This one should have been obvious. Paul Feig’s reboot of the classic series (can you call two movies a series?) was maligned from the moment it was announced. Many cries of misogynist hatred and racism pervaded the new production for a movie that is actually really fun. No one was going to be happy with a reboot of GHOSTBUSTERS that didn’t feature the original cast in their iconic roles, but that is not how Hollywood works. So, with the film we got, there is so much potential for future films that could do a lot of great things with the world built here. This is one of the best movies of the summer and one of the most enjoyable big budget comedies in a long time.
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There was so much uproar regarding the Michael Bay produced reboot of the pubescent enhanced martial arts-skilled amphibians that fans didn’t give the original movie a chance despite it being a fun adventure. With the sequel, the NINJA TURTLES embraced the full-on insanity that made the animated TMNT so good. We get Krang, the Ooze, Bepop and Rocksteady, and Casey Jones. There will never be a TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES film that critics will like but audiences responded to this movie. The problem was no one went to see it.
Fans of the 1996 science fiction blockbuster waited two decades for the story to be continued. After that long of a wait, there was little chance of everyone being satisfied with the finished product. Still, RESURGENCE does an admirable job of paying homage to the first film while introducing a young cast of newcomers who can usher in a new franchise. Yeah, this repeats a lot of the same material, but Roland Emmerich does a damn fine job with a relatively limited budget in delivering some epic special effects and one hell of a cliffhanger.
Duncan Jones’ adaptation of the popular franchise became another bomb in a long line of failures inspired by video games. But, when you set your expectations aside and watch this fantasy epic, you find that there is a lot of potential for a slew of movies set in this fictional universe. The CGI is impressive and Jones’ direction pulls together a somewhat cheesy and melodramatic adventure into a sweeping big screen journey that may be the best fantasy since LORD OF THE RINGS. This is no Best Picture contender but it is certainly a fun ride.
Marvel has gotten such a head start over DC’s big screen universe that the expectations were virtually impossible to meet. DC has always been the darker comic book universe and Zack Snyder’s big screen interpretations have been just as brooding. The box office numbers show more people wanted to see this movie than the internet commentary has shown. BATMAN V SUPERMAN is a great introduction to DC’s squadron of elite heroes even if it does have some logical holes. But, if you can’t just enjoy a movie as a movie, you need to shut up and calm down.
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There have been a lot of movies released this year that just didn’t seem to click with audiences or critics for some unknown reason. Some have chalked it up to people paying too much attention to Rotten Tomatoes scores while others just didn’t succeed with their marketing campaigns. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES never really seemed to get the attention of audiences who couldn’t tell if it was a joke or a well executed film. HIGH-RISE was all over the indie circuit and despite Tom Hiddleston in the lead, the Kubrickian drama faded quickly. STAR TREK BEYOND was meant to be the big 50th anniversary celebration of the classic franchise but it just didn’t click despite deserving to be the biggest film of the summer. NERVE was just one of those under the radar films that could have become a word of mouth hit but just went nowhere.