Before the leaves start to fall and the Oscar bait movies start to roll in, here’s a wrap-up of the movies that exploded, charmed and humored their ways onto my list of the summer’s best movies.
The Dark Knight The second highest grossing film behind Titanic stands out from the rest of the superhero flicks with its genre-bending qualities. Rather than pure action and no substance, this film is more of a noir with its brooding cinematography and deep questions of morality; yet, it still has heart-stopping, realistic action sequences. And of course there’s Heath Ledger’s astounding performance as the anarchy-loving Joker whose negative outlook on the human condition is the perfect foil against the Dark Knight himself.
Wall∙E Can Pixar do no wrong? It’d be easy to dismiss a lonely mute robot and insist instead on re-watching the more conventionally desirable Toy Story or Finding Nemo, but Wall∙E proved to be an emotionally charged film with a touching love story between two robots and a timely ecological message.
Iron Man This superhero movie’s most endearing quality is its rich character development. We see Tony Stark go from selfish billionaire creator of military weapons who, after an Afghan kidnapping and injury, uses his own machinery to become Iron Man in order to fight against the evil he helped induce. Not only is it about the redemption of Tony Stark, it was also the ignition of Robert Downey, Jr.’s happily received A-List comeback.
Tropic Thunder Sure it was crude and it offended lots of people, but this outrageous satire still managed to be one of the best comedies of the year with its unflinching ability to skewer self-important and ridiculous actors, its abundantly talented cast and its hilarious use of cameos by famous actors.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull It wasn’t as well-received as expected, but it was great to see Indy again. The extraterrestrial-related plot skewed from typical Indy plots, but at its heart Indiana Jones is about the fun, never-ending series of cliffhangers. The addition of Shia LaBeouf and Cate Blanchett made for interesting story lines and good performances, and the return of Karen Allen’s Marion was a lovely déjà vu.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona Declared as one of Woody Allen’s better films of recent times, this film boasts beautiful scenery, good performances and – like all Allen’s films- intelligent ponderings on love.
American Teen It’s the nonfiction version of The Breakfast Club with its portrayals of teen angst seen through the perspectives of real life teen archetypes. What makes this film different than all John Hughes’ films, however, is that these characters are actually real people which give it more resonance and intimacy.
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