Big Movies Coming Out This Summer, 2008

Iron Man May 2

The Marvel hero makes his big screen debut here. The trailers have been awesome, augmented by the inclusion of the Ozzy Osbourne song. Robert Downey Jr. looks the part and has gotten approval from even the most rabid fans. Favreau has a genuine passion for the material so there is no doubt that Stark's going to get a good treatment here. While Sam Jackson will not be appearing as Nick Fury here. Stark will be appearing in Hulk along with Fury thus building the Marvel Universe for the upcoming Avengers movie.

Along with the origin, we will see Iron Man take on Iron Monger, sort of an evil Iron Man (most comic book heroes have an evil doppelganger in some form so it's ok). Even though the two films are months apart, a rivalry between this and The Dark Knight. I personally can't wait for either of them. They both look spectacular.

Speed Racer May 9

Seeing the trailers for this kind of make me shudder. It's very neon-ey and bright. Visually it does look quite stunning, but I never saw the appeal of the cartoon so it stands to reason I won't see the appeal here. The one big flaw this movie makes is having the characters mouth movement match what they're saying (which from what I saw never happened in the cartoon) not to mention the complete lack of repetitive "ha ha's". If you're a fan of the cartoon I'm sure you will enjoy it. At the very least it will bring up fond memories. Alas it doesn't seem to be to my tastes so I'm going to pass on this one.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian May 16

The follow up to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, this movie's taking us back to Narnia several centuries after the end of the last movie. I really enjoyed the first one. It wasn't a massive masterpiece like Lord of the Rings but it was highly enjoyable. Liam Neeson makes a superb Aslan and the actors and actresses did a good job of bringing the Pevensies to life. I hope that this follows the trend of other sequels (such as Spidey 2, X-Men 2, Star Trek 2, Empire) and kicking everything up a notch, not just action (though I'd be ok with that) but character development and story.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull May 22