Movies I Saw in Theatres Part 2: 2000-2009

 Hey everyone! Happy Friday! We made it through another week. Today I'm going to be talking about all the movies that I saw in theatres from the year 2000 until 2009. Looking at the posters in the folder for this post, I have a total of 21 movies that I saw in the 2000s. So not a whole ton, but ten more than I saw in the '90s. So let's get into it by teleporting back to the summer of 2000 when I was about to go into grade 8.

The only movie I saw in the year 2000 was Titan A.E. Back in the year 2000 I still wasn't going to see movies the way I would in the late 2000s and into the 2010s. I was going to turn 14 that December, and my parents couldn't afford to take my siblings and I to the movies all the time so we were still seeing more movies at home on VHS than we were at the theatre. I loved Titan A.E. though. It was very unique compared to the animated movies I'd watched in the '90s. It was the period where Science Fiction was starting to become huge again thanks to Star Wars being back in theatres with the prequel trilogy and EVERYONE seemed to want to do a Sci-Fi animated movie. Fox had Titan A.E. while Disney had Atlantis: The Lost Empire (a great movie) and Treasure Planet (not as good, but still enjoyable) and Warner Bros. had The Iron Giant the previous summer. 

I don't remember who I went to see the movie with. I think my mom took my siblings and I, but that was also my second summer going to Teens First Summer Camp and I think we may have gone to see it that week on one of our outing days. I honestly don't remember. I just remember going to see it on the big screen and getting the poster for the comic book prequel to the movie, which you can see the cover of above.

The next movie I saw was Digimon: The Movie. I said that Titan A.E. was the only movie that I saw in theatres in 2000, but now that I'm thinking of it, as well as looking up the home video release date for Digimon: The Movie, I think I actually saw it in 2000 as well. It came out in October of 2000, and it was released on home video on February 6th, 2001, four months after it had debuted in theatres. So I went to see it with my mentor, Ahmed, from the Teens First Mentorship Program. This was actually our last outing together. So we went to see this and I loved it. I'm just going to come right out and say it, but I like Digimon better than I like Pokemon. There...I said it. I know, blasphemy, but the thing is, I watched Digimon longer than I watched Pokemon because there was an actual storyline in Digimon and it was different every season. But, Pokemon was the same thing every episode. Ash would catch a Pokemon, he'd fight a trainer, Team Rocket would try to steal Pikachu, and fail miserably by the end of the episode because they were inept morons who never actually trained their Pokemon. 

Anyway, I loved that I got to see Digimon: The Movie in theatres. Though that Angela Anaconda short was annoying. I didn't mind it so much in theatres, but...then they put it on the VHS release AND then the DVD release as part of the movie, rather than as a bonus feature, and yeah, it sucks. I later owned Digimon: The Movie on VHS, and I still own it on VHS today. Though the copy I have today is one I picked up at Chumleigh's in Kingston rather than the original that I got twenty-one years ago. 

This next movie is an experience like no other. So my parents had a friend who took the entire family to see Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for you Americans) in theatres. I'm not a big Harry Potter fan. I enjoy the books and I love the movies, but I haven't been sorted into a house, I've never taken the quizzes, I don't go on Pottermore, and I was never on any of the Harry Potter message boards or written Harry Potter fan fiction. I hadn't read any of the books by the time this movie came out. My sister had read the first four books, but I hadn't. I knew about Harry Potter as the first four books had appeared in my Scholastic Book Order catalogues in grades 6 through 8. It wasn't really my thing. This was also the first movie I saw in theatres, besides Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace that had breathtaking CG effects. Yes, I know, they don't hold up very well now, 20 years later, but at the time they were groundbreaking.

The first movie I saw in the summer of 2002 was Mr. Deeds starring Adam Sandler, and Winona Ryder. My siblings and I were up at the cottage that summer, and my grandmother took me to see the movie in a nearby town. I'd never seen an Adam Sandler movie before and while I don't really like Adam Sandler as an actor, I've seen three movies of his. This is the only one I saw in theatres. I enjoyed it. I'd later end up seeing Big Daddy and Eight Crazy Nights on TV in like 2004 or 2005. Mr. Deeds is still my favourite Adam Sandler movie though. It was also my first time seeing Conchata Ferrell, who played Berta on Two and a Half Men, Peter Gallagher, who played Sandy Cohen on The O.C., and John Turturro, who played Agent Simmons in the all of the Transformers movies except for Age of Extinction.

The next movie I saw was the first movie I ever saw with a friend, the first date I ever went on with someone I had a crush on, and it was actually a substitute for another movie I had wanted to see. So earlier in the year my friends and I had planned to go see Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones after the school year was over as a treat for getting through the year. My friend Kelly and I had this planned for months. But I wasn't able to go because of a family thing, and my friend Keira couldn't go because she had to work. She and I decided we would just go see it together when we had the chance. However, it was August by the time we had a chance to go see the movie, and, well, by that time Attack of the Clones wasn't playing in theatres anymore. And in August, other than The Master of Disguise, which Keira had already seen, nothing was out that either of us really wanted to see. So we picked Austin Powers in Goldmember because, even though I had never seen the previous Austin Powers movies, though that would change at the beginning of 2003, I was interested in watching it because it meant I could spend time with Keira. 

I remember it well because they played the teaser trailer for Scooby-Doo, which had come out earlier that year, in June. And in the trailer you go through this empty mansion, and once you get to the library, you see a figure in shadow staring out the window. We all thought it was a trailer for a new Batman movie (we were three years away from Batman Begins at this point), then the shadow moved and it was revealed to be Scooby-Doo. I knew the movie had come out because I'd seen the TV spots. But for some reason, even though the movie was already out, the theatre that Keira and I went to was still playing the old teaser trailer from earlier in the year, it was really weird. Anyway we both enjoyed Austin Powers in Goldmember and we ended up quoting the movie in our Commtech  (Communications Technology) class at school for a week, or more. 

The final movie I saw in theatres in 2002 was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Like the year before with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, my parents's friend took us to see it. The movie itself still has the innocence that Chris Columbus brought to the first movie, but it is a slightly darker movie than the first one. Same as how the book is slightly darker than the first one is. I'll talk about this more when I get around to reviewing the Harry Potter series, both the books and the movies.

The first movie that I saw in theatres in 2003 was actually a movie from 2002. My high school started a semestered system in the 2002-2003 school year, and the semesters were set up so the semester ended and we had exams in January instead of before the Christmas holidays, which is kind of stupid in a way because we still had assignments hanging over our heads and prepwork for the exams, but that's neither here nor there. So Keira, Kelly, Kelly's boyfriend at the time, and I decided to go see The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers on the weekend before we went back to school after our exams. I think we started planning it out as soon as we got back to school after the holidays. But, once again, our plans didn't go the way we'd intended them to.

Keira wasn't able to make it because she had to work or something came up at the last minute, and then Kelly and her boyfriend broke up so he was out and it ended up just being Kelly and I. Which was fine because I liked Kelly and it was nice getting to spend some time with her alone since we didn't get to do that a whole lot at school and I wasn't exactly having people over after school or on weekends, aside from Garrett, since he was the only friend I had who lived in biking distance of my house and didn't require a ride from a parent like the rest of my friends did. My grandfather drove us into the city to the usual theatre that I'd been going to since I went to see Titanic in 1998. We had a good time.

After the movie Grandpa picked us up again so we could take Kelly home. Now my grandfather loved to tease me about girls. Kelly and Keira in particular, since Kelly was one of my best friends, and Keira, well, Keira and I had a mutual thing for each other and everybody knew it. That evening though he'd behaved himself while Kelly was in the car. As we got close to Kelly's house, she turned around and asked me why I'd had a crush on her the year before. Yes, I'd asked Kelly out midway through my first year of high school, before things between Keira and I changed, she'd said no, so we didn't date. She asked this in front of my grandfather, who was driving. I answered to the best of my ability and as soon as Kelly was out of the car, my grandfather started teasing me, which I took without any problems. See, the movies I saw in the 2000s are the ones with the best stories.

That summer my parents took my siblings and I to see Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl at the Drive-In. It had been ten years since they'd taken us to see Jurassic Park at the Drive-In and Drive-Ins had disappeared for the most part by 2003. In fact there was only one near our place and it was still a good 40 minute drive away. And they only played new movies that were near the end of their theatrical run. A friend of my sister's joined us. I remember because we had a station wagon at the time and I had to sit in the trunk facing backwards. It was a great movie and we eventually got it on VHS. That was the last movie I saw in 2003 because I had a very important operation that ended up changing my life forever and I spent the rest of September and October recovering from it while trying to keep up with my schoolwork. 

The only movie I saw in theatres in 2004 was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Except it wasn't a November/December release, it was a summer release. So my parents took my siblings and I, or maybe it was just my sister and I, to see it as a treat for getting decent marks (exceptional marks in the case of my siblings) on our report cards at the end of the school year. 

Herbie: Fully Loaded is the first of two movies I saw in theatres in 2005. My dad is a huge Herbie the Love Bug fan. He has all sorts of toys and models, as well as all of the movies, including Fully Loaded, on DVD. So when Fully Loaded came out, it came out just after Father's Day, so I took my dad to see it in theatres one weekday morning. I had finished exams, so school was done for me for the summer, my sister had also finished exams, and my brother was still in middle school, so his school year wasn't over yet. My dad had a day off in the middle of the week, so we went in the morning. 

The second movie I saw in theatres in 2005 was the Wes Craven psychological thriller, Red Eye, starring Cillian Murphy and Rachel McAdams. It's the first time I'd ever seen them in anything as I hadn't seen Batman Begins yet, and wouldn't until it came out on DVD later in the year. I got tickets for the movie because the owner of a local hobby store had them and asked me if I wanted them since he couldn't use them. I accepted being that I was 18, going on 19 at that point. I invited my best friend Brad, and our friend, Lagina to come with me. They agreed and it was my first experience going to the movies with a group that wasn't my family or part of an organized group like Teens First. This was the last movie I saw in theatres in 2005 as we ended up watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on DVD over the Christmas holidays.

I didn't see any movies in theatres in 2006. But in 2007 I saw two. The first was Transformers, directed by Michael Bay and written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. And I didn't see it with family or even with Brad. Instead I saw it with my old classmate, Leslie, who I'd known since I started at Greely Elementary School in 1994, and her boyfriend Bryan, who had dated a friend of mine a few years earlier. I think it's because Leslie and Bryan were going to see it anyway and we were making plans to get together since I hadn't seen Leslie since we left Metcalfe Public School in June of 2001 and I hadn't seen Bryan since he and my friend broke up. At this point, I was 20 years old, had been out of high school for a year, and was about to start college in the fall. So this was a great chance for me to get to see them AND see the movie. 

The next movie that I saw in theatres in 2007, which also happens to be the last one I saw in theatres in 2007, was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. My sister, her best friend, and I went to see it together as a last chance thing since I was starting college in the fall and wouldn't have as much time to go to the movies. It's also the last Harry Potter movie that I got to see in theatres, and the rest I only got to see on DVD. I enjoyed this one, but Professor Umbridge really gets to me because she's so nasty and is so pleasant about it.

The first movie that I saw in theatres in 2008 was called The Forbidden Kingdom, starring Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Michael Angarano (Will Powers in Sky High). I'm not a fan of Asian Cinema, having never seen Jet Li or Jackie Chan in any movie before this or since this, so this wouldn't normally have been my first choice. I don't even remember how Brad and I decided to even go see this movie in the first place. I think Brad saw the trailer online or I saw it on TV (YouTube was just starting to be a thing at this point) and we just decided to go. I liked it, but I haven't seen it since.

The next movie Brad and I saw together was The Dark Knight, directed by Christopher Nolan and stars Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Heath Ledger as the Joker. 2008 was a big year for superhero and comic book movies. Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk debuted to launch the Marvel Cinematic Universe and The Dark Knight became the highest grossing movie of 2008 and the fourth highest grossing movie at the time of it's release. I'm not a big fan of Christopher Nolan. The Dark Knight Trilogy was great, but I found The Dark Knight to be a little too brutal for my tastes, and the movie felt less focused on Batman and more focused on the Joker and Harvey Dent/Two-Face. It's still a fantastic movie, but it's not my favourite movie.

The final movie that I saw in theatres in 2008 was Star Wars: The Clone Wars, directed by Dave Filoni. This movie was a huge surprise for many Star Wars fans because Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was supposed to be the last Star Wars movie to be released, but then Lucasfilm announced this movie as a lead-in to the upcoming animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. There had been a two season series of short episodes that ran in between shows and ran from 2003 to 2005 called Star Wars: Clone Wars, but The Clone Wars was the first full length Star Wars TV show since Droids and Ewoks ended in 1986. And basically, The Clone Wars revitalized Star Wars and prepared it for the journey it would find itself on when Disney bought Lucasfilm from George Lucas in 2012. 

Now we come to the end of the 2000s and in 2009 I saw four movies in theatres. The first one came out in late 2008 and it grabbed the world by storm. I couldn't watch TV without seeing a commercial for it. And people talked about it everywhere. Normally, it wouldn't've been a movie I'd have seen. However, I was taking a film studies course in my third semester in the General Arts and Sciences program in college. My buddy Andrew and I went to see this movie, because he was taking the same course and our professor recommended it to us for an assignment. I've never owned it on DVD or Blu-ray and I haven't seen it since that theatrical viewing experience that Andrew and I had. These days nobody talks about it anymore and I don't think anyone really remembers it. 

The next movie I went to see was X-Men Origins: Wolverine and this time I went with Brad. It's not a good movie and Brad kept pointing out all the changes made to Wolverine's origins and how badly Deadpool was handled in the movie. Yes my friends, Ryan Reynolds played Deadpool in the first Wolverine solo movie. There's a reason why he spent the first four or five years of the 2010s trying to get Deadpool made, and that reason is this movie. I actually didn't care that much about the changes made to Wolverine's origin story, mainly because I haven't read the comics containing his origins. Plus it seemed very in line with the little snippets we'd been shown in X2: X-Men United. So the movie didn't bother me that much. I didn't like it, but it wasn't bad. 

The next movie I saw was Star Trek directed by JJ Abrams and written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. This was the first, and only, Star Trek movie I saw in theatres with my family. It was our last big hurrah as a family with my brother starting university and my sister going back to university in Kingston. It's also the first Star Trek movie I'd ever seen in theatres as growing up I only saw them on VHS or VHS and DVD in the case of Star Trek Nemesis. I was a little apprehensive about seeing this movie because I'd already seen some negativity towards it online. But I enjoyed it as did the rest of my family.

The next movie I saw in theatres in 2009 was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen directed by Michael Bay and also written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. The 2007 movie was the first time I'd seen anything Transformers, aside from episodes of Beast Wars/Beast Machines. Reruns of the original animated series didn't air in my area when I was a kid, though the G2 toys came out and I saw the commercials for those. It just wasn't something I was interested in. But I enjoyed this movie AND I enjoyed the first movie. I don't remember who I went with to see this movie. I think it was just Brad and I that went, but we may have come with a friend of mine from college like Andrew or Steve. It was probably Andrew. I don't remember though, it's been almost 13 years since I went to see it in theatres.

The final movie that I saw in 2009 was G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Like Transformers, G.I. Joe was a show and toyline that I'd heard about, but never watched or played with. I mean it was violent and they were war toys, not something my parents wanted me to have. Plus it wasn't something I was even all that interested in. I wasn't exactly asking for G.I. Joe toys for my birthday and Christmas when I was a kid. Brad was interested in seeing this movie though, so we went with Kelly. I actually went in my wheelchair and Kelly sat between Brad and I in case I needed anything while the movie was on.

The 2000s was an interesting time for movies with CG being used for many of the effects that had previously been done practically, and films being shot digitally rather than on film. You could have movies like The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and the Star Wars prequel trilogies. Even though I only saw 21 movies in those ten years, I got to see this transformation of cinema. And while I still saw more movies on VHS and DVD than I did in theatres, being in high school and college in this decade afforded me opportunities to see movies with friends for the first time in my life, and those are truly some of my absolutely favourite memories of all time. Even if some of them got a little...silly and ridiculous.

That's all I've got for you tonight. I'll be back tomorrow for my review of The Land Before Time, which I will be watching on VHS as soon as I've posted this blog post. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care!