Summer Movies: The Year of Disappointment
1. Finding Dory $479.7 million
2. Captain America: Civil War $407.8 million
3. The Secret Life of Pets $353.7 million
4. Suicide Squad $284.1 million
5. X-Men: Apocalypse $155.4 million
6. Star Trek Beyond $151.1 million
7. Jason Bourne $149.7 million
8. Central Intelligence $127.4 million
9. The Legend of Tarzan $125.9 million
10. Ghostbusters $125 million
Those are the top movies for this years summer movie season and how much money they made (by the last week of august). Some pretty surprising things in this list, mainly that Finding Dory beat out Civil War and that Secret Life of Pets made it all the way to the number three spot, beating out Suicide Squad and X-Men, two big comic book movies this summer and even Star Trek in it's 50th anniversary year. I'm going to do short summaries of all the top 10 movies and how I felt about them. Overall, I found this year to be lacking in originality and full of many disappointing movies that I was very excited for. There were other movies this year that might be worth talking about as well like THE BFG from Steven Spielberg, who used to be the king of summer movies, but THE BFG sort of fell off the map quickly. Horror movies did well this year, LIGHTS OUT, DON'T BREATH and CONJURING 2 all did great and people seemed to really like them. Then there's the big sequels that didn't even make it to the top 10 like NINJA TURTLES 2 and INDEPENDENCE DAY 2, who seemed to be forgotten pretty fast. Then there's Warcraft, which I was very hopeful for being an actual good video game movie, but in the end was just okay. Also the R-rated animated comedy SAUSAGE PARTY, which had a great premise and looked very promising, but in the end was also just another big disappointment with too much focus on curse words and shock value. This year has really been the year of the indie film. Indie films like THE SHALLOWS, THE LITTLE PRINCE, HELL OR HIGH WATER and SWISS ARMY MAN all tried new things and were well liked by audiences that saw them. So now i'll look into the top 10 of the summer.
1. Finding Dory: Finding Nemo was one of my favorite movies when I was younger, so when I heard there was going to be a sequel... Well honestly I was kind of worried considering how Cars 2 and Monsters University turned out. Seeing the trailers for the movie didn’t really help my worries go away, but I was still hopeful. I have to say I was ultimately disappointed in the movie though. It wasn't a bad movie in any way, but it really didn't feel necessary in the end. It really didn't do anything new or take any risks, which is a problem that Pixar seems to be facing recently a lot. Pixar used to be a studio that wowed me with every new film and idea, the great detail and imagination that went into making their new films. I was excited for every new movie Pixar was making back then, but lately i'm just disappointed in all their OKAY sequels. As cute as Finding Dory was, it just didn't have the same impact as other Pixar films have had, like just last year with the amazing INSIDE OUT. Its more worrying now that Pixar is making even more sequels like CARS 3 and TOY STORY 4. Hopefully they have some new ideas for those.
2. Civil War: Just when I think I might be getting tired of all the Marvel Studios films, they come out with the amazing Civil War and bring me right back in. It really shows how much care and work go into all their movies when they keep releasing great film after great film. This movie had it all from great action, great humor and great emotion. The rivalry between Cap and Iron Man was done really well and I was invested in it from the start to finish. Also the perfect introductions to Black Panther and Spider-Man have me really excited to see their solo films. One of the only movies this summer to really live up to its hype, and keep everyone excited for all 100 marvel movies coming out in the next few years.
3. The Secret Life of Pets: Its pretty crazy to think this movie made more money than Suicide Squad, X-men and Star Trek. There really wasn't anything wrong with this film, it was a pretty basic family movie. Nothing crazy or groundbreaking here, just a safe story about talking animals trying to find their way back home. The animation is really nice to look at, very colorful and attractive. The rest of the film is just okay, I don't really have much to say about it honestly. It had a few laughs in it, the voice acting was fine, the story was pretty basic and has been done before. The perfect movie to put on to keep your kid quiet for less than 2 hours! If you DO have anyone younger to watch it with, i'd say it's worth a watch. At least they tried something original and new, one of the only non-sequels or remakes on the top 10.
4. Suicide Squad (AKA The Deadshot and Harley Quinn Show): I was so hopeful for this movie to be great. It looked like it was going to be the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY of the DC movies. In the end I feel this movie was actually trying too hard to be Guardians at times. The weird use of music in this movie reminded me too much of Guardians, except with none of the charm and purpose. It felt more like 「HEY! here's a popular song you probably know! LOOK! WE HAVE COOL MUSIC!」. The story in this movie felt very confusing and pointless, the main villains both felt super generic and lifeless. Like a lot of movies do nowadays, its all about how the villain is going to destroy the world with some weird beam powers of sorts. Also, Joker really felt wasted in this. I would have liked to see more of him and his relationship with Harley, or just not see him at all this time. I did really like the relationship between Harley and Deadshot though, it was the best part of the film. Will Smith and Margot Robbie did a really good job playing those two characters and I hope to see them again soon. As for Jared Leto as Joker, well I don't think he was in the movie long enough for me to say. I can't say I really liked the way Joker was portrayed here, he felt too "gangster" and the scenes he was in felt sort of pointless to the suicide squad story. I think it would have been better to save all that for a Harley and Joker movie instead of putting it here. There was potential for a great movie here, all the characters in the Suicide Squad are fun to watch and work well together on screen. Still the movie was held back by stupid villains, weird music, wasted Joker, cliche ending battle, and confusing story. I'm still hopeful for Wonder Woman though, hope they can turn it around.
5. X-Men: I love X-men so much, and was super excited for this one. I thought this for sure would be my favorite movie of the summer, but instead it was another pretty disappointing one. I still liked this movie, there were a lot of great moments in it, especially most of the actors who did great (except Olivia Munn as Psylocke who pretty much did nothing the entire time). I think the biggest problem was just the villain who (SPOILERS!!?!?) was pretty interesting at first, but slowly turned into another generic 「I want to destroy the world」 bad guy. Complete with explosions and bombs going off in the end and tons of buildings getting destroyed like 30 other movies have done in the last few years. But I still enjoyed a lot of it, even though it could have been a lot better. I'm excited for the next film and to see all the good actors return to play their part, especially quicksilver and cyclops who I though where great in this one.
TO BE CONTINUED WHEN I FINISH WATCHING THE MOVIES I HAVEN'T SEEN YET... SHOULDN'T TAKE MORE THAN TWO YEARS. THREE TOPS.
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