Has Pixar fallen short finally?

A movie about fast running cars has already performed well on the box office in the form of Fast Five that has grossed about $600 million in worldwide revenues. But this weekend saw fast cars, in a different form altogether, light up the silver screen. These cars are brighter, more cheery, have no human intervention, and most importantly, talk! You got it spot on. I am talking about the much awaited Pixar release, Cars 2. Not surprisingly, Cars 2 opened at the top of the US box office this weekend earning $66 million in its first 3 days. While it is nowhere near the $110 opening weekend that Pixar's last movie, Toy Story 3, had seen (Toy Story franchise is a different class altogether!), it still pretty much matches up with the openings of other Pixar hits like Up, Wall-E and Cars. So Cars 2 seems very much destined to reach the $200 million mark at the US box office and keep the Pixar success story going. Or will it? While the revenues are strong, Cars 2 has had sub-par reviews, which is quite unlike a Pixar movie. And frankly, I got to admit that it does not deserve the kind of applause that the previous movies won. For a long time I wondered if Pixar could go ever wrong, and somewhere I feel that they did this time. Don't get me wrong. The animation is great, the story is well thought of, the characters are brilliant. But where Cars 2 seems to fall short is with that emotional bonding seen in the past, that can move the audience to tears. Be it with Wall-E calling out EVE's name in Wall-E, or Remy finally getting the chance to live his dream in Ratatouille, or even Doc Hudson grudgingly providing racing tips to McQueen in the original Cars, these were moments that so easily made you forget that you were in a cinema hall. They stirred your heart, made you feel for the characters, and made you root for them! In Cars 2, you hardly go that mile. This movie starts off as an adventure and remains that way... a lovely and fun-filled adventure, but not something that remains with you when you leave the theatre. It has its moments, trying to show the camaraderie between the so-different Lighting McQueen and Mater, but such moments are very few and far away. With Pixar you expect so much more. Apart from the Toy Story franchise, Pixar had never worked on sequels despite so many successful movies because they believed in creating something new each time around... and that is what I hope they will stick to. So are we to lose faith in Pixar? Of course not. Cars 2 is going to be another hit for them, the creative team still remains strong, and maybe they will bring back the magic formula of stirring your heart, from the next movie on! The release of Cars 2 also meant bad news for our green hero, Green Lantern that managed only $18 million in its second weekend, a sharp decline indeed! Makes you feel a bit sorry for Ryan Reynolds though I would pin the blame on the screenwriters who could not put together a strong enough story despite so much material around them. No sequels here, I am sure...

This superhero is Green

It is a superhero's world right now! Thor and X-Men: First Class have already been raved about by critics and their box office collections have not been bad either. Captain America is slated for a late-July release that will complete the introduction of all the Avengers. But for this weekend Marvel comics is taking a backseat as a DC comics character is going to fly in the sky. Green Lantern starring Ryan Reynolds as the lead, is the story about Hal Jordan, the first human to become part of an intergalactic squadron called the Green Lanterns that are tasked with maintaining peace within the universe. There is a lot of material about the Green Lantern in the comic world and so there should be enough to create an interesting plot for a movie. But Green Lantern has never been the leading superhero character in DC comics. He is more known for being part of the Justice League which features more prominently the likes of Batman and Superman. Fans of The Big Bang Theory might also find a connection as Sheldon is seen wearing a Green Lantern t-shirt (the green one!) quite regularly. With the lack of a big built-in fan base, Green Lantern will be counting a lot on the trailers generating enough curiosity amongst the audience and maybe good reviews to support its cause. With a production budget estimated to be about $200 million (some interviews mention total cost of $300 million!), the stakes are quite high for this movie. While collections of above $100 million in US are all but guaranteed, reaching big highs, say $250 million, seems a long shot, given that movies of superior franchisees like Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides are finding it hard to achieve. All said and done, Green Lantern will definitely be at the top of the US box office this weekend, pushing Super 8 to the second spot. Super 8 has done well for itself, with $35 million collections in its first weekend. And in comparison to Green Lantern, its production budget of $50 million appears measly that would help it attain the hit status quite quickly. Will Green Lantern be able to keep its producers happy too? Will the ring of the Green Lantern be able to mesmerize the audience? Questions that will be answered this weekend....

PS: An old blog on the superhero movies of the past --> http://bucksandcorn.blogspot.com/2010/09/superheroes-that-walk-amongst-us.html

Mutants take on Abrams' Super 8

Can mutants co-exist with men? Or does one race have to end for the other to survive? The question that is posed forever in the X-Men series, the question on the basis of which two friends go on separate paths with Professor X forming his band of gifted youth called X-Men and Magneto putting together the group called Brotherhood. X-Men: First Class, that released previous week, connected the missing dots as it brought forward the beginnings of these two mutant leaders, and their differing ideologies. While the movie took the top spot at the US box office on its release, its earnings of $55 million are much lower than the $85 million earned by the previous movie in the franchise, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Having said that, the movie is earning one of the best reviews in the franchise and having recently watched it myself, I must admit that it is possibly one of the best movies of this summer. The movie is engrossing, mixed with the right tone and pace, swapping between scenes and characters smoothly, that keeps the audience happily glued to the adventure. Not for a single moment, do you sit back to check your watch, for in that moment you might miss a cool line, a great action scene or maybe one of the many references to connections with the previous movies of the franchise. And the acting by James McAvoy as Professor X and Michael Fassbender as Magneto is excellent, keeping the very spirit of these two characters alive, which in the previous films have been displayed by stalwarts Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan. This is a must watch for sci-fi fans! Last weekend also saw Fast Five become the first movie of this year to cross the $200 million mark at the US box office. Once the weekend numbers for this week are out, The Hangover 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides will also be joining this short list (still no one to make it to 300?).

While the summer season is filled with sequels or sequels of sequels, this weekend sees the release of an original sci-fi thriller, Super 8. Why the buzz around it? Well, it is directed by the creator of Alias, co-creator of Lost, director of Mission: Impossible III, director of the 2009 hit Star Trek, the talented J.J. Abrams. And if that was not enough, the posters of the movie prominently highlight the name of Steven Spielberg as producer of the film. The interest of movie-goers is also piqued by the mysterious trailer of the film that shows something heavy trying to smash itself out of a train bogey, but gives no further hint of the immense creature. Intriguing, thrilling, captivating... words that would possibly describe what Abrams has to offer this time around. A movie that falls in my must-watch category, especially for the ones who love the sci-fi genre. The summer season has come a long way but more importantly, it has a long way to go indeed!

Will the new X-Men be First Class?

X-Men, released in 2000, is credited by many for reviving the genre of superhero movies. The likes of Spiderman, Batman and Iron Man followed much later on, after Charles Xavier and his mutants had set the stage once again for movies based on the traditional theme of good versus bad, where a man (or in this case, men and women) with power and ability superior to those of a commoner has to step up and take on the responsibility of vetting out justice wherever the system fails. The sequel X-Men 2 did better than the first and was followed by the third movie of the trilogy, X-Men: The Last Stand, that grossed $459 million in worldwide revenues to become the biggest hit of the franchise. The X-Men series is however filled with numerous characters, enacted by known stars like Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen and Halle Berry and relatively unknown stars who were climbing up the popularity charts like Anne Pacquin and James Marsden. And with the rising salaries, the studio decided it best to stop bringing them all together and instead create spin-offs on the individual characters. Not a bad decision! They first talked about the story of the most popular of the mutants, Wolverine, in the 2009 movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And now they are entering the past lives of two of the oldest mutants, Xavier and Magneto, in X-Men: First Class.

X-Men: First Class will unravel the story of the creation of Xavier's X-Men and Magneto's Brotherhood. It will bring forth the difference in ideologies of two of the most enigmatic characters of the series and explain the reasons why the two friends chose to go on separate paths though with the same objective in their mind, to save their kind. X-Men: First Class has the potential to be more than just a sci-fi/superhero movie. it has the potential to make the audience question about what is right and wrong, about the paths one can take and about the consequences that each path has to offer. And that is what the fans of this franchise will be expecting. Maybe the movie does not have the same box office potential as its predecessors with most of the popular mutants missing (but wouldn't you just love to glimpse a cameo of Wolverine in the movie?), but it can very well turn out to be an intelligent one that would keep the franchise alive. With Wolverine 2 in the makings, and even a possible movie about Deadpool, there is a lot more that the X-Men series still has to offer, and it takes just one bad movie for the audience and the studio to lose faith in a series. I hope X-Men: First Class is not the dubious one. So with fingers crossed, we await its release and hope that mutants will continue to look cooler with each passing day... and that many more movies follow in the series unraveling the past and explaining the future.