May Movie Predictions

May kicks off Summer Blockbuster Season with some of this year’s biggest tentpole offerings including the return of Iron Man, Carrie Bradshaw and Robin Hood minus the tights.

Here are my predictions for which films will rock and which will suck so you don’t go wastin’ your $15 bucks.

See It:

May 7-Iron Man 2 (Paramount)

You know him, you love him, and this time he’s rocking out to the sounds of AC/DC. Robert Downey Jr. is back as everyone’s favorite billionaire inventor turned superhero, Iron Man. Gwyneth Paltrow also returns as Pepper Potts, while Don Cheadle steps into Terrence Howard’s role after some well-publicized bad blood. Filling in the role of resident baddie is Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko/Whiplash who’s out to destroy Iron Man. That is, if the US military doesn’t get to him first. It’s not quite as rollicking as the first one, but whenever you can spend two hours in the dark with RDJ, it’s a good time.

May 21-Shrek Forever After (Dreamworks Animation)

The fourth Shrek installment, this time in 3D, finds Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers) sick of domestic life with Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and their kids. After asking bamboozling Rumpelstiltskin to help him get back to feeling like a real ogre again, he finds himself in an alternate version of Far Far Away where Rumpelstiltskin is king, ogres are hunted, and he and Fiona have never met. All alone once again, he sets out to restore his world.

May 27-Sex and the City 2 (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Bust out your Manolos, Carrie Bradshaw is back. And, this time, so is Aidan! That’s right, Sex fans, John Corbett’s beloved character returns in this sequel to the hugely successful 2008 film adaptation of the HBO show starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon. This time the ladies leave Manhattan (gasp) and head to Abu Dhabi for some R & R. Although the first film was so terrible, I call it “The Godfather III for Women,” redemption is just a cosmo sip away.

May 28-Micmacs (Sony Pictures Classics)

From the director of Amelie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, comes another fantastical, breathtaking jaunt. Bazil (Dany Boon) is the son of a bomb disposal expert who died on a job in Morocco. Years later, after he’s struck by a stray bullet which remains lodged in his head, him assembles a motley crew to exact revenge on the two weapons manufacturers who made the bullet that almost killed him. No one does magical realism like Jeunet.

See It…If Everything Else is Sold Out:

May 21-MacGruber (Rogue Pictures)

It’s not often a Saturday Night Live sketch successfully survives the trip from small to big screen. With the exception of The Blues Brothers and Wayne’s World, most attempts have been disastrous (Superstar, A Night at the Roxbury, It’s Pat: The Movie). With any luck, Macgruber will join the leagues of the former, rather than the later. First time director Jorma Taccone has been very successful with SNL Digital Shorts, but will that translate to this rip off of MacGyver starring Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Val Kilmer and Ryan Philippe?

Be Warned:

May 14-Robin Hood (Universal Pictures)

Sherwood Forest just got a little grittier. Don’t expect any merry men in tights or Bryan Adams power ballads now that Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe have arrived in Nottingham. Robin Hood gets the Gladiator treatment in this retelling of the expert archer (Crowe) toward the end of the 12th century who assembles a gang of mercenaries to rise up against a tyrannical sheriff (Matthew Macfadyen) and the ruling class. The rumblings I hear around town say it’s skip-able at best, laughable at worst.