Spring and Summer 2011 Movies

The meat of the 2011 movie season is coming up, including the Summer blockbusters, and I thought I’d run them down and see which ones I’m planning to check out.  Note that as a Dad, the list leans towards animated movies as well as comic book movies and summer blockbusters.  I don’t like horror and dumb comedies.  Month by month breakdown:

March

Will see:

Rango– Interesting to see where Johnny Depp can go with this 3D animated/motion-capped role, with original Piratesdirector Gore Verbinski.

Sucker Punch – Zack Snyder and hot chicks, I’m guessing the guys at work will open the movie-going season here.

Maybes: 

Battle:  Los Angeles – Need more data on this one.

April

Will see:

Hop – From the Despicable Mefolks, so I’ll probably see it with my son.  I’d like to see more of a trailer, first, though.  They don’t have the built-up cred that Pixar has with me.

Rio – Another movie with the kids, from the Ice Age guy this time.

Maybes:

Source Code – Interesting premise, but time travel movies are tricky.

May

Will see:

Thor– Now we’re getting somewhere.  The latest in the inter-connected Marvel universe movies is also the one that seems most likely to, well, not fail, but perhaps underperform.  Fitting Norse gods into a fairly ‘real’ world, with a Shakespearean director in Branagh, is a tougher sell than a billionaire playboy with sleek toys.  For me, if you add Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins into the mix, with Chris Hemsworth as the Mighty Thor, and it could surprise the skeptics.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides– While the second and third movies weren’t super, there was some entertainment value.  I’m curious to see more of Captain Jack and Captain Barbossa, and just adding Ian McShane’s voice is a plus.

Kung Fu Panda 2– The original was a heck of a classic kung fu movie story, animated or not.  Might be looking forward to this more than anything.

June

Will see:

X-Men:  First Class – Sigh.  This might get dropped to ‘maybe’, just because I dislike the idea of rebooting something that isn’t that old (same with Spiderman).  The problems in X-Men:  The Last Stand were fixable.  But anyway, I’m a Marvel guy, so I am giving them just a little bit of rope with this one.

The Green Lantern – I’m only passingly familiar with this DC title, as I really only read Batman back when I used to buy comics.  But Ryan Reynolds is pumped, and hey, most comic movies are fun.  Definitely a guy’s night movie.

Cars 2– Ooh boy.  Would probably be a maybe if I didn’t have young children or this wasn’t Pixar.  I enjoy the original well enough, but I don’t think I need more of it.  Pixar has proved me wrong enough times though.

July

Will see:

Transformers:  Dark of the Moon – I like big robots blowing s$!# up.

Captain America:  The First Avenger– I actually liked Chris Evans as Johnny Storm, despite the failings of the Fantastic Four movies, so I think he can handle this.  Toss in Hugo Weaving and Joss Whedon, and it’s up towards the top of my list.

Maybe:

Cowboys and Aliens – Dimly on my radar at this point, but Daniel Craig and an interesting premise.  Requires further investigation.

August

Will see:

Nothing on my radar yet.

Maybes:

Conan the Barbarian – I don’t have any memories of this, save maybe being in the room by my older brothers when they watched it while ‘watching’ me. 

I’ll stop there – don’t see anything yet in September but that is far enough out that it’s subject to change.  By the way, the Smurfs movie looks like an unholy abomination.  I saw an episode of the show the other day, and while it’s not something that’s held up since childhood, I seriously hate the ‘take a “classic” set of characters and put them in the REAL WORLD’ idea here.  Like Yogi Bear, what works as a cartoon (talking bears that have a collar and tie with no shirt) just looks extremely odd as a mix of live-action and 3D animation.

Faithful readers, anything else you are looking forward to?