Movie Muse Shorts: Monsters University, The Lone Ranger, Man of Steel

Monsters University - They certainly gave it the old college try with this one. (Sorry, it was too easy.) It was a fun twist on the characters we know and love, and it was quite a good movie. We enjoyed it very much. They certainly tried to make magic happen twice, and though they had all of the pieces, it just didn't quite gel like the first one did. It was more "this moment was good" and "that part was nice", but not "what a great movie" as a whole. L really liked it, though. Six months later (when I finally got around to writing this review), it is the only movie from this summer that he remembers seeing. He actually saw 4 movies between May and August, and he has a notoriously bad memory, so it really is saying something that this is the only one that he can specifically recall. (Definitely the best of the four, in my opinion.)


The Lone Ranger - I could make this a simple three word review: Don't see it. But I know that wouldn't sit well with some of you. I've seen plenty of bad movies; some of them I even like, in spite of knowing how bad they are. But there is a difference in "that was a bad movie," "I didn't like that movie," and "I'm sorry I even saw that movie." Unfortunately, I'm sorry I ever saw The Lone Ranger. Far and away the worst movie I have seen in years. It is NOT a Disney movie, in any way. I'm sorry, but in my opinion, there are just certain lines a film released under the Disney banner should not cross, and this movie crossed more than one of those. If you wanted to go there with your film, that's fine, but go there under a different name: Touchtone, Miramax, whatever, but not Disney. If I could bleach my brain of this film, I would do it in a heartbeat. Just very disappointing and disturbing (yes, disturbing!). Do yourself a favor; don't even bother.


Man of Steel - Okay, so Superman is trying to go all Dark Knight on us. That's okay, they didn't do a bad job. I thought casting was actually quite good. Henry Cavill certainly has dimples (and muscles) in spades! He even does a better job of pulling off the Clark Kent aspect than I ever anticipated (though he doesn't get to do much of it; maybe next time). The backstory was interesting, though as a non-reader of the comics, I have no idea how much is "real" and how much was made up just for the film. Even Russell Crow was better than I anticipated, as was Zod. Honestly, my biggest issue was getting to the end and having them break their own rules, which is a cardinal sin in this type of film, IMO. There was no reason for that; they could have figured out some other way to "go there" and still have it conform to the rules of their universe. Overall, worth seeing. I'm interested to see where they go from here.

Currently feeling: like most of the summer movies were a bust