While sitting through a painful viewing of the cinematic excellence known as "Smurfs 2", I began to advance my theory about the people who make summer movies for kids. These people hate their parents and have made it their life's work to torture other parents.
This theory first appeared in my head as I sat through the minion-filled abortion that was "Despicable Me 2" with my enthusiastic 4th grader and my toddler. It was further advanced while attempting a drive-thru viewing of "Epic", the film that not even Beyonce's voice, could save. After an afternoon of watching little blue-skinned cliches dance across the screen, I'm convinced my theory is 100% correct.
Don't get me wrong, I don't hate animation or all children's films. "Wreck It Ralph" was a great movie with a good plot and terrific characters. I liked "Tangled" even though the whole princess thing has never found a place in my heart, and I'm a really big fan of the "Monsters, Inc." and "Toy Story" franchises. I just find that, much like grown up movies coming out of Hollywood, most of the summer releases lack substance.
In a way, the thing that pisses me off the most is that the people who make summer movies for kids know they don't have to try that hard. Summer is a long stretch of time, and the options of what can be done with kids might seem vast at first, particularly in Southern California, but after awhile, you want to do something different, that doesn't involve a potential 3rd degree sunburn. Movies are always a fun idea, but the crap they put out in the summer just ruins the whole experience, particularly if you happen to be a fan of animation.
I love animation. I'm one of those freaky people who have been watching cartoons since I was three years old, and never stopped. On any given late night, my television watching includes a selection of what my husband refers to with disgust as "your fucking weird cartoons", such as something from Adult Swim along with reruns of "South Park" or "Family Guy". I nearly came unglued when "Metalocalypse" appeared on t.v., because it was heavy metal plus cartoons plus dark humor plus a whole lot of wrong. What could be more perfect than that!
The sad thing is that the summer isn't over. I still have to stomach "Planes", which is clearly a ripoff of "Cars", and "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2". The only positive thing about these crappy summer kid movies is that they only last about an hour and 15 minutes, so by the time I've made it through a tub of glorious movie theater popcorn that I shouldn't be eating, I only have to sit through 30 minutes of lame jokes before I can go back to the minivan and pretend I enjoyed the experience just as much as my kids.
I guess the only thing that could be worse are the inevitable 'tween movies that are sure to come as my daughter nears her 10th birthday. She has already put me on notice that the One Direction movie is coming out soon. I know I'm going to be the one stuck watching it with her wishing the whole time that I could fast forward through the next four years of movies, and go straight to the teenage horror film obsession, but I know that will be a big cheat, too, because by the time her movie tastes improve, she won't want her mom to go with her.
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