Double Feature

June 2007 - Welcome to the Summer of the Sequel. Spider-Man and Jack Sparrow are back on the big screen. Harry Potter plans to work his magic again. Bruce Willis will Die Hard for a fourth time. And, 13 promises luck for George Clooney and his merry men. But, based on the past two years, these blockbusters-to-be have some tough acts to follow.

In 2006, millions of us went to see X-Men: The Last Stand. The mutants have come a long way, baby, since we first met the X-Men. But, while some mutants are comfortable with their powers, others are not. For them, there's a cure, the key to which is a boy who's locked in a lab on Alcatraz Island.

Magneto (Ian McKellan) thinks this cure is a bad idea, and he gathers an army of mutants to take Alcatraz and get the boy. Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Storm (Halle Berry) and a band of mutants loyal to Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) set out to stop them. At the center of it all is Phoenix (Famke Janssen), the most powerful mutant ever.

Overall review: Liked it. The plot of this PG-13 film has lots of holes. But, there's plenty of action, good special effects, a little bit of humor, and the good guys win. What more do you want from a comic book movie? You may want to watch or re-watch the first two X-Men movies before seeing this one. But, it's not totally necessary.

In the summer of 2005, we saw stars, as in Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith. This PG-13 epic answers the question: How did Darth Vader get to be Darth Vader? The answer: He did it all for love.

When the movie opens, Jedi knights Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) are on a mission to rescue Chancellor Palpatine from the clutches of a Sith lord. In doing so, Anakin executes the Sith lord (at the behest of Palpatine) even though he knows it's not the Jedi thing to do.

They return Palpatine to wherever he's supposed to be, and Anakin reunites with his pregnant wife, Senator Padme (Natalie Portman). Anakin freaks out when he has a premonition that Padme will die during childbirth.

In his anguish, Anakin falls further under Palpatine's spell. He figures out that Palpatine is the biggest, baddest Sith of all. But, when Palpatine promises to help Anakin save Padme, Anakin gives himself over to the dark side. The newly dubbed Darth Vader ends up on a volcanic planet, where he has a showdown with Obi-Wan. Things do not end well for Vader.

Overall Review: Liked it. The movie is a tragedy in the sense that Anakin's love for Padme is the very thing that drove him to the dark side. Forget good acting. This film is all about plot and action sequences. And that's plenty. After being very disappointed with Episode I and skipping Episode II, I liked Episode III a lot more than I thought I would.