I firmly believe that a movie can be awesome without being good.
I’m not speaking of “awesome” in the literal sense, like you would use to describe watching Atlantis rise to the surface of the ocean, water streaming from its obsidian towers. But “awesome” like we used it as kids in the ’80s, meaning “So cool, the word ‘cool’ cannot contain its pure essence.” It transcends cool. It is awesome. But it’s not necessarily good.
The move Transformers is a great example. I really enjoyed the movie. It was awesome. But it was not good. Ditto for Terminator Salvation; I was disappointed that it wasn’t good, but would have been even more disappointed had it not been awesome.
This weekend I caught two movies that were both awesome and good — though to be honest, more awesome than good. I’m speaking of The A-Team and Iron Man 2, arguably the two best action movies of the summer. With each scene, I felt like the director was grinning, leaning over to the audience and saying, “Want to see something really cool? Watch this!”
So if you like that sort of thing, I recommend catching these two on the big screen while you still can. (IM2 is on its way out any day now.) They are awesome — and theater is air-conditioned.
