The thing about "Big Summer Blockbusters" (or BSBs as I sometimes like to call them) is that they're designed fully and completely, from the ground up, for total mass consumption. AKA the "least common denominator". You take a bunch of elements that have worked before in thousands and thousands of movies... the "hero's journey" works extremely well for this purpose. Take your (generally badass) protagonist and dump him in shitsville. Then watch him climb to greatness, while overcoming his Main Character Flaw, and falling in love with a beautiful Love Interest along the way. If it's a "good" BSB, you should also have some pop psychology discussions and some witty one-liners. There should be a Low Point around the end of act II, where all seems to be lost for our hero, until a Mysterious Helper visits and pulls him out of the depths, so that the big Act III (complete with all the biggest explosions, car chases, and climactic battles) can build to the HUGE-GIGANTIC-FUCK finish, usually with a Last-Minute Twist you NEVER see coming (except for when you see it coming). If it's a "good" BSB, the hero might die as a sacrifice -- or it might be an "ambiguous" or unhappy ending -- as long as it's consistent with the tone of the whole movie.
Now take this formula, repackage it to your own little "concept", spare no expense for cast or special effects, and there you have a bona-fide Big Summer Blockbuster. It's not cliche, because everyone's doing it. That's what all the Hollywood execs say, when they aren't busy swimming in a vault full of their own money like Scrooge McDuck.
The truth is, I don't really have a problem with the form. When a BSB is done right -- IT WORKS. When it isn't done right -- God help your greedy little souls.
Angels and Demons (the book) was written by Dan "I Secretly Love Jesus" Brown in 2000, three years before the worldwide phenomenon Da Vinci Code. In the novel, Robert Langdon is still a young Harvard symbologist, having never met Sophie or Teabing or Sophie's grandpa or the albino guy or Jean Reno, or any of the other unforgettable cast of characters from Mr. Brown's 2003 magnum opus. In this movie, Angels and Demons has been retconned to occur AFTER the events of the Da Vinci Code.
What this means is: just after Robert Langdon puts forth to the world the idea (Da Vinci Code spoilers) that Jesus Christ had a torrid affair with Mary Magdalene, and actually fathered a child... and that Jesus's bloodline still exists in the world today... Yep, that sounds like a perfect time for the Vatican to come ask him for help in investigating a murder at CERN in Switzerland!
Wait. What?
Unfortunately, this movie doesn't start out making a whole lot of sense. Which is a shame, because the book (Angels and Demons) is probably the best thing Brown has written to date, and it seemed to make sense when I read it. They took out a couple of key scenes -- but kept all the exposition, meaning about ten minutes into the thing you get hit with a solid wall of Plot. I will say this about Tom Hanks: he can deliver exposition like few actors can. The Swiss police captain, the Vatican chief of police, and Langdon's lady-friend Vittoria Vetra, on the other hand, sound like they're reading out of a Chinese textbook. But all of this doesn't matter anyway, because this is a BSB and we haven't even STARTED the real shit yet.
Luckily, things get going pretty quickly after that. Tom Hanks runs around the city of Rome looking concerned, as every hour, another cardinal of the Catholic Church is executed and branded with a symbol of the "Illuminati". Now having seen the movie, I don't want to spoil anything (as the basic story is actually not bad) but can I just say, the instant Ewan McGregor walked on screen as a "camerlengo" (or pope's assistant), I thought, how the hell can he NOT be vitally important to the story? It's Obi-Wan Kenobi for God's sake! They wouldn't cast George Clooney as "Reporter #2". It seems like a huge giveaway to an audience that has never read the book, something they could have easily avoided by casting an actor without Name Recognition.
Okay, I'll probably need a !!!SPOILER ALERT!!! for this next part.
Finally Langdon reaches the end of the Path of Illumination, or whatever the big scavenger hunt was called. This is where things took a turn for the absolute ridiculous. Highlights include a massive explosion of "antimatter" that behaves NOWHERE NEAR how actual antimatter would behave (I know it's nit-picky, but I mean, don't make it your major plot point if you don't understand how it works)... the major villian simply running away, leaving Tom Hanks alone, completely alive, and never appearing on-screen again... Ewan McGregor driving a red-hot iron brand into his own chest... Ewan McGregor parachuting into St. Peter's Square... and of course the religious intrigue of "who's the next Pope??" Wait, was that the whole point of the movie? Finding a pope?
Nahhh, I kid -- honestly, it wasn't that bad. Lots of action, lots of energy, and plus, who needs brain candy every time you see a movie? It could have been worse. Could have been Terminator: Salvation.
I'll try to keep this one brief. If your idea of a perfect movie = popular video game Gears of War, minus what little plot the Gears of War programmers could hack up... well my li'l friend, look no further! Visually it's awesome, and I can't deny that. The desaturated colors really give atmosphere to the post-apocalyptic setting. Or in English: nothing looks bright and happy since the world blew up. The action's good too, if you like a shit-ton of explosions and flying robots with grabby little arms, who pop into scenes with almost no warning. I have to admit, a lot of Terminator: Salvation made me laugh out loud, but I'm not sure I was meant to.
Again, the ending is completely out of control and ridiculous. Spoilers ahead.
Okay, first of all -- A heart transplant?? With what equipment and tools? Who's the surgeon? Do blood types matter in the future? Or can you just rip out a robot's convenient human heart and plug it straight into your bleeding chest cavity? And how was John Connor still alive?! He was impaled by a metal bar THROUGH THE CHEST, and Marcus just picks him up and says "Let's get you out of here"?? Why didn't the robots kill him (or Kyle Reese for that matter) when they had the chance? They had hours and hours to kill Reese!! Why didn't John Connor kill Marcus when HE had the chance? Why was Marcus's story more interesting than any of the major characters, and why was Christian Bale shouting so much?? What kind of parent would name their child "Moon Bloodgood"? Where was Bryce Dallas Howard?? She's the cutest girl in the whole franchise! Oh yeah and the whole "I'll be back" thing? Lame right? Why does everyone think Christian Bale is a great actor when he's only decent? Why didn't that little girl say a single word the whole movie, was she a Terminator too? AND HOW DID JOHN CONNOR SURVIVE A METAL BAR THROUGH THE HEART?!
Hmm. These are all good questions.
And of course the plot followed the basic BSB formula. Hero's journey, single character flaw, love interest, build-up to huge explosive climax, personal sacrifice and a "bittersweet" ending. The only problem was, the new guy Marcus was given this arc... NOT John Connor. Now Sam Worthington did a great job with this character. But why not make the movie about John Connor? That's the Terminator sequel I want to see. Maybe someday they'll get around to making it.
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