What happened?
I just finished watching two cool, colorful, fantastic, and FUN summer movies: The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. I absolutely loved every second of the innocent adventures, and I found that I loved them even more now than when I first saw them. Now I see why. I've trudged through so many heavy, dark, pretentious summer blockbusters in the years between viewings, that the Mummy films feel like a salvation. They hearken back to the days when summer blockbusters were inherently fantastical. When they took you on adventures and didn't ask for spoiler-filled discussions and critical analysis afterwards. They reminded me of Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Sam Raimi's first two Spider-Man movies. They reminded me of a time when blockbuster were meant to be FUN.
So again, I ask genuinely, what happened?
Was it Christopher Nolan? I used to hail him as the savior of the Batman series. He gave Batman three huge, serious, and dark films. It worked. The thing is, it worked for Batman. I never asked for an overly serious Spider-man or a colorless, fun deprived Superman or James Bond. Why does every big blockbuster these days have to be the most important thing to ever happen to cinema? Why do all these directors seem to be cartoonishly snobby and pretentious? It drives me absolutely mad! And it won't be stopping anytime soon. Critics and audiences alike seemed to hate the recent Lone Ranger movie, a movie I skipped in theaters (because of the reviews) and came to find was spectacular entertainment, but they praised the deathly serious Dawn of the Planet of the Apes movie as one of the greatest things to happen to cinema. Can't movies unapologetically entertain? Can't Hollywood come out with an honest-to-goodness fun blockbuster anymore? The most important question, however, is ... "Can't audiences accept it anymore?"
I just finished watching two cool, colorful, fantastic, and FUN summer movies: The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. I absolutely loved every second of the innocent adventures, and I found that I loved them even more now than when I first saw them. Now I see why. I've trudged through so many heavy, dark, pretentious summer blockbusters in the years between viewings, that the Mummy films feel like a salvation. They hearken back to the days when summer blockbusters were inherently fantastical. When they took you on adventures and didn't ask for spoiler-filled discussions and critical analysis afterwards. They reminded me of Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Sam Raimi's first two Spider-Man movies. They reminded me of a time when blockbuster were meant to be FUN.
So again, I ask genuinely, what happened?
Was it Christopher Nolan? I used to hail him as the savior of the Batman series. He gave Batman three huge, serious, and dark films. It worked. The thing is, it worked for Batman. I never asked for an overly serious Spider-man or a colorless, fun deprived Superman or James Bond. Why does every big blockbuster these days have to be the most important thing to ever happen to cinema? Why do all these directors seem to be cartoonishly snobby and pretentious? It drives me absolutely mad! And it won't be stopping anytime soon. Critics and audiences alike seemed to hate the recent Lone Ranger movie, a movie I skipped in theaters (because of the reviews) and came to find was spectacular entertainment, but they praised the deathly serious Dawn of the Planet of the Apes movie as one of the greatest things to happen to cinema. Can't movies unapologetically entertain? Can't Hollywood come out with an honest-to-goodness fun blockbuster anymore? The most important question, however, is ... "Can't audiences accept it anymore?"