"How's your thirst for adventure, Captain?"

Film: The Adventures of Tintin
Year: 2011
Director: Steven Spielberg
Written by: Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish
Starring: Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Daniel Mays, Gad Elmaleh, Toby Jones, Joe Starr, Cary Elwes.
Running time: 107 min.

I was quite sceptical about going to see The Adventures of Tintin since I had no background knowledge on the ginger-haired journalist. Sure, I may have flicked through a couple of Tintin books at my school library as a kid, but I can't say I was ever that interested. So like The Muppets, which I saw less than an hour before this one, I was in for a completely new ride in what is quite an old adventure. And just like The Muppets, I enjoyed it quite a lot. Right from the moment when we were introduced to Tintin (who is voiced/played by Jamie Bell), getting his painting done (and the painting looks just like Hergé's original drawings, which would have been quite cool for many fans) while his cute dog Snowy investigates a wallet-thief, I already felt quite entertained. It was like a warm fuzzy feeling as Spielberg pulled me into his beautiful cinematic arms and didn't let me go until the credits started rolling.

"Caesar is home."

Film: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Year: 2011
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Written by: Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver
Starring: James Franco, Andy Serkis, Frieda Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox, Tom Felton, David Oyelowo, Tyler Labine, Jamie Harris, David Hewlett.
Running time: 105 min.

This year has been the year of the comic book movies, reboots and sequels. That, of course, leaves little room for an original blockbuster, à la Inception, to be released. Of all of the blockbusters, we all pondered over Rise of the Planet of the Apes, dismissing it as an un-necessary reboot/prequel/whatever with an extremely stupid title. Then this movie came out. After Captain America, Thor, X-Men: First Class, Green Lantern etc etc etc, along comes a movie about apes that we never expected much from. Turns out that this movie, even with it's stupid title and absence of a newly buff actor with enough muscles to cover three other people, is truly the best blockbuster to grace the screens in 2011. I admit, I've been missing the good old Christopher Nolan flick to make my summer this year, but Rise of the Planet of the Apes more than capably fills in the gap. It's a true blockbuster, in it's pure and simplest form, that fulfils every dream that one could have of how their form of huge entertainment should be. And it does this without the essential blockbuster staple: epic gunfights.