Blockbuster Roundup

I have taken a pass on most of the big summer movies thus far. Stuff like The Longest Yard, Mr & Mrs. Smith, and Madagascar looked awful so other than Revenge of the Sith I've been blockbuster free. Not so any more.

Batman Begins - Wow! Probably the best superhero movie ever. Or at least in a tie with Superman II. Gets everything right. Its grounded in reality and Christian Bale's Batman is mean, tough and scary. Every role is perfectly cast and most importantly this movie is actually about Batman. Its not about the villain, unlike the previous Bat-flicks. Bring on Batman Continues or whatever they are gonna call it.

Land of the Dead - I'm biased as I love me some zombie movies, so Romero would have had to really screwed things up for me to not be happy. I was more than impressed. Its a total b-movie horror flick but a smart one. Everything in the plot works the characters are fun and most importantly the zombies kick ass. One thing I learned about the film after seeing is that there were a ton of CGI effects in the movie. Not once during the movie did I think "nice cgi" or whatever I thought it was all traditional effects. That's the way CGI should be you shouldn't be thinking about it being CGI you should just be enjoying the action on the screen even if it priest zombie with a near decapitated head biting a chuck of a dudes arm.

War of the Worlds - What a freaking intense film. The first 75% percent of the film is awesome. Out of this world amazing. But then Spielberg seems to loose the plot near the end. A truly excellent film even with its large flaws. Deserves to be seen on the big screen in a quality theater. And freaky Tom Cruise is actually quite good in it. Could have been a classic but its still very good almost great. Jeffrey Wells sums up my thoughts on the film pretty good in his latest column (you gotta scroll down to the second story).