By: Nick Matthews (U Mass Amherst)
Follow Nick On Twitter
Every time summer rolls around we get pretty much the same changes to our lifestyles. Margarita consumption grows exponentially, as do trips to the beach. I think the allure comes from both of the aforementioned past-times correlation with wearing less and less clothes. However, in the recently re-made famous yet still slightly misquoted words of Jermaine Stewart, “we don’t have to take our clothes off.” That’s where the summer blockbuster comes in.
You turn on the TV only to hear that same booming voice talking about a world so different than your own. In this world, some kind of injustice runs rampant, and the only person that can save it is Bruce Willis or Shia LaBeouf or Tom Cruise. Also, amazingly, during the process of saving the world he will always find a beautiful woman that definitely doesn’t like him at the beginning but starts to warm up to him and lets him totally hit that in the end. These are the kinds of plot lines that can only be accurately described with run-on sentences. Still, with all the cheesy action, the ridiculous special effects, and the groan-able one-liners, there are a few summer blockbusters that actually delivered enough entertainment to be seen more than once.
I’m going to start with one of the worst yet best action movies of all time, Mission Impossible: 2. Mission Impossible (the first one) was a well thought out political thriller with action elements and likeable characters. Mission Impossible 2 read like a transcript of a Michael Bay wet dream. From Tom Cruise belting lines like “I’ve got 24 hours to get (random invented world-destroying drug) out of your system, I’M NOT GOING TO LOSE YOU” to Tom Cruise jumping off a motorcycle only to collide midair with the bad guy, who also just jumped off a motorcycle, this movie represented the true purpose of a summer blockbuster… make a cubic fudgeload of money (actually a real unit of measurement in Europe). Yes it is cheesy, but it is a really good tasting cheese. The soundtrack, by Hans Zimmer (he does every movie you like’s soundtrack) was awesome. The comic relief, in the form of a jacked black tech guy and an Australian spec-ops pilot, isn’t too overbearing. This film was the perfect amount of stuffty awesomeness… and why? This film was directed by John Woo. John Woo, who also directed another little known ridiculously trite yet awesome action movie known as Face-Off. All of his trademarks were there. This is the director that practically invented dual wielding. Doves fly out of explosions, sunglasses get shot out of rocket-launchers, and the movie laughs its way to a cool 215 million. For some closure, here’s the best four minutes of Mission Impossible 2, and be sure to check out my defense of the modern blockbuster, The A-Team, on Thursday.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltrGfM-8p3c[/youtube]
