Summer Movie Report Card, Pre-DN

Iron Man.
Director Jon Favreau and Leading Man Robert Downey have done the seemingly impossible: made more money than Indiana Jones. And in the process, they have offered a glimpse of Generation 2.0 of comic book movies: more mature, funny and relevant. What a good idea to have so many scenes take place in the middle east, dealing with real-life threats like terrorist and WMD's, even if only obliquely. This movie hit so many marks, but with lackluster special effects and a brutal, might-as-well have two robots fighting each other finale, plenty of room is left for improvement in Iron Man 2. 6.9

Wall E.
Pros: An apocalyptic kids movie; a homage to Golden Age Hollywood; the summer's most taciturn hero.
Cons: shtick walks a thin line between Charlie Chaplin and Darkwing Duck; feel-good bioler-plate pervades more than just the climax. 6.0

Wanted
Neither Angelina Jolie nor James McAvoy can save this clunky amalgam of genre action, sloppy storytelling and inexplicable Morgan Freeman villainy. For all the loud music, swooshing cameras and wham-bam cuts, Kazakh-director Timur Bekmambetov's American debut is stolid and dull. Save your money. Stay home and watch Monk. 2.1

HellBoy II
There's a scene where Hellboy is taking a shower, steam clouding out his nether-regions, rosary beads tied around the same hand that clutches a can of Tecate. With creatures big and small, Guillermo del Toro builds a comic book world unlike that of Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne, one where superhero's aren't made by inherited fortunes and just-beyond-the-pale trinkets, but by gods and monsters. There are at least four legitimate action scenes here that range from squeamish to frightening to surprising, so we can forgive some of the less interesting filler, and hope for part III. 6.4