Iron Man 2
Summer has become synonymous with big budget movies that are laden with special effects and CGI with May kicking off the blockbuster season.
And this year was not different as we had a whole host of movies such as Iron Man 2, Prince of Persia and Eclipse to look forward.
But sadly the blockbuster summer failed to hit the dizzy heights of 2008 when were treated to the likes of The Dark Knight and Iron Man, both of which were outstanding movies.
It was Iron Man 2 that got the ball rolling this summer as Jon Favreau returned to the director’s chair while Robert Downey Jr was back as Tony Stark.
Now I must admits that I was disappointed by this the second time around, after being blown away two years ago by it’s predecessor.
While the movie looks great and Robert Downey Jr is his usual brilliant self Favreau has just tried to cram too many storylines into the film that it just gets bogged down.
It's unevenly paced and very convoluted with too much going on, but Downey Jr's central performance is enough to pull it along.
The explosive set pieces do save the film as they are bigger and better than the first time around, just a little too few and far between.
It was a good piece of summer entertainment but it just fell a little short of the first movie.
Robin Hood was another movie that didn’t live up to it’s promise as Ridley Scott reunited with Russell Crowe for a new take on a well known tale.
Much like Iron Man 2, and many of the movies that graced the big screen this summer, there wasn’t too much wrong with Robin Hood it was just lacking that little bit of something.
It’s a fast paced exciting epic and Russell Crowe is great in the role of Hood but it just needed that little extra to boost it from a good movie to a great movie.
Computer game movies have never worked, name me one that was hand on heart a great film, but that didn’t stop Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time making it to the big screen.
With Jerry Bruckheimer behind the movie there was the hope that a Pirates of the Caribbean like franchise would be born as Jake Gyllenhaal stepped into his first blockbuster movie.
And while the curse of the computer game movie hasn’t exactly been lifted it one of the best movies in this genre for quite a while.
Gyllenhaal and Arterton have clear chemistry together but the character development of Dastan and Tamina is almost none existent and sadly these two very talented actors have very little to chomp on in terms of their characters.
Plus when you watch a movie that quite literally rewinds time so certain things haven’t happened then you are never going to win me over as it’s a pet hate.
Prince of Persia was a movie that will keep the kids entertained for a couple of hours but as blockbusters go it was yet another disappointment for cinema go-ers - and there has been a lot of that this summer.
Twilight Saga: Eclipse, the third film in the increasingly popular franchise, didn’t buck that trend. While the movie was a vast improvement on the dull as dishwater New Moon fans of the books, which I am, will once again be left feeling cheated.
For all the Twihard fans Eclipse is fast paced ride that is filled with romance, action and humour while for the rest of the world it’s the best movie in the series so far.
But it wasn’t all doom and gloom at the box office this summer there were two movies that saved us and they were Toy Story 3 and Inception.
Woody and Buzz were back this summer as Toy Story 3 hit the big screen eleven years after its predecessor.
It’s a heart warming movie about growing up and leaving your childhood behind, something that we can all identify with, as well as being visually stunning.
Pixar once again showed how animation movies should be and toy Story three went on to become the first animation movie to break $1 billion at the global box office as well as be incoming the biggest grossing movie of 2010.
But you can’t really look back over the blockbusters without talking, and of course marvelling at, Inception - which was a real cinematic treat.
Yes Christopher Nolan has done it again as two years after we were all blown away by The Dark Knight he returned with a sci-fi epic.
By a country mile this is the best movie of the year and deserves any awards that come its way, Oscar nomination anyone?
And the blockbusters have been ruling the box office in recent weeks as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader have both reached number one on both side of the Atlantic.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
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