Every summer brings a crop of popular movie franchises back to the big screen, and this summer is particular ripe with sequels. Though summer is still sizzling, the sequels themselves are winding with only a few more to go, and it seemed a perfect time to grade the sequels starting with

Spider-Man 3 full review
What's Good?
Sam Raimi continues to treat Peter Parker, and the Spider-Man franchise, as if these are real people. His endeavor to make the super hero genre about the people and not the action hero made the original film revolutionary.

What's Bad?
The third installment has way too many characters who get substantial screen time, detracting from the story we wanted to see: Mary Jane and Peter Parker. [ Read The Rest ]

G.I. Joe the movie? Another He-Man and the Masters of the Universe remake? Because once those are reality all of my favorite childhood toys will have be re-envisioned for the 21st century. Transformers was just a harbinger of the destruction to come.

Along with comic book adaptations, cartoons to live-action films have always been the desiccation of some of my most intimate youthful imaginings. I lived in those worlds for chunks of time, and when I watch the films, I am rarely able to watch them without some serious, butt-kicking nostalgia. That said, I think it was inevitable that I left the theater after Transformers with mixed feelings. [ Read The Rest ]

So going into a movie that was resoundingly panned by every major media outlet, amateur reviewer, and comic book pundit doesn't really put in you a mind that's it is going to be any good. And let's face it, history was not on the side of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Comic book adaptations to film are notoriously bad (Punisher, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Elektra to name three.) And even the ones that were successful, I hated (Batman Returns, Superman Returns, Spider-Man 3 to name three more.) Whatever your measure of quality, it's just damn hard to make a good superhero flick that pleases everyone (X-Men, Spider-Man, 300 are probably the best of the breed.) And then there is the first Fantastic Four installment, which was good, but not stellar. So with all this evidence, I was wholly surprised to enjoy Rise of the Silver Surfer from start to finish. [ Read The Rest ]

I left the theater on opening night of Spider-Man 3 thinking to myself, "Man, I hate that Peter Parker." It is rare for a hero movie to create such a despicable, unfathomably shallow and irresponsible hero, but to director Sam Raimi's credit, he has done just that.

I say credit because Raimi, and fellow screenplay writers Ivan Raimi and Alvin Sargent, fully realize a flawed and imperfect hero. Maybe I should tip my hat to Tobey Maguire for convincing me that if I had just met Peter Parker, I would line up behind Venom and Sandman to take a swing at him. [ Read The Rest ]

300 the Warner Bros. film is a magnificent adaptation of the Frank Miller comic book of the same name. Gerard Butler anchors a masterful cinematic production that takes all the elements of Miller's story and weaves them into a brutal and beautiful tale of Sparta's first stand against the invading Persian empire.
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Man, this movie was bad. I'm going to avoid (I swear) puns on the name of Ghost Rider or his alter ego Johnny Blaze and just say Man, this movie was bad!

While watching Ghost Rider, I got a weird sense of deja vu. It was very much the same feeling I had watching Daredevil, another Marvel comic book adaptation. Both films have some good action sequences, a hottie love interest for our superhero, and a nice mix of light and dark moments. But put those pieces altogether and both films were an unequivocal disaster from top to bottom. They are literally hard to sit through. You can almost (almost) spot the making of a good superhero movie in the finished product.
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Conceptually, it was pretty easy to get excited about the return of the heroes in a half-shell, those lovable butt-kicking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The original comic book series was sharp and gritty. The subsequent cartoon television series was easily one of the most entertaining, most intelligently written children's series on television until Gargoyles. The movies that followed TMNT and TMNT II (I have no comment about the third) managed to effectively translate all the best parts of the series to a live-action, full-length feature.

A new film starring the four brother turtles who are transformed by radioactive muck into a crime-fighting, pizza-eating street gang is set for March 23.
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Smokin' Aces didn't fare so well in critic's reviews and fan posts, all of which leads me to believe that expectations were pretty high for the shoot-'em-up flick.

So let's just put this out there: the ending was a little lackluster. The music reached a frenzied pitched as director Joe Carnahan pulled the plug, but the audience had already flat-lined.
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Just like the film adaptation of Frank Miller’s Sin City, produced with a unique combination of special effects, computer graphics and live acting, Warner Bros. Pictures film 300 promises to adapt a thrilling Frank Miller saga to the big screen in a startling and dramatic fashion.
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It is officially 2007 and some unwise decisions have left me with a hangover from last year. Here's my list:

Bryan Singer, what were you thinking?
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