The Marvel Franchise that keeps going and going, the latest X-Men installment highlights two critical factors in a comic-book adaptation success:

  1. Good casting. As The Wolverine, Hugh Jackman is about as well-cast as it gets considering TPTB have made some pretty poor casting choices for Marvel-verse.
  2. Strong character. Requiring a good actor, a franchise character needs to be developed enough to hold his own vs. sometimes better crafted villains; and carry his own movie sans more compelling supporting players. See also, how Man of Steel couldn’t do that with fucking Superman.

Final Snark: Summer winds down, Hollywood burns off one sequel after another, destroys the world again. Some more. I just want to be badass enough to need an army of minions and my own plane.

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