Holy attack of the summer blockbuster, Batman! It’s summer and that means major summer flicks are coming out. These reviews cover the good and the hideously disfigured ugly. I suppose I should start with the movie that left me feeling horribly depressed at the end, Scooby Doo. I swore up one wall and down the next that I was not stepping foot inside a theater that was showing Scooby Doo and then my sister wants to go see it. Mom agreed to go with her and told me that I had to go with her and keep her company. I grumbled and whined. Mom saw the trailer and thought it might be okay so she told me that I didn’t have to go. YAY!!!! Then the TV spots came out and mom insisted she was not sitting through that tripe alone with Elaine. * grumble* Foiled again. So the dreaded release day comes around and I volunteer to be the big person and take Elaine by myself. I went into this expecting to see an icon of my youth viciously raped by Hollywood, and until the last fifteen minutes of the movie I felt pleasantly surprised that they hadn’t. Then they pull the mask away to reveal a low, petty, cheap shot joke as a bad guy. It was painful and it killed the whole movie. At the point that the bad guy was revealed and started running amuck, the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets trailer took over as the best part of the whole experience. And boy, was the Harry Potter trailer cool! It looks like they’ve given the second book the loyal treatment they gave the first. The best thing about Scooby Doo itself was that it ended very quickly after it impaled itself. The second best thing was the music. The music was really superb, but it couldn’t save the movie. The ending just left me feeling as though I’d been kicked in the gut. The movie had such great potential and then they went and killed it at the very end. I was digging it. I was liking it, and then it just DIED. It was very depressing. Scooby Doo receives a 3 on the Spiff-O-Meter, because it was enjoyable until the writers decided to pander and to take cheap shots. Now that I’ve finished ranting, we can go on to The Bourne Identity. It was your typical spy thriller. It started off with a bang, but failed to hold it’s intensity for the whole movie. Matt Damon proves that yes, indeed he can act. Franka Potente does a GREAT job as Marie, the girl who Bourne hires to drive him from Zurich to Paris, and who he ends up falling for. It’s a very predictable thing. You know in the end he’s gonna end up with the girl. You know they’re not going to successfully kill him. It was a decent movie, nothing ground breaking. I really don’t see how they’re going to make a sequel to this movie. Bourne figures out who he is, the gov’mint guy coming after him gets killed, and he gets back together with Potente’s character. What else is there really? * shakes head * Making a sequel for the sake of making a sequel is just bad ju-ju. The Bourne Identity rates a 6 on the Spiff-O-Meter. Lastly there is Minority Report, which was a very cool movie. The plot has a few holes, but the story is there and is compelling. I hear it’s a complete bastardization of the short-story. So, if you’re a major fan of the short story run away quickly. If you’ve never read the short story, it’s a great movie. It has many different things going on with multiple levels of storytelling. It has sharp twists, and is great eye candy. Tom Cruise does a fabulous job as John Anderton. Spielburg once again creates a fully imagined futuristic setting. I cannot stress enough that it is a good movie. Samantha Morton is heartbreaking as the head Pre-Cog, Agatha. It’s a mystery. It’s an action flick. It’s a human story. It’s a good movie. Go see it now. Minority Report gets a 9 on the Spiff-O-Meter.

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