After several weekends in one theater or another, including the last two, I think there may be a break in our movie-going activity until later in June…so this might be a good time to catch up. I shared my thoughts on some of the movies I saw in May a couple of weeks ago – welcome to “Springtime Movies II: Electric Boogaloo”!

(all poster images found on MoviePoster.com; review links are to EW.com)

Angels & Demons

Here’s where I admit that I didn’t really hate The Da Vinci Code – but I thought its precursor, Angels and Demons, was better, so I was more interested in seeing how that one made the transition from book to movie. My conclusion: as a novelist, Dan Brown can write a decent movie. Since most of my issues with both novels centered around the quality of the writing itself, it helped to have that out of the way and just be able to pay attention to the story. Sometimes so-so books turn into good films.

The central plot of Angels and Demons is somewhat more plausible than that of The Da Vinci Code, mainly because it doesn’t depend on a long-lived, deep-rooted conspiracy theory. It’s a fast-moving, suspenseful story involving the disruption of the election of a new Pope. The four most likely candidates have all been kidnapped, and the perpetrator has promised to execute each of them publicly, one at a time – and then to blow up the Vatican. The clues point to a long-dormant secret society, and there’s only one person who can decipher them – Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon. He has to work fast, though – all of the action in the film happens within one day.

There’s some question of whether the profession of “symbologist” actually exists. To me, Langdon looks like a guy who’s found a very good, very specialized use for an art-history degree. He’s also quite the skeptic, and in the theme of science-vs.-religion conflict that underpins the story, it’s not hard to determine which side he’s on. Tom Hanks’ portrayal makes Langdon a more fully-realized character than the writing does, and the twists and suspense in the story itself make this a riveting movie. It’s something rather unusual – a summer thriller with a brain.

I am an unabashed fan of Pixar Animation. Ratatouille was the first movie I ever reviewed on this blog, and while I didn’t love last year’s WALL-E, I respected it as an artistic achievement. The Incredibles lives up to its title, and although it’s considered one of the studio’s “lesser” works, my road-trip-loving soul remains crazy about Cars. With its latest release, Pixar has a ten-for-ten winning streak going, and Up may be headed for the top of my Pixar-favorites list.

The things that this studio can do with computer animation continue to advance and amaze, but what really makes this work are the basics for any movie – a solid story, convincing characters, and a great script.

Carl and Ellie met as children who dreamed of adventure, but throughout their long and happy marriage, they never did make it down to South America. As the neighborhood around their house changes, Carl eventually faces losing his home to developers – until he takes things into his own hands by converting the house into a balloon-powered airship and sets off for Paradise Falls. He is surprised to find he has a passenger, though – a young Wilderness Explorer named Russell, working on earning his “assisting the elderly” merit badge. Their unlikely mode of transportation doesn’t quite get them as far as Carl needs to go, so he and Russell devise a way to walk the house to the Falls. On the way there, they encounter an exotic bird, talking dogs, and Carl’s childhood hero, explorer Charles Muntz, who has been living on his dirigible for decades, with his talking dogs, in search of the exotic bird.

This plot summary only captures the basics of Up. It’s a film with both honest hilarity (as opposed to cheap jokes) and genuine feeling, beautiful to look at and well-matched to its soundtrack. The wordless montage, early in the film, of Carl and Ellie’s life together is very moving; the flight and rescue scenes are suspenseful; and the laughs are plentiful. The talking dogs even make sense, in context; Muntz has invented “translator” collars for them. The dogs’ behaviors and mannerisms are just right, by the way – the animators who worked on them must have plenty of experience observing (and probably living with) canine critters. My husband and I saw Up with two nine-year-olds (my stepson and a friend) and a fourteen-year-old (my stepdaughter), and the entire group of “kids of all ages” loved it.

As of this past Sunday, Up might just be my “if you see only one movie this summer” recommendation. One day earlier, I probably would have said Star Trek, which I saw for the second time this weekend – and still enjoyed just as much. Both of them are worth seeing more than once.

Have you seen any good – or not-so-good – movies lately?

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