Three typical summer blockbusters started with "Captain America", a superhero movie I would normally avoid. But what intrigued me most was that the story was set in 1941, and it was the sets that made the movie for me. Especially those for New York which were actually filmed in Manchester and Liverpool. There was quite a decent plot as to how Steve Rogers, hardly adequately played by Chris Evans, becomes Captain America, but as usual, the climatic action scenes are the same boring stuff.
I had been looking forward to "Super 8", and I have to say that, apart from the ending (again) it was a pretty good movie. Small town America in 1979 harks back to early movies of Steven Spielberg, children, bikes and all. Even Jurassic Park is referenced late on. JJ Abrams knows how to make a dramatically exciting film, and the cast of unknown youngsters do not let him down. The exterior set of the town is excellent and used to full effect. Enjoyable and fun.
What can they do with digtal FX technology these days. "The Rise of The Planet of the Apes" portrays the apes in an extraordinary way, so much so that we really empathise with their plight. There is always a feeling that the story behind their gaining of intelligence is somewhat contrived, but if you put that out of your mind, this is a well constructed movie that is entertaining and sleek. The production values are high, and Robert Wyatt's direction moves the story on nicely. Although nice is not a word that describes some of the human characters. Even lead James Franco must take a fair share of the blame.
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