SUMMER is officially over y’all, and I’m sad to see it go. Okay, so we don’t really experience “summer” in Malaysia (yup, we’re stuck with either freaking hot or downright wet), but that doesn’t mean that we don’t get to enjoy summer perks, movie-wise.

This is the time when Hollywood movie mills churn out by far the most entertaining, amusing and action-packed films ever made in any year.

But to be honest, summer also sees movie producers go overboard on the "entertainment" factor and end up producing mindless movies that make us go “Huh?” in the end.

All that aside, R.AGE is ready to wrap up the illustrious 2009 summer blockbuster season and is looking forward to another great one next year. Here, are some of the movies that we were totally happy to spend our hard-earned money on, and also the ones that easily cured our insomnia.

Up

Absolutely entertaining
It’s official. Up is one of the best (if not the best) movies of 2009. One of the last movies to hit the big screen before the end of summer movie season, Up is totally entertaining, funny, heart-warming and a delight to watch.

If you have watched Up, I’m sure that you too want to blow up as many balloons and tie them to the roof of your house and go on the adventure of your lifetime. Well, I tried doing it myself, but ran out of breath by the 10th balloon.

Another great summer flick is District 9 which showcases human relations – albeit twisted – and its primary characters are a bunch of aliens referred to as ‘prawns’. Yeah, the aliens look yucky in the movie, but it’s the way the humans treat them that makes us want to hurl, doesn’t it?

Aliens and kooky characters seem to be the order last summer, as clearly seen in J.J. Abram’s Star Trek. Love, love, love Zachary Quinto and his pointed ears, and Chris Pine with his smouldering looks. Ahh, Captain Kirk has never looked so good before.

Star Trek

Verdict: Go watch Up, District 9 and Star Trek. You won’t regret your decision!

Action overload
Guns kill people. More guns kill more people. This is the mantra that producers of Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra and Terminator Salvation repeated in their minds as they made these movies, I think.

Machine guns, bombs and blown up robots make up more than half of these movies, which were very entertaining, don’t get me wrong.

But all that action just gets a little tiring by the 45th minute and all I want to do is hold up a sign saying: “Say no to violence ... please”.

Megan Fox in Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen.

The boys got to ogle at the likes of Megan Fox and Sienna Miller in tight, bursting-at-the-seam outfits, while the girls too get their fair share of eye candies in the form of Shia LeBeouf, Josh Duhamel, Channing Tatum and Christian Bale.

Verdict: Movies purely for entertaiment sake. Do not expect intelligent storyline.

Total yikes!
Tom Hanks returns in Angels and Demons as Robert Langdon, the symbologist ... yeah, it’s a real job. Good news is that Hanks has a better hairpiece this time than the one he paraded with in The DaVinci Code.

Okay, I wasn’t a huge fan of that movie when it first came out and I don’t think the second instalment was any better either.

G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra

Tom looks constipated throughout the movie and seriously, what other mystery can he unravel after the major one he revealed in the first film? It’s all hype!

Another movie that was promoted beyond reason was Matthew McConaughey’s Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past. Yeah, silly of me to expect an earth-shattering performance from the laidback, I-rather-go-surfing-than-be-in-this-movie actor.

The film has an interesting premise (though it isn’t original) but still, Matthew and gang could’ve put in more effort to make it a tad more interesting.

Seriously, why anyone would pay such boring actors (Jennifer Garner included) to act totally beats me!

Also, watching Drag Me To Hell got me wishing that somebody would actually come and drag me off my seat at the cinema, away from the horrific show that was playing on the screen.

Verdict: Why-lah they waste money on movies like these? Buang karan je.

Teen factor
I was waiting to watch Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince with bated breath. Okay, maybe not, but I was really looking forward to watching the movie. As a total fan of the books, I was totally disappointed with the way the movie turned out.

It was nothing like the book (which some say is the most boring of the series), and Rupert Grint doesn’t age well, does he? The movie was filled with raging, hormonal teens and I seriously wished that Lord Voldemort would just put an Imperius curse on all of them.

Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past

Anyway, Zac Efron is a total sweetheart in 17 Again. He plays a 30-something-year-old man stuck in a teenager’s body and manages to pull it off pretty well. Does that mean he’s going to be a real cute 30-something-er in real life?

I love how simple and clean the movie is – no messy plot or impressive dialogue – just an old man in a young man’s body, trying to get back to his old self. Simple, right? And it’s totally cute too. Too cute, in fact.

Verdict: If you’re a teenager, you’ll love these movies. If you’re older, what the heck, you might like them as well.