June was an uninspired and very unproductive month of movie viewing for me.  I only have two movies to offer for review and neither one generates much enthusiasm.  July is already faring much better, but I’ll wait until the end of the month to share my thoughts on those flicks.  For now, I give you the 50/50 Reading Challenge movies for June.

June Movies 

• John Carter (2012) starring Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds.  I must have lived most of my life under a rock because I had never heard of John Carter before I saw this movie.  My cluelessness to the storyline definitely impacted my viewing pleasure.  I spent at least the first half of the movie trying to figure out what the heck was going on and almost all the movie trying to care about it.  A synopsis is simply beyond my capability.  I feel bad about this because I’ve wandered into other sci-fi/action/adventure films with little previous knowledge and enjoyed every minute of it (e.g. Star Wars, Avatar, etc).  I can’t really say why this was such a struggle for me.  There was a ton of action – some of it rather violent.  The animation was superb.  There just wasn’t any real spark or passion of any kind for any reason.  That made the movie fall flat for me.  The two good things that came from this experience were: 1) I spent time with Ace and 2) I’ve developed a curiosity to see if the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs which form the basis for this movie offer anything better than the movie itself. (2.75/5 stars)

• Men In Black III (2012) starring Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Josh Brolin.  The original intention was to see Snow White and the Huntsman.  On a whim, it was decided by the majority of the family (meaning everyone but me) to see the third installment of the MIB series instead.  It was absolutely what I expected it to be – a funny, entertaining movie filled with time travel and numerous disgusting aliens as well as the added benefit of loose ends tied up in a nice bow at the end.  Josh Brolin does a fine job as a young Agent K and there is an interesting little twist at the end that gives this particular storyline an endearing quality that is missing from the other two movies.  It was a fun, solid offering for the Men In Black franchise.  I did enjoy it, but I probably wouldn’t watch it again. (3.75/5 stars)

Yes, June was a pitiful month.  Even so, I’m right on target to complete 50 movies by the end of the year.  Hopefully I can pick up and maintain the pace of four movies a month again.  The boys and I just saw The Amazing Spiderman today which leaves just three movies for the rest of July.  With no vacations, sports, or work responsibilities to get in the way, that should be pretty managable, don’t you think?