Have you heard the summer box office has been down in the dumps this year? The Hollywood Reporter says:
By the time Labor Day weekend wraps, summer box-office revenue in North America will end up being down nearly 16 percent over last year, the steepest decline in modern times and eclipsing the 14.6 percent dip in 2014. It will also be the first time since 2006 that summer didn’t clear $4 billion.
Basically, the movie business just got kicked in the nuts.
Some of the blame goes to prices for a ticket and concession—shit can get expensive in a hurry. But the rest of the blame has been earned by options that a moviegoer has to choose from. Two of my favorite movies of the year were released in the summer (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Baby Driver). But with every awesome movie, we get eight bad ones—and I’m probably being generous with that number.
With that said, I’m not here to bring you the worst movies of the summer. Nope. I want to talk about the ones we had some hope for and then crashed and burned with one viewing. Let’s start with the most recent one shall we?
THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD
(Full review here) – Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson have to be fun guys to hang out with. I just don’t want to in this movie. An action comedy with little comedy is never a good thing. This hitman movie is a lousy shot, but still manages to kill the stars’ charisma and chemistry. Marvel should be so disappointed in them!
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN:
DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES
Back in 2003 when the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie was released, Johnny Depp stole the entire damn movie basically. Captain Jack Sparrow was fun, eccentric, a rock star out on the high seas! In 2017, the Black Pearl is going down and he’s going down with it. Javier Bardem and Geoffrey Rush give this fifth installment its last refreshing breaths.
BAYWATCH
(Full review here) – What the hell happened here? The Rock is better than this brain-dead beach remake that was hoping to bank off the show’s popularity from the 90’s. But what director Seth Gordon and the rest of the cast forgot is everyone stopped giving a shit about it back in the 90’s as well. It seems to be in on the joke (mainly dick jokes), until it becomes one.
THE DARK TOWER
(Full review here) – An epic Stephen King book series becoming a mind-blowing cinematic event is the last thing this became. With years of preparation and nabbing two handsome devils, Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba, to star in it, it’s tough to watch an unbelievable opportunity be wasted by not nearly being aggressive enough with the material, and the consequences of that show through. Having never read one book of the series, I was left frustrated. For those who have read the entire series, they’re beyond pissed.
WAR MACHINE
I thought for sure this political satire starring one of the biggest movie stars in the world would be the first big original film from Netflix. I was mistaken. Brad Pitt marches through while playing Charades, impersonating a real-life General that can’t give up on war. Its wit & insight to having a winning outlook on a war that’s already been lost stings; yet the story’s balls don’t drop enough to give us the scolding narrative it deserves.
THE BOOK OF HENRY
On its outer shell, this is an ambitious movie about family and protecting those you love. Sounds fun, right? Well crack it open, and you’ve got yourself a monstrosity: jumbled genres that don’t work and a story that reeks of phoniness. Naomi Watts as a mother turned assassin? Gimme a break! By some miracle, through it all, Jacob Tremblay never loses his adorableness though. Let’s end on a positive note.
“Nature Boy” Brandon Vick is the resident film critic of the SoBros Network, and star of Brandon’s Box Office In Your Mouth. Follow him on Twitter@SirBrandonV and be sure to search #VicksFlicks for all of his latest movie reviews.
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