Greetings, folks, and welcome to this year’s edition of Rhode Island Movie Corner’s final write-up of our annual End of Summer Fan Poll. As always, I must start things off by thanking everyone who has helped us continue to make this yearly event of ours the hugely successful endeavor that it’s been. Whether it’s by directly voting in the poll or by sharing it around on social media, you’re all the most awesome folks around and I couldn’t be any more grateful for how you’ve helped this freelancer of a film critic pull all this off. Now, sure, this year’s turnout was, admittedly, a little smaller than usual, ultimately garnering an 85-vote turnout rather than the 100-plus voter turnouts that we’ve had the past two years. But to be fair, I kind of expected that this would be the case for this year’s event for a few reasons; most notably, the fact that, in the time since last year’s event, I, like many, made an exodus from the hell-site that is Twitter as a symbolic f*** you to its current owner, which meant that I wasn’t able to utilize the social media network that had been my go-to resource for the past decade for posting the links to all the posts that I’ve done for this site to properly promote this year’s event. Nevertheless, I’d argue that an 85-vote turnout is still quite an excellent result, and all these votes ended up going to 21 different films, which is just one off from the 22-film record that was set by the 2017 poll and was then subsequently tied by last year’s poll. With that in mind, folks, I must say that I’m quite excited by the wide variety of films that got recognized this year, which helps to illustrate one of my favorite aspects of this event in that it highlights the beauty of film fandom’s wholly subjective nature. Some of the films that we’ll be talking about today weren’t exactly critically acclaimed or a box-office juggernaut, but the fact that they all got at least one vote this year means that, at the very least, they struck a chord with someone. So, without further ado, Rhode Island Movie Corner proudly presents your favorite films from the summer of 2024.
TO START THINGS
OFF, WE HAVE 9 FILMS THAT EARNED 1 VOTE APIECE…
THE BIKERIDERS
First up, we have The Bikeriders, the newest film
from director Jeff Nichols. While it may be Nichols’ first directorial effort
since the duology of Midnight Special and Loving in 2016 (at one
point, he was slated to direct this year’s A Quiet Place: Day One), that
hasn’t stopped him from being a highly revered filmmaker in the industry, best
known for his dramatic films that are usually set in the Southern United States.
And while The Bikeriders is one of the rare instances of a Nichols film
that isn’t set in that part of the country, instead primarily taking place in
Chicago, it is still very much the kind of project that someone like Nichols is
well-suited for given his affinity for raw, authentic character studies. The
film is inspired by a 1968 photography book of the same name by photographer
Danny Lyon who, in the mid 60’s, traveled with the infamous Outlaws Motorcycle
Club, even becoming one of its members from 1967 to 1968. Presenting a
fictionalized version of the club known as the Vandals Motorcycle Club, the
film primarily revolves around three main characters (the club’s founder Johnny
(Tom Hardy), young hotshot member Benny (Austin Butler), and the latter’s wife
Kathy (Jodie Comer)) as they struggle to cope with the club’s fast-paced
expansion, which is complicated by the fact that said expansion ends up
involving a bunch of new members with increasingly shady criminal backgrounds.
One interesting fact to note about this film is that it
originally started out as a 20th Century Studios production via
their subsidiary Regency Enterprises. It premiered at the 2023 Telluride Film
Festival and was originally slated for a December 2023 release so that it could
qualify for that year’s award season… but those plans ultimately fell by the
wayside due to the initiation of the SAG-AFTRA strike that July. The fact that
the strike would result in a lack of promotion from the film’s cast, along with
other factors such as it originally being set to open the same weekend as
Beyoncé’s concert
film Renaissance, would result in the film being taken off the release
schedule. And while the strike officially ended in November, Regency then
proceeded to shop the film around to other studios. Ultimately, the rights were
picked up by Focus Features, thus putting the film under the Universal banner. And
upon its release, the film proved to be yet another solid critical hit for
Nichols. While some were critical of the more conventional aspects of the film’s
script, its stacked ensemble cast headlined by Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, and
Tom Hardy and featuring the likes of Norman Reedus, Mike Faist, and Nichols’
most frequent collaborator Michael Shannon was seen by many as its biggest
highlight. Commercially, it grossed around $36 million worldwide against a
budget of around $35-40 million, which is a total that’s generally on par with
the box-office runs of Nichols’ other films. And while it’s currently unclear if
the film will end up attracting any attention during this year’s award season, it
did, at least, succeed in giving Nichols the chance to make a film that he’s
been wanting to make for nearly two decades after he first came across Danny
Lyon’s original book back in 2003.
IF
While John Krasinski is, of course, best known for his role
as mild-mannered sales rep Jim Halpert in the Americanized adaptation of the U.K.-based
sitcom The Office, he’s also branched out in recent years as a director.
While his first two directorial efforts, 2009’s Brief Interviews with
Hideous Men and 2016’s The Hollars, didn’t make much of an impact
with critics and audiences, that all changed with his third film, the 2018
horror-thriller A Quiet Place. Starring Krasinski and his wife Emily
Blunt as parents who seek to protect their kids from a post-apocalyptic world
ravaged by sound-sensing aliens, the film promptly became one of the biggest
critical and commercial hits of that year. Krasinski would return to direct its
2021 follow-up, A Quiet Place Part II, which performed just as well as
its predecessor even with the drawback of being one of the first films affected
by the COVID-19 pandemic… which, as a result, made it one of the first big hits
in the wake of the initial outbreak. As a result, a new and exciting horror
franchise was born, with this year seeing the release of a spin-off prequel, A
Quiet Place: Day One. However, while still involved as a writer/producer, Krasinski
did not return to direct that film, instead opting to take on a much different
kind of project with If, a family-friendly fantasy revolving around
imaginary friends. The film follows a young girl named Bea (Cailey Fleming)
who, amidst her efforts to cope with her father’s (Krasinski) impending heart
surgery, learns that she’s able to interact with all the imaginary friends (AKA
‘IFs) in the world. After learning that many of them have been abandoned after
being forgotten by their original kids, Bea and her neighbor Cal (Ryan
Reynolds) set out to try and find them new kids to connect with.
From the outset, If more than succeeds in being a
charming little fantasy full of delightfully wacky moments of pure hi-jinx
revolving around its visually unique assortment of imaginary friends, voiced by,
quite frankly, one of the most impressively stacked voice casts in recent years.
You’ve got Krasinski’s Office co-star Steve Carell and Phoebe
Waller-Bridge as the main IFs of the story (the childlike purple giant Blue
and the adorable butterfly-like Blossom, respectively), memorable supporting
players like Louis Gossett Jr. (in one of the final performances of his career
after he passed away last March) as the pleasant old teddy bear Lewis, and a
whole bunch of notable names who are mostly just there for cameos like Matt
Damon, George Clooney, and Krasinski and Reynolds’ ladies Emily Blunt and Blake
Lively… and to be clear, that’s just to name a few. As for its human stars,
Ryan Reynolds is, admittedly, a lot more subdued than you might expect coming
from the man behind Deadpool (which, to be fair, does make sense in the context
of the film due to the reveal that his character is Bea’s IF who went through
the same abandonment process as his fellow IF’s) but still solid as always as
Bea’s sardonic neighbor Cal while up-and-comer Cailey Fleming (who previously
played the younger versions of Star Wars’ Rey Skywalker and Loki’s
female multiverse counterpart Sylvie) shines as the film’s sympathetic lead
Bea. But perhaps the most surprising part of If is how, amidst all its
light-hearted moments, it also produces a whole bunch of unexpectedly devastating
emotional beats that help to illustrate the poignant themes that Krasinski
tackles in this story, such as the difficult process of overcoming one’s grief and
the tragic loss of one’s imagination as they get older, all of which very much
applies to Bea as she finds herself forced to grow up much faster than
anticipated.
In a lot of ways, this is very much in line with John
Krasinski’s well-established narrative sensibilities and is a key reason why I’d
argue that he’s become one of the best filmmakers in the industry when it comes
to crafting some utterly powerful moments of emotional poignancy. Back when the
first Quiet Place came out, Krasinski went on record stating that he was
largely drawn to the project due to its relevant themes of parents protecting
their children from the unpredictable horrors of the world. Sure enough, this
translated well into how those films developed its main protagonists, the
Abbott family, through plot threads such as the efforts of patriarch Lee to
mend his broken relationship with his daughter Regan. And while it goes without
saying that If is a much more light-hearted story by comparison, Krasinski
was drawn to it in a similar manner and has stated that he wrote it with his
kids in mind. In short, If may have ended up being one of the more
polarizing blockbusters of the year and one that also didn’t do too hot at the box office during the surprisingly sluggish early start to the summer by only
grossing about $190 million on a hefty $110 million budget… but the end result
is a film that I’d argue is way too adorable to dislike. Whether it’s its
bright and colorful visuals, lovable main characters, or its wholly uncynical
nature, If is a film that very much wears its heart on its sleeve.
YOUNG WOMAN AND
THE SEA
As a producer, Jerry Bruckheimer has been responsible for
some of the biggest blockbuster franchises of all time; Pirates of the
Caribbean, Top Gun, Bad Boys, the list goes on. However, he’s
also produced his fair share of lower-budgeted films as well, with one of the
most interesting collections of films on his resume being a bunch of Disney-produced
sports films based on true stories that revolve around significant moments in
athletic history that thoroughly challenged the social norms of the eras in
which they’re set. These films include the likes of 2006’s Glory Road,
the true story of how Texas Western basketball coach Don Haskins assembled the
first all-black starting lineup in NCAA history, and one of my all-time
favorite films, 2000’s Remember the Titans, the ever-enduring tale of
how an integrated high-school football team from Virginia stood united in a
time of racism. This mentality applies to Bruckheimer’s latest lower-budgeted Disney
project, Young Woman and the Sea, directed by Joachim Rønning, who’s
quickly become a regular in Disney’s lineup of recurring filmmakers after
working with Bruckheimer on the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film,
2017’s Dead Men Tell No Tales, and then going on to direct 2019’s Maleficent:
Mistress of Evil and next year’s long-awaited Tron sequel, Tron:
Ares. Starring Rey Skywalker herself, Daisy Ridley, the film tells the true
story of Trudy Ederle, a young woman from New York who, against all odds,
became one of the most successful competitive swimmers of her time and achieved
history in August of 1926 when she became the first woman to successfully swim
across the perilous stretch of water that is the English Channel.
Simply put, much of this film’s success is thanks to its
star, Daisy Ridley. Ridley’s well-established onscreen charisma shines through
just as much as it did in the Star Wars sequel trilogy (no matter how
much a certain part of the internet will try to convince you otherwise), which
instantly makes Trudy a wholly sympathetic heroine. In other words, you fully
root for her as she goes through her journey to become one of the best swimmers
in the world, especially whenever she succeeds in proving her most sexist
critics wrong. These moments of success for her become even more cathartic to
experience whenever they’re coming off of the instances where society tries to undermine
her accomplishments, such as when she competes in the 1924 Summer Olympics but
is denied the chance to properly train for them or when she makes her first
attempt to swim the English Channel but is foiled by her coach Jabez Wolffe
(Christopher Eccleston), who previously attempted (and failed) to accomplish
the swim himself and proceeds to sabotage her attempt purely out of petty
spite. And while, like practically any ‘true story’ sports film, this does
have to work under the consequence of being a film where those familiar with
its story will know exactly how it ends going into it, that doesn’t mean that
it’s not an effectively captivating story to watch. As such, Young Woman and
the Sea is an effortlessly feel-good athletic drama that, perhaps most
importantly, succeeds in being an empowering tale of an all-around positive
female role model (portrayed perfectly by someone who’s been pivotal in
bringing one of the best heroines in recent cinematic history to life (once
again, no matter what a certain chauvinistic demographic may claim)), which
feels especially relevant nowadays.
MAXXXINE
In 2022, Ti West, well-known for his work in the horror
genre, released his newest directorial effort, X, which can best be
described as a modernized spin on the raw and unrelenting slashers that defined
the decade in which it’s set, the 70’s, which includes one of the horror
genre’s most iconic releases, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The film
follows the cast and crew members of a pornographic film production as they
travel to Texas to shoot their film but soon find themselves hunted by the most
unexpected of killers; the elderly couple who own the farm that they’re staying
at. Upon its release, the film received plenty of critical acclaim from
critics, who praised West’s direction and fresh interpretation of 70’s-style
horror films along with its strong cast, headlined by Mia Goth in the dual role
of the film’s feisty final girl Maxine Minx and its psychotic elderly villainess
Pearl. As it turns out, the latter role proved to be enticing enough of a
character for Goth and West that they developed a full-blown prequel to X,
Pearl, that covered Pearl’s descent into madness all the way back in
1918 in a Golden Age-inspired character piece. Filmed secretly in conjunction
with X and not officially confirmed until the first film’s SXSW
premiere, Pearl hit theaters only half a year later and was equally
acclaimed by critics, thus cementing its title character as a modern horror
icon. By that point, director Ti West had made it clear that he was going to
turn this saga into a trilogy, which brings us to this year’s MaXXXine.
This time around, after basing X on 70’s slashers and
taking inspiration from the Golden Age of cinema for Pearl, MaXXXine feels
like it was ripped straight from the Giallo era of horror films, an
Italian-based genre that strongly emphasized a murder mystery plot as
highlighted by films like Dario Argento’s 1977 classic Suspiria. Set in
1985 Los Angeles, the film follows Maxine Minx as she continues her journey to
become a prolific film actress. As she joins the cast of The Puritan II,
the sequel to a hugely popular horror film, the sudden appearance of a mysterious
killer known as the Night Stalker puts all of Hollywood on edge and becomes an
even bigger problem for Maxine once it all becomes tied to her traumatic past. Upon
its release, MaXXXine became the X trilogy’s most commercially
successful installment to date, grossing over $22 million worldwide. Admittedly,
it was, conversely, the trilogy’s weakest-received installment amongst critics,
who felt that it suffered from some tonal and pacing issues, but it was still
generally well-received overall. Through it all, West’s direction and
near-flawless recreation of the sleazy aesthetic of 1980s LA in the same way that
he effectively recreated the look and feel of the 1970s and 1910s in X and
Pearl, respectively, were still well-praised as was Mia Goth’s dynamite
lead performance as Maxine. And while it’s currently up in the air as to
whether this will be the last we’ll see of the story of Maxine Minx (West has
claimed that he’s been developing a potential fourth film but has also recently
admitted that he’s happy with how the trilogy turned out), it’s very much clear
that the X trilogy has, above all else, proven that, just like its main
heroine, there’s no denying that series lead Mia Goth is a bona fide star.
FLY ME TO THE MOON
Getting back into some more light-hearted territory for a
moment, we have Fly Me to the Moon, starring Scarlett Johansson as a
marketing exec who’s approached by NASA to try and help them restore their
public image as they begin to prepare for what will end up being the iconic
Apollo 11 mission, even if it means having to potentially fake the moon landing
so that they can gain a leg up on Russia’s space program. Originally, Johansson
(who also produced the film) was set to star alongside her longtime friend and
MCU co-star Chris Evans, who’d play the role of NASA’s launch director, under
the direction of Arrested Development star Jason Bateman. But once
Bateman backed out of the project due to creative differences, the position was
taken up by Greg Berlanti, the overseer of the CW’s Arrowverse franchise
who also notably directed the critically acclaimed LGBT teen romance Love,
Simon. And when the production had to work around Berlanti’s schedule,
Evans backed out as the film’s male lead and was replaced by Channing Tatum.
Also joined by the likes of Woody Harrelson and Ray Romano, Fly Me to the
Moon opened to a decent critical reception upon its release as critics felt
that, despite some of the film’s glaring script issues, Johansson and Tatum’s
romantic chemistry was superb enough to carry the film. Commercially, it didn’t
do too hot, only grossing around $42 million on a hefty $100 million budget
but, to be fair, that’s arguably been par for the course for its studio, Apple,
whose films have often been simultaneously released theatrically and through
their streaming service, Apple TV+. Case in point, Fly Me to the Moon was
originally going to be a streaming exclusive before positive test screenings allowed
it to see a theatrical release in partnership with Sony.
TRAP
This summer proved to be quite an eventful one for M. Night
Shyamalan. Back in June, his daughter Ishana made her feature-length
directorial debut with The Watchers (which he produced despite the
nepotism accusations that came from it) after she had previously worked
as a second unit director on her father’s last two films, Old and Knock
at the Cabin, and directed several episodes of his Apple TV+ series Servant.
As for Shyamalan himself, this summer would also see the release of his latest
directorial endeavor, Trap, which, in what could be described as a
notable change of pace for Shyamalan, is a film where the plot point that would
normally be the catalyst behind his trademark twist endings is immediately
telegraphed at the beginning. In Trap, Josh Hartnett stars as Cooper,
your average dorky dad who’s taking his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to see
her favorite pop star, Lady Raven (played by Shyamalan’s singer/songwriter
daughter Saleka), in concert. Once there, Cooper notices an increased security
presence which, as he learns from one of the venue’s vendors, is due to them
being informed that a notorious serial killer known as ‘The Butcher’ has been
reported to be in attendance. As it turns out, Cooper is ‘The Butcher’ himself,
thus putting him in a race against time as he tries to find a way to evade the
authorities without arousing any suspicion from either them or his daughter.
Trap hit theaters at the beginning of August and amassed
a decent $82 million showing at the box office against its $30 million budget; it
may not be Shyamalan’s most financially successful outing, per se, but it’s
still a solid turnout overall and relatively on par with his most recent
projects, especially given his well-established track record of self-financing
his own films. Critically, though, Trap proved to be another example of
Shyamalan’s notoriously polarizing reputation as a filmmaker as many felt that,
despite a decent premise, some of Shyamalan’s most often-criticized
screenwriting habits were on full display, whether it’s his infamously stilted
dialogue or some major plot contrivances that come into play to allow Cooper to
pull off his escape plan. Despite all this, however, those same critics agreed
that, regardless of the film’s shortcomings, Josh Hartnett shined in the lead
role of Cooper AKA ‘The Butcher’, successfully blurring the line that the
character walks between being a loving father to his daughter and the sadistically
unhinged criminal that he truly is. This, as a result, has left many to
speculate that this film will be a pivotal stepping stone to what is shaping up
to be a significant career renaissance for Hartnett, who first made it big in
the 90s, briefly bowed out of the limelight in the late 2000’s, and has
recently made a comeback these past several years with some notable appearances
like the prominent supporting role that he played in last year’s Best Picture
winner (and last year’s RIMC End of Summer Fan Poll winner 😉) Oppenheimer.
HORIZON: AN
AMERICAN SAGA – CHAPTER 1
The Western genre has defined a significant stretch of the
long, prestigious career of Kevin Costner, from his 1990 directorial debut Dances
with Wolves, which earned him that year’s Oscars for Best Director and Best
Picture, to more recent endeavors like his leading role as the patriarch of the
Dutton family in Taylor Sheridan’s hit series Yellowstone. And while
there’s been quite a lot of intense discussion recently over his controversial
exit from the latter right in the middle of its final season, that doesn’t mean
that he’s left the Western genre behind as this year gave us his first
directorial effort since the 2003 western Open Range, Horizon: An
American Saga. And if that wasn’t enough, Costner also revealed that he had
some incredibly ambitious plans in place for a project that he had been working
on since 1988; namely, the fact that he was developing it as a four-part film
series which will follow a large ensemble cast of characters as they navigate
the uncharted territories of the American frontier in the late 19th
century. This first installment, Chapter 1, largely takes place over the
course of 1861 to 1865, AKA the infamous American Civil War, and follows the
journeys of various characters across the Western region, from the residents of
an Arizona settlement known as ‘Horizon’ who find themselves in an escalating
conflict with Apache natives to the members of a wagon party traveling through
Montana to reach the fabled settlement. Along with his directorial duties,
Costner stars as an old horse trader named Hayes who finds himself embroiled in
his own perilous ordeals in Wyoming and is joined by a massive ensemble cast
that includes the likes of Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Michael Rooker, and
Luke Wilson… and again, that’s just to name a few.
Unfortunately for Costner, it seems that the future of this
blossoming franchise is currently unclear due to the less-than-stellar turnout
of Chapter 1’s release back in June as the three-hour-long western epic
struggled to make an impact at the box office, only grossing about $38 million
against its $50 million budget. It also didn’t do too hot with critics, who
felt that it was mostly just a series of set-ups for future installments that
didn’t do enough to justify its own place as its saga’s narrative launch point.
In fact, this all proved to be such an underwhelming performance for the film’s
primary distributor, New Line Cinema, that they decided to nix the planned
theatrical release for Chapter 2, which had originally been set to be
released in August as one of the rare instances where a film’s direct follow-up
would be released the same year (just like what happened with The Matrix
Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions back in 2003). That said,
though, despite New Line’s parent company Warner Bros.’ recent bad habit of
shelving several of their films for utterly flimsy reasons, this doesn’t mean
that Horizon: Chapter 2 will never end up seeing the light of day. In
September, it had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where Costner
went on record stating that it is still expected to hit theaters sometime next
year. As for the following two films, production on Chapter 3, which
Costner described as the one that will feature some of the most devastating
narrative beats of the entire franchise, is currently underway despite a few
hiccups (i.e. last year’s WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes) with early plans in place
for Chapter 4 to start its production next Spring. But once again, given
the generally frosty reception to Chapter 1, it’s currently up in the
air as to whether there’ll ultimately be enough demand to see this four-part
Western saga done to completion.
(Now, before we
continue, I figured that I’d give you folks a little sneak peek behind the
scenes as to how I would’ve handled this year’s event if Horizon: Chapter 2 had
been released in August as originally intended. Had that been the case, I
would’ve listed Horizon: An American Saga as a single choice in the poll
rather than two separate entries because I fear that going with the latter
approach could’ve potentially caused a bit of confusion amongst voters.)
BORDERLANDS
In 2009, video game developer Gearbox Software teamed up
with publisher 2K to release a game that would end up becoming the first
installment of a hit new franchise, Borderlands. An RPG-influenced first-person
shooter with a gleefully chaotic visual style that would fit right in with the Mad
Max franchise, the game saw players take on the role of one of four combat
specialists known as ‘Vault Hunters’ (either in a single-player or co-op
multiplayer mode) as they traverse the violently unpredictable landscape of the
alien planet Pandora to try and find an ancient treasure vault. Upon its
release, the game quickly became a major hit with both critics and audiences,
effectively paving the way for a full-blown franchise that would see the
release of a sequel in 2012, an interquel (or, as its titled, a Pre-Sequel)
set between the first two games in 2014, a proper threequel in 2019, and an
impending fourth installment in 2025. Meanwhile, the series made its transition
to the big screen this year with a big-budget film adaptation directed by Eli
Roth. Largely based on the first Borderlands game, the film follows a
band of misfits (magically powered bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett),
mercenary Roland (Kevin Hart), demolition-savvy teenager Tiny Tina (Ariana
Greenblatt), ‘Psycho’ Krieg (Florian Munteanu), scientist Patricia Tannis
(Jamie Lee Curtis), and rambunctious robot Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black)) as
they embark on a quest on the planet Pandora to find an elusive vault full of treasure
and advanced technology that was left behind by the planet’s original
inhabitants, the Eridians.
But despite the immense potential of its source material and
an all-star cast, Borderlands quickly became one of the most infamous
examples in recent memory of highlighting the usual track record of one of the
film industry’s unluckiest genres; films based on video games. Its initial
reviews were so bad that its Rotten Tomatoes score started out in the single
digits (even now, it only sits at 10% on that site) and with a lousy $33 million
haul against a $110 million+ budget, it was quickly dropped from theaters and
moved to on-demand services just a few weeks after its release. For the most
part, critics felt that the film showed all the telltale signs of a
considerably troubled production. This was, after all, a film that had been in
the works since 2015 and filmed all the way back in 2021. It went through
reshoots that didn’t involve Eli Roth due to his work on his 2023 film Thanksgiving
and were instead overseen by Tim Miller, director of the first Deadpool and
Terminator: Dark Fate and executive producer of the far more successful
video game film franchise Sonic the Hedgehog. It was also reported that studio
execs demanded the film’s violence to be toned down so that it could be rated
PG-13 for a wider audience despite most of the franchise’s video games being
rated M for Mature and Roth’s well-established reputation for making some of
the most disturbingly violent horror films of all time. In short, while I can’t
say much about it myself given that I’ve only played a small chunk of the first
game, it seems like Borderlands fans were not too pleased with this film
given some of its significant deviations from its source material. But as always,
this annual poll of ours is never intended to serve as a criticism of those who
voted for films that weren’t exactly the biggest hits amongst critics and
audiences. Thus, to whoever felt that this wasn’t quite the disastrous
adaptation of a beloved video game franchise that many others felt it was, all
the power to you.
ALIEN: ROMULUS
For the past four and a half decades, the Alien franchise
has been a beloved staple of the sci-fi genre, effectively giving audiences one
of the most terrifying cinematic interpretations of the extraterrestrial being
that it’s named after. But like many franchises that have been going on for as
long as Alien has, it is one of those that has, admittedly, seen its
fair share of ups and downs over the years. It all started, of course, with
Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic Alien, which quickly became one of the most
influential sci-fi films of the era right alongside the other major 20th
Century Fox-backed blockbuster of the time, Star Wars. This was then
followed by 1986’s Aliens, directed by James Cameron in his first big directorial
outing after his 1984 breakout hit The Terminator. With Aliens,
Cameron proceeded to give the film a more action-oriented vibe but still
infused just enough of its predecessor’s horror roots to create a follow-up
that is often considered by many to be just as good as the original if not
arguably better. Unfortunately, things then immediately started to go downhill
for this hugely successful franchise. 1992’s Alien 3 endured one of the
most notoriously hellish productions in the history of the film industry, effectively
leaving its director, then-newcomer David Fincher, utterly impeded by executive
meddling. The franchise’s luck didn’t improve much with its next installment,
1997’s Alien: Resurrection, despite a seemingly much less strenuous
production compared to Alien 3.
Then, in 2004, the series crossed paths with another popular
sci-fi franchise, Predator, for a big-screen crossover that fans of both
franchises had been anticipating ever since 1990’s Predator 2 featured a
notable Alien easter egg by way of a xenomorph skull in the Predator’s
trophy room. This would result in two films, 2004’s Alien vs. Predator and
2007’s Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem; however, both Alien and Predator
fans were largely left disappointed by the two films, with the former
getting flak for its toned-down PG-13 rating and the latter for its formulaic
script, one-note characters, and the apparent lack of a proper lighting
department. Thus, a potential third AvP film was canned and the Alien
franchise lay dormant until 2012, when Ridley Scott returned to the
franchise he helped launch more than three decades prior with a prequel, Prometheus.
While not directly an Alien film from a story standpoint, it did dive
into the origin points of many key facets of the franchise’s lore and was then
followed by a more traditional Alien sequel in 2017’s Alien: Covenant,
once again directed by Scott. Both films did solidly at the box office and with
critics but were far more polarizing amongst Alien fans due to some of
their questionable story beats. Two years later, Fox was purchased by Disney
and plans were put into place for a new Alien film, which would
eventually become this year’s Alien: Romulus, produced by Scott and
directed by Fede Alvarez, director of the 2013 remake of The Evil Dead.
Set in between the events of the first two films, Romulus
follows a group of young space colonists as they sneak onto a derelict
space station known as the Renaissance to try and find supplies that
would help them escape their oppressive living conditions on their home planet
LV-410. Unfortunately, this results in them coming across a whole batch of artificial
xenomorph face-huggers that had been created from the DNA of none other than the
same Xenomorph creature that had attacked Ellen Ripley and her fellow crew
members on the USCSS Nostromo. Upon its release, Alien: Romulus defied
all expectations to become the franchise’s best-reviewed installment since Aliens.
Barring some polarizing reactions to the various ways in which the film served
as a ‘legacy sequel’ (an aspect of franchise filmmaking that many other
franchises have had to deal with in recent years to mixed results), Romulus was
largely cited by critics as a sequel that effectively returned the Alien franchise
back to its horror roots, especially thanks to director Alvarez’s
well-established preference for practical effects. This success promptly
carried over to the film’s financial turnout as it amassed over $350 million at
the box office, which is even more of an impressive feat given that it was
originally set to be released solely as a streaming exclusive on Hulu just like
what happened with the Predator franchise two years ago with its latest installment,
Prey. But just like that film, Alien: Romulus managed to overcome
the stigma it faced from certain online circles over it being the first new
installment of a popular Fox franchise since the studio’s purchase by Disney in
2019 to become an undeniable success.
NEXT UP, WE
HAVE 3 FILMS THAT EARNED 2 VOTES EACH…
THE GARFIELD MOVIE
Of the many classic comic strip characters who have graced
print media over the decades, it goes without saying that one of the most
popular of this bunch is everyone’s favorite lazy cat, Garfield. First created
by cartoonist Jim Davis in 1978, Garfield follows the daily
misadventures of its titular protagonist, an orange tabby cat known for his
laziness, his love of food (namely, lasagna), and the same level of hatred that
many of us humans have for the infamous weekday that is Monday. Still running
regularly in newspapers to this day (to the point where it holds the Guinness
World Record of being the world’s most syndicated comic strip), Garfield has
become a prominent staple of the pop cultural zeitgeist and has been adapted
into all sorts of mediums, including video games and various animated series
and TV specials. In 2004, the series made its jump to live-action with a
feature film, Garfield: The Movie, which was then followed by a sequel
in 2006, Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties, both of which notably starred Bill
Murray as the voice of Garfield. However, while both films were successful at
the box office, they were widely panned by critics and, thus, are often cited
as some of the most prominent examples of how NOT to adapt a
character who primarily hails from the world of animation into live action.
It’s a sentiment shared by Murray, to be sure, as, reportedly, he only signed
on to the role because he had mistakenly believed that it was being written by
Joel Coen of the Coen Brothers (in reality, it was written by Joel Cohen).
Thus, the series would end up sticking to direct-to-video animated films for
the next few years before finally returning to the big screen this year via an
animated film, The Garfield Movie, directed by Mark Dindal, best known
for directing the 1997 cult classic Cats Don’t Dance and Disney’s 2000
underrated gem The Emperor’s New Groove.
In this new film, Garfield (Chris Pratt) and his canine
sidekick Odie find themselves forced to work for a gang of cats and dogs to steal
from a milk factory with the help of Garfield’s estranged father Vic (Samuel L.
Jackson (which, yes, makes this a case of a film where, technically speaking, Nick
Fury is Star-Lord’s father)). But despite sticking with the title character’s
animated roots rather than making another attempt at a live-action adaptation, The
Garfield Movie didn’t end up faring that much better than the live-action
films did with critics. For the most part, critics felt that it was just way
too predictable of an animated film, but perhaps more damningly, some argued
that its more action-oriented plot went against Garfield’s well-established
characterization as a lethargic grump. There was also some controversy
surrounding the casting of Chris Pratt as Garfield but, to be fair, this mainly
just stemmed from the internet’s bewilderment over the fact that this was the
second major multimedia character that Pratt has played these past few years
after he was cast as Mario in Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros Movie.
Nevertheless, all those mediocre reviews did not stop the film from being a
solid hit at the box office, where it has grossed over $234 million worldwide.
In short, regardless of whether most people think that Garfield has yet to be properly
represented on the big screen, The Garfield Movie has proven that, if
anything, its titular feline is still a substantial pop cultural icon.
KINGDOM OF THE
PLANET OF THE APES
If you want to talk about a franchise that has surprisingly
managed to be just as long-lasting as the likes of Star Wars or James
Bond, look no further than the Planet of the Apes franchise. It all
began, of course, with the 1968 film adaptation of author Pierre Boulle’s 1963
novel Planet of the Apes, starring Charlton Heston as an astronaut who
crash-lands on a mysterious planet where he discovers that humans have been overtaken
as the dominant species by highly evolved apes. That film would go on to become
one of the most acclaimed science fiction films of all time, lauded for its
groundbreaking prosthetic makeup effects by John Chambers to bring its ape characters
to life, its smart and thought-provoking script (which was notably co-written
by The Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling), and of course, its iconic twist
ending in which Heston’s character Taylor realizes that he’s been on a
post-apocalyptic Earth the whole time. It was then promptly followed by four sequels
that were released on an annual basis; 1970’s Beneath the Planet of the Apes,
1971’s Escape from the Planet of the Apes, 1972’s Conquest of the
Planet of the Apes, and 1973’s Battle for the Planet of the Apes.
While none of these films ended up matching the original in terms of critical
acclaim, they were all still relatively successful hits at the box office and,
thus, helped keep the franchise going for a respectable number of years in the
early 70’s.
After a pair of short-lived TV shows (one live-action and
one animated) in the mid 70’s and a whole bunch of failed attempts at a revival
in the late 80’s and early 90’s by the likes of James Cameron and Peter
Jackson, the series would finally return to the big screen in 2001 with a
remake of the original Planet of the Apes directed by Tim Burton. It
starred Mark Wahlberg in the lead role a la Charlton Heston and featured
updated makeup effects for the apes thanks to legendary makeup effects artist
Rick Baker. But despite all those big names attached to the production, the
2001 Planet of the Apes remake would end up being regarded as one of the
worst films of Burton’s career. Case in point, in contrast to the original film’s
famous twist, the remake’s twist ending where Wahlberg’s character Leo seemingly
returns to Earth only to find that it’s been overtaken by apes was seen by many
as being borderline incomprehensible even though it was, technically, more
faithful to Pierre Boulle’s novel. And as it turns out, that was a wholly
intentional move on Burton’s part so that he wouldn’t have to do any sort of
sequel to a film that, by many accounts, he did not enjoy working on. Thus,
despite a decent showing at the box office, any plans for a sequel were
ultimately nixed and the series lay dormant for a decade until it returned in
2011 with director Rupert Wyatt’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a
prequel-based reboot that focused on the events that led to apes undergoing the
genetic-based evolutionary process that would result in them becoming the
dominant species on Earth.
In a break from series tradition, the apes in Rise were
created using motion-capture CGI, with the most prominent mo-cap actor in the
industry, Andy Serkis, taking on the lead role of Caesar, the genetically
enhanced ape who would go on to become the leader of the simian revolution. And
upon its release, this modestly marketed revival of a classic franchise took
many people by surprise when it became one of the year’s best-received films,
touted for its impressive visual effects and Serkis’ outstanding performance as
Caesar. It was then followed by a pair of sequels directed by Matt Reeves,
2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and 2017’s War for the Planet
of the Apes, with both films becoming even more of a hit with critics and
audiences. And while War effectively brought an end to the story of
Caesar with the legendary ape hero’s tragic death, Planet of the Apes would
go the same way as the previously mentioned Alien and Predator franchises
and get revived when Fox was purchased by Disney in 2019. Thus, we now have Kingdom
of the Planet of the Apes, directed by Wes Ball in his first major directorial
endeavor after finishing his work on Fox’s Maze Runner trilogy (and
before he’s set to develop what will surely be a hotly anticipated film
adaptation of Nintendo’s beloved The Legend of Zelda series). Set
several centuries after the events of War, the film follows a young ape
named Noa as he heads out to save his friends and family when they’re taken
captive by a violent clan of apes led by the aggressive Proximus Caesar who’ve
been operating under a corrupted vision of the once-peaceful ideals that the
original Caesar had established for apes all those years ago.
With this new film, Ball and writer Josh Friedman do an
excellent job of crafting a natural follow-up to the previous Planet of the
Apes trilogy that, unlike your average legacy sequel, isn’t wholly
dependent on the films that came before it by heavily relying on cameos and
visual nods but still has just enough significant ties to its predecessors to
certify its connection to them. As the reboot series gradually begins to inch
closer to the period that the original Planet of the Apes film was set
in where apes have fully evolved and humans have become more primitive and
feral, Kingdom thoroughly maintains the franchise’s strong narrative themes
such as the debate as to whether the surviving members of humanity can
peacefully co-exist with their evolving ape counterparts. Of course, as has
been the case with this series since its 2011 revival, the mo-cap VFX work to
bring its apes to life is still second-to-none and quite arguably the best that
it’s been up to this point. And while this Planet of the Apes film may
not have the benefit of being led by Andy Serkis, its new cast of characters is
still quite solid by comparison, with Owen Teague and Freya Allan headlining
the film nicely as ape protagonist Noa and human protagonist Mae, respectively,
and Kevin Durand boasting a viciously commanding screen presence as the film’s main
antagonist Proximus Caesar. With all this in mind, Kingdom of the Planet of
the Apes, above all else, successfully revitalized one of cinema’s most
unexpectedly enduring franchises.
FURIOSA: A MAD MAX
SAGA
In 2015, visionary filmmaker George Miller was finally able
to relaunch the franchise that had made him a household name, Mad Max,
with its fourth installment, Fury Road. It was a project that he had
been developing since 1987, just two years after the release of the series’
then-latest installment Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, as he was eager to
make a Mad Max film that was one continuous chase sequence.
Unfortunately, the initial attempts by Miller to get it made were hindered by numerous
factors such as the aftermath of the September 11th attacks and the
various scandals that series star Mel Gibson wound up in during the mid-2000s
that effectively ruined his reputation. But by the start of the 2010s, the
project finally managed to get off the ground with Tom Hardy taking over the
title role, and despite what would come to be known as a notoriously troubled
production, Fury Road hit theaters in the summer of 2015 to become the
very definition of a success story. Sure, its $380 million+ haul may not sound
that impressive in an era full of billion-dollar making blockbusters, but in
the eyes of the film fan community, it was far superior to those billion-dollar
juggernauts. For many people, Mad Max: Fury Road was a much-needed
source of antithesis compared to modern summer blockbusters thanks to its
unabashedly distinct visual style and its reliance on practical effects and stunt work rather than utilizing CGI. This, as a result, would allow the film
to find immense success during that year’s award season, which culminated in it
winning all the big technical awards at that year’s Oscars.
But for many people, the best aspect of Fury Road (even
more so than its action and visuals) was its female lead, Imperator Furiosa,
played by Charlize Theron. This no-nonsense warrior who dared to defy her
superior, Immortan Joe, by rescuing five of the vicious warlord’s fertile
breeders from his grasp quickly became one of the most beloved action heroines
in recent years to the point where many argued that she even outshone the
franchise’s titular protagonist Max. In fact, back in 2010 when production on Fury
Road was first announced, George Miller revealed that, in the process of
developing the film, he and co-writer Nico Lathouris had also developed
a full-on prequel that would tackle Furiosa’s backstory and had originally
planned to film it in tandem with Fury Road. Ultimately, Miller and crew
only filmed Fury Road, and despite a brief delay that was brought upon
by Miller’s company suing Warner Bros. over a salary dispute, Miller would
begin crafting the Mad Max franchise’s first ‘spin-off’ in 2022, with
Anya Taylor-Joy taking over the title role from Charlize Theron since Miller
didn’t want to try and work with the controversial de-aging VFX process that
many blockbusters have used in recent years. Thus, in Furiosa: A Mad Max
Saga, we bear witness to the events that would make Furiosa the legendary
figure that she was in Fury Road, from the moment where she is taken
away from her home, the Green Place of Many Mothers, by the psychotic warlord
Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) to her long and arduous journey to become one of
Immortan Joe’s top lieutenants.
As easy as it may be to simply view Furiosa as ‘the Fury
Road prequel’, it is thankfully much more than just your average prequel.
Sure, fans of Fury Road will be pleased to see all the references to
that film (including an appearance by the one and only flamethrower
guitar-wielding Doof Warrior), but on its own merits, Furiosa is a much
different beast compared to Fury Road. Instead of a frenetically paced
chase picture, Furiosa is more of a slow-burn epic narrative with a much
heftier two-and-a-half-hour runtime. Despite this, however, Miller does
maintain the same kind of visual-driven storytelling approach that he used on Fury
Road, and while I can’t say that he is as successful at it here when
compared to his work on Fury Road (fans of that film will also most
likely be disappointed by the fact that this film utilizes a lot more CGI by
comparison), it’s still a wholly engrossing post-apocalyptic action
extravaganza that, above all, does a great job in conveying all the great
emotional beats that drive its titular heroine’s historic character growth. On
that note, despite all the immense pressure that undoubtedly must’ve come from
having to follow in the footsteps of Charlize Theron’s amazing performance in
the role in Fury Road, Anya Taylor-Joy more than holds her own as
Furiosa, bringing the same amount of ferocity and emotional vulnerability that
Theron brought to the character. Meanwhile, Chris Hemsworth gleefully hams it
up as the film’s main antagonist Dementus, another welcome addition to this
franchise’s great collection of villains.
Now, full disclosure, anyone who’s followed this site for a
while knows that I have a rather complicated history with Mad Max: Fury Road;
specifically, when I first saw it, I wasn’t as enthralled by it as the rest of
the internet was. I’ve always attributed this in large part to the fact that I
hadn’t seen any of the previous Mad Max films going into it, and while I
saw some people claim that you didn’t need to watch them to properly enjoy Fury
Road, I do believe it would’ve helped me in the sense that I would’ve gone into
it with a familiarity with the franchise rather than going in as a total
newcomer. However, the other reason why I wasn’t raving about it at the time
was that, back then, I admittedly got quite frustrated by how much the internet
gushed over it to the point where it was being used to trash other films that
were coming out at the time, which I felt was completely unfair to some
otherwise great films. It’s a type of hyperbolic critique that has also
occurred with some other projects over the years. A similar situation occurred
with 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which some folks described
as being so good that there wouldn’t be any need for live-action Spider-Man films
moving forward. This also applied to another recent Marvel production, X-Men
’97, the Marvel Studios-backed continuation of the popular X-Men: The
Animated Series from the 80s that proved to be so popular that some argued
that the MCU’s impending cinematic reboot of the X-Men was downright
unnecessary… and bear in mind, this is all before we have had any sort of
indication of what said reboot will be like. And, of course, let’s not forget
how some people reacted when Star Wars: The Last Jedi came out in 2017.
No, I’m not talking about the racist/misogynistic morons who acted like it
ruined their childhood; I’m talking about those who loved it so much that they
would then proceed to derisively judge all future Star Wars projects for
not being as good by comparison.
In short, if you look back at the Results Post for the 2015
End of Summer Fan Poll, which Fury Road won in a decisive landslide,
you’ll notice that my writeup for the film is a surprisingly hostile one where
I repeatedly label it as being ‘overrated’. I don’t use that term anymore
because I find it to be an extremely loaded word that only leads to some
intensely vitriolic debate; but more importantly, even if I don’t think that a
certain film is as good as others say it is, that’s ultimately not the film’s fault.
At the end of the day, it’s more a case of the internet’s infamous habit of
overexaggerating anything and everything. Bottom line, my stance on Fury
Road has been a lot more positive in recent years after watching the rest
of the series, and this, in turn, helped me to have a more suitable first-time
experience watching Furiosa. Is it just as good as Fury Road? Eh,
not really, but as a companion piece to that film, it’s practically perfect in
what it's trying to be, and the result is another great addition to this hugely
successful franchise… well, at least on a critical level because,
unfortunately, Furiosa was perhaps the biggest victim of this summer’s
surprisingly sluggish start. It barely made back its $168 million budget, and
if that wasn’t enough, some have speculated that this could potentially lead to
the end of the Mad Max franchise despite George Miller’s plans for a
fifth mainline film, Mad Max: The Wasteland.
I’VE NOTICED
THIS CUTE LITTLE RUNNING GAG OVER THE YEARS WHEN IT COMES TO OUR ANNUAL POLL
WHERE EACH YEAR CULMINATES IN A UNIQUE MIRROR SITUATION WHERE WE HAVE 3 FILMS
THAT EARN 2 VOTES APIECE AND 2 FILMS THAT EARN 3 VOTES APIECE… WELL, THAT’S NOT
THE CASE THIS YEAR BECAUSE WE ONLY HAVE A SINGLE 3-VOTE GETTER…
HAROLD AND THE
PURPLE CRAYON
In 1955, author Crockett Johnson (AKA David Johnson Leisk)
published Harold and the Purple Crayon, a children’s book about a young
boy named Harold who goes on all sorts of adventures with the help of his
magical purple crayon, which brings anything that he draws with it to life. The
book quickly became a staple of children’s literature and would go on to spawn multiple
sequels, including at least six follow-ups that were published before Johnson’s
death in 1975. Outside of the books, it inspired a bunch of short films that
were shown on the famous children’s TV series Captain Kangaroo and a
13-episode TV series that ran on HBO from 2001 to 2002. There’s even been
reports of a potential Broadway musical adaptation of the story, but this year
saw the release of a feature film adaptation, which had been in the works for
quite some time. A potential film adaptation was first developed in the 90s
with the aid of another famous children’s author, Maurice Sendak of Where
the Wild Things Are fame, which was slated to be directed by The
Nightmare Before Christmas’ Henry Selick. Another attempt was made by way
of an animated film produced by Amblin Entertainment in the 2010s but it came to
be in the form of a live-action film directed by longtime Blue Sky Studios
filmmaker Carlos Saldanha. However, it turns out that this wasn’t going to be a
‘traditional’ adaptation of its iconic source material.
Rather than focusing on the fantastical adventures of a
young Harold, the film follows a grown-up version of Harold who winds up
traveling to the real world, where his crayon ends up being taken by an
aspiring author who wants to create his own hit novel. So, yeah… it goes
without saying that those who grew up with this beloved book were taken aback
by this film’s radically different spin on the source material. It probably
also didn’t help that grown-up Harold was played by Zachary Levi given Levi’s
increasingly controversial reputation in recent years for various reasons that
we won’t be going into today. Thus, as you might have guessed, Harold and
the Purple Crayon did not leave much of an impact upon critics and
audiences when it came out in early August. It grossed less than $32 million on
a $40 million budget and was a major dud with critics, who felt that the film’s
noble intentions of celebrating the wonders of imagination were undone by a
film that was quite frankly the very definition of a project driven by
committee. But just like earlier when we went over the notoriously panned
adaptation of Borderlands, I’m not going to dwell too much on this
film’s poor reception for the sake of those who voted for it, especially since
this one surprisingly managed to garner multiple votes.
ALRIGHT FOLKS,
IT’S TIME TO START DELVING INTO THIS YEAR’S TOP 5! IN FIFTH PLACE WITH 5 VOTES…
BAD BOYS: RIDE OR
DIE
It may seem crazy to think of nowadays given how successful
of a franchise it’s become, but back in 1995, the buddy cop comedy Bad Boys could
very well be described as an incredibly risky venture. Sure, it was being
produced by the powerhouse producing duo of Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer,
but at the same time, its director was a newcomer who had only directed a bunch
of commercials and music videos and was being headlined by a pair of actors
known more for their work on TV sitcoms. The director, of course, was Michael
Bay and the film’s stars were Martin Lawrence from Martin and Will Smith
from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. But when the film finally hit
theaters, it proved to be a sizable commercial hit that would effectively
launch the film careers of Bay, Smith, and Lawrence. Eight years later in 2003,
the trio and producer Jerry Bruckheimer (minus producer Don Simpson, who had
passed away in 1996) would reunite for a sequel, Bad Boys II. By this
point, Bay’s reputation as the most visually chaotic filmmaker in Hollywood had
become well-established; as such, when Bad Boys II came out, it was the
very definition of a Michael Bay film in the eyes of critics, with many
deriding it for having all of Bay’s usual directorial tropes from his frenetic
camerawork and editing to his sophomoric sense of humor. That said, though, the
film was still a solid hit at the box office and has now gone on to become one
of the most popular action films from the early 2000s to the point where even
some of Michael Bay’s biggest critics will begrudgingly consider it to be his
best film.
After that, the series would lay dormant for several years (apart
from a TV spin-off, L.A.’s Finest, starring Gabrielle Union reprising
her role from the second film as Marcus’ sister Sydney) with several
attempts at trying to make a third film, which mainly didn’t happen due to, as
Bay himself once put it in an interview, him and Will Smith demanding some of
the most lucrative salaries in the industry. But, finally, in 2020, the
adventures of Miami PD detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett would continue
in Bad Boys for Life… albeit not under the direction of Michael Bay.
Instead, directorial duties went to the duo of Moroccan filmmakers Adil El Arbi
and Bilall Fallah, and the result ended up taking many people by surprise as it
became the franchise’s most successful installment to date. For starters, it
earned over $426 million at the box office and ended up being the
highest-grossing film of the year domestically (though, to be fair, part of
that is due to it being one of the only films of 2020 that had a proper
theatrical release that year for… obvious reasons…). But perhaps most
surprisingly, the film was genuinely well-received by critics who found it to
be an effective continuation of the franchise without a lot of Michael Bay’s
most infamous tropes. Thus, a fourth film was quickly greenlit not long after
its release, and while it’s been reported that its arguably delayed release was
due to a certain incident involving Will Smith (you know the one…), it would
finally see the light of day this year with Bad Boys: Ride or Die, once
again directed by Adil and Bilall.
In this installment, Mike and Marcus find themselves thrown
for a loop when their old boss Captain Howard (who was killed off in the
previous film) becomes linked to accusations of having ties with local drug
cartels. Looking to prove their Captain’s innocence, the duo is forced to go
on the run alongside Mike’s son Armando when the corrupt government officials
who are orchestrating this whole conspiracy frame them for crimes they didn’t
commit. Narratively speaking, Bad Boys: Ride or Die is, admittedly, a
prime example of a ‘been there, done that’ sequel that doesn’t try to do too
much ‘new’ with its plot and characters; in other words, it’s as basic of a
straight-forward ‘corrupt cop’ plot as you could possibly get. Still, for what
it’s worth, the film does do a solid job of maintaining the efforts that were
made in Bad Boys for Life to imbue a lot more character depth into this
franchise than anything we got out of Michael Bay’s films, whether it’s Mike’s
guilt over his perceived role in the death of Captain Howard resulting in him
starting to suffer from panic attacks or Marcus’ newfound belief that he cannot
die after he survives a near-fatal heart attack. And through it all, Will Smith
and Martin Lawrence’s well-established comedic camaraderie is still second to none along with this franchise’s penchant for delightfully chaotic
action sequences; in fact, this film even gives directors Adil and Bilall
plenty of chances to flex their visual skills as a lot of the action sequences
feature a whole bunch of uniquely flashy camera tricks (i.e. drone shots).
In short, as much as Bad Boys: Ride or Die may feel
like one of those sequels that is just going through the motions, it still
succeeds in giving fans of the franchise exactly what they want; specifically,
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence doing what they do best as one of the greatest
buddy cop duos of all-time. As such, it’s not even remotely surprising to see
that this film was nearly just as successful critically and commercially as its
immediate predecessor Bad Boys for Life, earning over $404 million
worldwide and garnering decently positive reviews from critics. And in a lot of
ways, this could very well be seen as a much-needed success story for a lot of
the key players involved with it. Obviously, Will Smith is the first of these
folks to come to mind given that this is his first major theatrically released
film since the infamous moment when he slapped Chris Rock at the 94th
Academy Awards, which promptly redefined both his career and reputation. But from
the looks of it, directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, whose careers were
clearly on the rise after the success of Bad Boys for Life, may end up
being the ones who will benefit the most from this film’s success. While they
were part of the directorial team for Marvel Studios’ well-regarded Ms.
Marvel TV series, the two were infamously screwed over by Warner Bros. when
they were brought on to direct the DC Extended Universe’s Batgirl film
only to then have the studio cancel its release after they had already finished
it due to the highly questionable reason of it being done for a tax write-off. Thus,
with this film being the hit that it was, it’s nice to see that their careers
weren’t completely railroaded by one studio’s boneheaded decision.
IN A THREE-WAY
TIE FOR FOURTH PLACE WITH 6 VOTES APIECE…
LONGLEGS
As you know, I always include a write-in section with this
annual poll of ours that lets you folks vote for the films that I didn’t
include in the long list of wide-release films that make up the other voting
options. This year was a rare instance in which we didn’t see any votes for
films that came from the write-in section… at least, not exactly. You see, we
did have one ‘write-in’ vote this year, but I ultimately decided not to count
it because there was no way that I could verify it. The vote was for Gladiator,
which made me wonder two possibilities. Was this a vote for a re-release of
Ridley Scott’s Best Picture-winning swords and sandals epic Gladiator from
2000… or did this voter somehow manage to catch an early screening of its
impending sequel that comes out this month? Whatever the case, I couldn’t find
any proof of the former because any information on re-releases of the original Gladiator
that I did find was from a few years back and I haven’t seen any reports of
early screenings of Gladiator 2. Thus, I apologize to the person who
voted for that because I appreciate your participation in the event, but as I
note every year, I only focus on films that were released that
year in theaters; so, if this was in reference to seeing it at home, then I’m
sorry to say that this wouldn’t count. So why am I currently talking about the
Write-In Section process of our annual poll, you ask? Well, the reason why is
because, when it comes to our next film to talk about, I have the feeling that
if I hadn’t included it in the primary list of options, it would’ve been this
year’s most prominent winner from the Write-In section just like what happened
in 2022 with the hugely popular film adaptation of Where the Crawdads Sing
that I didn’t include in the main list of options that year even though, in
hindsight, I probably should’ve. But since this film did get quite a bit of
attention when it hit theaters, I figured I’d let it hang out on the main list,
and sure enough, it turned out to be quite a sizable hit.
Longlegs is the newest film from director Osgood
Perkins, a filmmaker whose background in the horror genre extends far beyond
his filmography; he also happens to be the son of the OG Norman Bates himself
from Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal 1960 classic Psycho, Anthony Perkins. In
Longlegs, set in 1994, Maika Monroe stars as an FBI agent named Lee who
takes on a case in Oregon to track down a mysterious satanic serial killer
known as Longlegs (Nicolas Cage) whose murders are connected to the occult and,
as it turns out, has quite a significant personal connection to her. Along with
starring in the title role, Nicolas Cage also produced the film, and for many
people, his turn as the demented murderer was one of its biggest highlights. In
general, though, the film itself was well-received by critics, with many
praising its artistic merit and highly effective horror sequences. And thanks
to a well-received viral marketing campaign that wisely decided to not spoil much
of Cage’s role in the film, Longlegs proved to be a major hit
financially, grossing over $126 million worldwide on a budget of less than $10
million. This resulted in it becoming the highest-grossing film of all-time domestically
for its distributor, Neon, who, like A24, has become well-regarded in the independent
film market thanks to their involvement with critically acclaimed projects such
as 2017’s I, Tonya and Bong Joon-Ho’s 2019 Best Picture winner Parasite
(the latter of which Longlegs surpassed at the domestic box-office
but still holds the record for Neon’s highest-grossing film worldwide). In
short, it’s clear that Osgood Perkins is well on his way to becoming another
one of the horror genre’s most well-regarded filmmakers, especially since he
and Neon will be teaming up once again next year with a hotly anticipated
adaptation of Stephen King’s 1980 short story The Monkey.
DESPICABLE ME 4
One of the many certainties that I’ve come across in all the
years that I’ve done the Annual End of Summer Fan Poll is that Despicable Me
has quite arguably been the most consistently successful film franchise
when it comes to securing a good chunk of your votes whenever it gets a new
release. Now, sure, this wasn’t always the case as the series’ first spin-off, Minions,
failed to attract a single vote in the 2015 edition of this event, but aside
from that, every Despicable Me film that has been released since then
has always managed to earn at least six votes. As such, I find myself once
again reiterating the same statement that I’ve made about this series for the
past several years where, as much as I know that there are some folks out there
who utterly HATE this series for its borderline invasive and
aggressively dominant control of the pop cultural zeitgeist, there’s no denying
that the Despicable Me franchise continues to be an unstoppable
juggernaut in the world of animation. And this year, the franchise returned to
the mainline series for the first time since 2017’s Despicable Me 3 with
Despicable Me 4, once again returning us to the daily misadventures of
reformed supervillain Gru (Steve Carell). As he begins to settle into a life of
domesticity with his family (his adopted daughters Margo, Edith, and Agnes, his
wife Lucy, and their newborn son Gru Jr.), he soon finds himself dealing with the
return of his old arch-rival Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell) who, along with his
girlfriend Valentina (Sofia Vergara), seeks revenge against Gru for wronging
him back when they were in high school together.
Other notable subplots in the film include Gru being forced
to deal with having to mentor a budding supervillain in his new neighbor Poppy
(Joey King) and some of Gru’s Minions being chosen by his superiors at the Anti-Villain
League to become enhanced with superpowers, thus becoming ‘Mega Minions’ (which,
on a personal note, is something that I believe I may have inadvertently helped
spoil because they started selling the film’s merchandise at my workplace at
Universal Orlando before they started to emphasize the superhero plotline in
the marketing campaign). Whatever the case, it goes without saying that Despicable
Me 4 promptly continued the franchise’s successful track record with
audiences. While both it and 2022’s Minions: The Rise of Gru may not
have reached the $1 billion heights of both the first Minions and Despicable
Me 3, it has still managed to gross over $968 million worldwide. Critically,
the film was another one of the series’ polarizing installments, and yet, as
much as some criticized the film for its overstuffed plot and superfluous side
characters, they still acknowledged that it would, as usual, succeed in
appealing to its target audience. As such, don’t be surprised when, three years
from now when we hold the 2027 edition of this poll, the Despicable Me franchise
will continue its run of being a major vote-getter when it releases its next
installment via the third Minions film.
THE FALL GUY
Over the past several years, longtime stunt
coordinator/stuntman David Leitch has steadily become one of the top action
directors in the industry, especially thanks in large part to his penchant for crafting
action sequences that rely on the old-school methods of cinematic stunt work rather
than just relying on the often-flawed rapid-cut style of many modern-day action
films. After debuting as an uncredited co-director alongside fellow veteran
stuntman Chad Stahelski on 2014’s John Wick, Leitch has since gone on to
direct other hits like 2018’s Deadpool 2 (which this writer will
controversially claim to be better than the first Deadpool) and 2022’s Bullet
Train. But as for his latest film, it may end up being the one that is the
most thematically appropriate project that he has ever worked on as its plot
revolves around the underappreciated facet of the film industry where he got
his start, stunt performers. The Fall Guy is a modern-day adaptation of the
TV series of the same name that ran for five seasons from 1981 to 1986 and
starred Lee Majors in the role of Colt Seavers, a Hollywood stuntman who, in
his spare time, moonlighted as a bounty hunter. Ryan Gosling takes on Majors’
role of Colt who, in the context of this film, leaves his career in stunt work after a near-fatal on-set injury but returns to work on a big-budget
blockbuster directed by his ex-girlfriend Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt) to once
again serve as the go-to stuntman for famous action star Tom Ryder (Aaron
Taylor-Johnson). However, as soon he gets on set, Colt learns from Jody’s
producer Gail (Hannah Waddingham) that Tom has gone missing and has reportedly
become associated with shady criminals. With Jody’s film at risk of being shut
down, Gail asks Colt to try and find Tom, which he reluctantly agrees to do so to
save Jody’s film and, perhaps, rekindle their relationship.
The Fall Guy is, admittedly, one of those films
where, if you start to overanalyze it, you’re probably bound to notice some narrative
shortcomings here and there, whether it’s a glaring plot hole or disappointing lack
of screen-time for a standout supporting character. But as a light-hearted comedic
action flick with a fun and breezy pace that keeps it from having any parts
that drag, The Fall Guy is one of the most naturally appealing films
that I’ve come across in recent years. And for fans of action… well, that’s
where the film truly shines. Obviously, it should go without saying that a
director like David Leitch who has an extensive and well-regarded background in
action was going to deliver some gold when it comes to handling this film’s
action sequences, but on a deeper level, this all helps to enforce what is
easily the best aspect of this film in that it ends up being a genuinely
heartfelt celebration of the stunt industry which, sadly, has often been
underappreciated by the larger film industry to the point where, yes, there
still isn’t a category at the Oscars for stunt-work (which, yes, the film does
reference repeatedly). Thus, with a film like this that not only has top-notch
action sequences but also lets the in-universe film’s stunt team play a
significant role in taking down the bad guys, it lets the unsung heroes of the
film industry have their time to shine, especially since the film doesn’t try
to cynically deconstruct their line of work like other meta-driven films based
around the film industry tend to do. Pair all that with a terrific ensemble
cast headlined by the wonderful lead duo of Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt and
you have the very definition of a crowd-pleaser.
With all that in mind, it was sad, then, to see that this
film wasn’t exactly the big hit that it quite frankly should’ve been when it
was released. All throughout this post, I’ve mentioned the fascinating fact
that this summer’s film slate started off on a surprisingly sluggish note as
the month of May saw a whole bunch of films that seemed like guaranteed hits end
up being financial disappointments. And unfortunately, The Fall Guy was
the initial catalyst of all that as it only managed to gross a little over $181
million on a budget that was reportedly high as $150 million. Sure, it’s based
on a property that most modern audiences probably never heard of before, but
I’m sure I’m not the only one who thought that a film headlined by a pair of
well-established stars in Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt (the former of whom
fresh off his scene-stealing turn as Ken in last year’s billion-dollar hit Barbie)
would surely do better than that. Thankfully, though, it seems like this will
end up being one of those films that will gain a bigger audience in the years
to come, especially when you look at how well it did here. To put this all into
perspective, one of this film’s six votes came from yours truly, even though
this isn’t my favorite film of the year (that one’s coming up a bit later),
because I wanted to ensure that it would earn a spot in this final write-up post.
As such, I was thrilled to see that I was ultimately not the only one who
thoroughly enjoyed this refreshingly old-fashioned and authentic love letter to, to quote The Fall Guy’s iconic theme tune (originally performed by
Lee Majors and covered by Blake Shelton for the film), “the Unknown Stuntman
who’d die to have your heart.”
IN THIRD PLACE
WITH 9 VOTES…
DEADPOOL &
WOLVERINE
Of the many ways one can describe Deadpool &
Wolverine, Marvel Studios’ sole theatrical release of this year, one of the
most prominent is how it ultimately serves as a chance for Ryan Reynolds to
achieve the bit of wish fulfillment that he’d been hoping to have for years;
getting to portray a comic-accurate version of the Merc with a Mouth alongside the
most famous X-Men member of all, the Wolverine. It’s a development that’s nearly
two decades in the making after what is, technically, their first onscreen
team-up in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Of course, by that point,
Hugh Jackman had already established himself as the definitive live-action
Wolverine, but for Reynolds, his casting as mercenary Wade Wilson primarily
stemmed from a moment in time after Reynolds starred in a different Marvel
film, 2004’s Blade: Trinity, where he was given Deadpool comics
by a studio exec in which the title character famously described himself as
looking like ‘Ryan Reynolds crossed with a shar-pei’. Unfortunately, X-Men
Origins: Wolverine was not the most ideal place for Reynolds to start out
his tenure in the role. While the film itself was largely seen as one of the X-Men
film franchise’s biggest misfires, it’s perhaps most notorious for its vastly
different take on the character of Deadpool in which the Weapon X program
imbues Wade Wilson with the various abilities of other mutants and, most
controversially of all, has his mouth sewn shut, thus robbing him of what is
easily the character’s most definitive traits; his non-stop sharp wit and
constant breaking of the fourth wall.
Thankfully, though, for Reynolds, plans were set into place
not long after for him to headline a Deadpool solo film that would, at
the very least, portray the character in a far more accurate manner. Unfortunately,
the project then nearly found itself shelved for good when 20th
Century Fox expressed concern about its financial prospects. Bear in mind, this
was back in the early 2010s when the idea of an R-rated superhero film had
only been attempted a few times prior and Marvel and DC were, at that point,
perfectly content with maintaining a PG-13 rating with their various
productions. But then, in 2014, the CGI test footage that the film’s intended
director, Tim Miller, had produced in 2012 was suddenly leaked online and
attracted an incredibly positive reaction from the online community. As a
result, this finally convinced Fox, albeit by way of them giving Reynolds and
company a much smaller budget compared to their genre peers, to put the film
into production. And so, the first Deadpool film hit theaters in
February 2016, and as we all know, calling it a success would be a massive
understatement. It quickly became the X-Men franchise’s highest-grossing
installment up to that point, presented the comic-accurate version of Deadpool
that fans had been craving for the past seven years, and most of all,
effectively proved that R-rated superhero films were commercially viable. Case
in point, Hugh Jackman and director James Mangold fully capitalized on that the
following year with Logan, where they were able to make it an
ultra-violent R-rated flick that would let Jackman have a satisfying send-off
as Wolverine since he had announced that it would be his final time playing the
character. And sure enough, upon its release, Logan was one of the
biggest critical and commercial hits of the year.
Meanwhile, Deadpool would get an equally successful sequel
in 2018 with Deadpool 2, directed by David Leitch. After that, the plan
was to have a third Deadpool film and a spin-off that would be centered
on the superhero team that the Merc with a Mouth assembled in the second
installment, X-Force. But then, in 2019, 20th Century Fox was
purchased by Disney, and with Marvel Studios finally re-acquiring the film
rights to the X-Men, that meant that Fox’s long-running take on Marvel’s iconic
mutant superhero team would effectively come to an end. During this time,
however, Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that there were plans to have Ryan
Reynolds’ version of Deadpool incorporated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
And on an even better note for fans of the character, Iger said that the intent
was for them to maintain Deadpool’s R-rated antics despite the MCU’s
long-established track record of PG-13-rated content outside of the TV series
they produced for Netflix. Shawn Levy, who was quickly becoming one of Ryan Reynolds’
go-to collaborators after their work on 2021’s surprise hit Free Guy and
2022’s Netflix sci-fi flick The Adam Project, was brought in to direct the
first MCU Deadpool film but, as Reynolds has since admitted, he, Levy,
and their writers wound up getting stuck at one point trying to figure out the
story. It wasn’t until a fateful discussion with one Hugh Jackman that the team
finally came up with a way to bring back Jackman’s take on Wolverine without
disrespecting what Jackman and James Mangold had accomplished with Logan.
In Deadpool & Wolverine, we learn that, after a
failed attempt at joining the Avengers, Wade Wilson has retired from the
superhero lifestyle and is currently stuck in a dead-end job while also being
separated from his fiancé Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). Suddenly, on his birthday,
Wade is approached by agents of the Time Variance Authority (AKA the TVA as
first introduced in Loki), and after being dragged to their
headquarters, TVA agent Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen) informs him that the
time has finally come for him to join the ‘Sacred Timeline’. Unfortunately,
Wade also learns that, in the process, his universe will be destroyed because
of the loss of its ‘anchor being’, AKA what the TVA describes as a universe’s most
important figure… who just so happens to be Wolverine. Not wanting to lose his
loved ones (especially given Paradox’s intent on expediting his universe’s
destruction with the aid of an unsanctioned TVA device known as a Time Ripper),
Deadpool heads out on a journey across the multiverse to find a replacement
Wolverine. But while he does manage to find one that he’s able to ‘convince’ to
join him, he then learns that the Wolverine he found is one of the
worst-regarded Wolverine variants in the entire multiverse due to his
inactivity playing a significant role in the death of his fellow X-Men
teammates. Thus, the reluctant pair quickly find themselves in a race against
time to save Deadpool’s universe, which is only complicated further when
Paradox sends them to the TVA’s prison-like world known as the Void where they
come into conflict with a group of rogue mutants led by Charles Xavier’s
psychotic twin sister Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin).
To answer your first question, Deadpool & Wolverine is
not a case where Deadpool’s famously crude style of humor is neutered down to
try and keep its proceedings in PG-13 territory just because it’s the first of
the series made under the Disney banner. As the MCU’s first R-rated film, this
delivers on all the delightfully twisted adult jokes and shockingly gory bits
of violence that we’ve come to expect from the title character’s previous
outings. Reynolds and his co-writers clearly haven’t missed a beat when it
comes to conveying Deadpool’s sharp meta-driven wit, with plenty of jabs to be
had at both Disney and the MCU’s expense. And yet, at the same time, the film
also maintains the strong levels of emotional poignancy that have not only
defined the MCU’s best outings but also, in a more subtle manner, the previous Deadpool
films. Yes, as unabashedly crass as they may be, the Deadpool films
have had some solidly effective emotional moments throughout their run,
whether it’s the genuinely strong chemistry between Deadpool and Vanessa that
has always been a driving force behind his efforts to be a hero or how this
film’s version of Wolverine gradually overcomes his guilt of letting his
universe down. Thanks to all this and their undeniably strong comedic
camaraderie, this film sees Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman’s best performances
to date as the iconic titular duo.
And then, of course, you have all the delightful bits of fan
service to be found in this film, primarily through its various cameos. You
have some cameos that, admittedly, were fully telegraphed months in advance
thanks to all the behind-the-scenes reports and the marketing campaign such as
Jennifer Garner returning as the variant of Elektra from the 2003 Daredevil adaptation
and its 2005 spin-off Elektra and Dafne Keen as Wolverine’s daughter
Laura AKA X-23 from Logan. But then you have some genuinely unexpected
cameos such as Wesley Snipes’ triumphant return as Blade for the first time in
two decades, Chris Evans not as Captain America but his other notable Marvel
film role Johnny Storm AKA The Human Torch from the 2000s era Fantastic
Four films, and Channing Tatum finally getting to fulfill his lifelong
dream of playing the X-Men’s charismatic Cajun Gambit after Fox’s attempt at a Gambit
solo film ultimately went nowhere. This all contributes to one of the most
pleasantly surprising aspects of this film in that it ultimately serves as an
unexpectedly heartfelt tribute to 20th Century Fox’s run of Marvel
films. Obviously, that is where our titular heroes got their start, but just
like how Spider-Man: No Way Home went above and beyond in solidifying
Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s tenures as Spider-Man regardless of both
the highs and lows that they went through, this film does a lot to celebrate
the Fox era of Marvel films. It’s an era that, to be perfectly blunt, had just
as many misfires as it had successes; for every hit like 2014’s X-Men: Days
of Future Past, you had a notorious dud like the 2015 adaptation of Fantastic
Four. Nevertheless, as a montage of behind-the-scenes clips set to Green
Day’s ‘Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)’ plays over the end credits, we’re
left with a touching send-off to an era that, regardless of what you may think
about it, did play an integral role in redefining the superhero film genre for
the 21st century.
Any way you look at it, Deadpool & Wolverine was
going to be a guaranteed hit, and that surely proved to be the case upon its
release as it quickly joined the billion-dollar club on its way to becoming the
highest-grossing R-rated film of all time. It also helped that the film was
generally well-received amongst critics and audiences as another solid addition
to the MCU. And yet, I must admit that, as much as I do love this film and
consider it to be one of my favorite films of this year… it’s not my #1 of the
year despite my well-established love of the MCU. Ultimately, much of this is
due to the kind of situation that I brought up earlier when I talked about my
initially muted reaction to Mad Max: Fury Road and how that was the
result of the internet’s annoying habit of overhyping stuff. And in a way, this
mentality did apply to Deadpool & Wolverine, which some have been claiming
to be the ‘much-needed bit of redemption that the MCU has ‘desperately’ needed
in its post-Endgame era’ which, in the eyes of some folks, has been an
unmitigated disaster. And yet, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I strongly
disagree with this mindset because I feel that it’s just a case of heightened
expectations getting the better of the internet in the wake of the landmark
outing that was Avengers: Endgame. So instead, I’ll just refer to Deadpool
& Wolverine as a textbook example of the MCU at its best by being an all-around
entertaining flick full of great humor, action, and best of all, top-notch
character beats.
THIS YEAR’S
RUNNER-UP WITH 11 VOTES…
IT ENDS WITH US
(TW: Domestic Abuse)
In a year where Ryan Reynolds headlined a billion-dollar
juggernaut in Deadpool & Wolverine, I bet none of you would’ve
expected to see his wife Blake Lively steal the show by way of her new film
overshadowing his in this annual poll of ours. And yet, that’s exactly what
happened with the hotly anticipated adaptation of It Ends with Us, based
on the 2016 novel of the same name by author Colleen Hoover. In the film,
Lively stars as a woman named Lily Bloom who, during the opening of her new
flower shop in Boston, finds herself caught up in a love triangle with two
potential suitors. On one side, there’s her old boyfriend from high school
Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar) with whom she reunites for the first time in
years, and on the other, there’s neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni, who
also directed the film) who, despite him being the one who ends up marrying her
and having a child with her, is shown to have some disturbingly violent
tendencies that, unfortunately for Lily, end up being way too reminiscent of
the abuse her father inflicted upon her mother when she was younger. Given the
immense success of its source material, which has spent over 179 weeks on the New
York Times’ best-seller list, it’s not surprising to see that this film did
quite well at the box office, earning almost $350 million worldwide. Critically,
though, the film was a mixed bag as some critics felt that it wasn’t fully
successful in its handling of its intense subject matter. And if that wasn’t
enough, the film itself wound up getting overshadowed by a whole bunch of post-release
controversies.
For starters, there was all the criticism that Blake Lively
faced during the film’s promotional campaign for conveying an inappropriately
light-hearted attitude to the point of promoting some of her own products while
promoting a film with incredibly heavy themes. However, what is easily the
biggest story surrounding this film is all the reports of significant conflicts
between Lively and her director/co-star Justin Baldoni. Said reports have cited
various incidents that have instigated all this ranging from Baldoni
fat-shaming Lively, who had just given birth to her fourth child, while
preparing a scene where Ryle lifts Lily to Lively taking over control of the
film, bringing in one of Deadpool & Wolverine’s editors to supervise
her own cut of it (which, reportedly, is the version that ran in theaters), and
even having Ryan Reynolds re-write an entire sequence behind Baldoni’s back. This,
as a result, has notably left the future of the film series unclear given that the
novel did get a follow-up, It Starts with Us, in 2022. Specifically,
Justin Baldoni has gone on record stating that he has no plans on returning to
direct the potential follow-up, instead suggesting that this position goes to
Lively, who had made her directorial debut in 2021 with the music video for Taylor
Swift’s duet with Chris Stapleton “I Bet You Think About Me”. Heck, with all
this in mind, there’s a possibility that Baldoni might not even return to the
role of Ryle as well. But whatever ends up happening with a potential
adaptation of its literary sequel, it seems abundantly clear that fans of It
Ends with Us were largely satisfied by its film adaptation. Thus, following
in the footsteps of other popular adaptations such as 2017’s The Glass
Castle and 2022’s Where the Crawdads Sing, this film proved to be
one of the best-performing films in this year’s poll to the point where it
nearly took the top spot altogether.
BUT WITH THAT
SAID, THE TIME HAS FINALLY COME FOR US TO REVEAL THIS YEAR’S CHAMPION, AND…
UH… YES, THANK
YOU GRANDMASTER! YES, FOLKS, FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2016, WE HAVE A TIE FOR
FIRST AS 2 FILMS GARNERED 12 VOTES APIECE. THIS YEAR’S WINNERS CONSISTED OF A
FILM THAT WAS PRACTICALLY GUARANTEED TO BE ONE OF THIS YEAR’S FRONT-RUNNERS AND
ONE THAT GENUINELY TOOK YOURS TRULY BY SURPRISE AS AN UNEXPECTED SMASH HIT
AMONGST VOTERS. LET’S START THINGS OFF WITH THE ANTICIPATED FRONT-RUNNER, WHICH
MADE HISTORY AS THIS EVENT’S FIRST-EVER ANIMATED CHAMP!
INSIDE OUT 2
2015 saw the release of Pixar’s Inside Out, directed
by studio mainstay Pete Docter who previously helmed other Pixar hits such as
2001’s Monsters Inc. and 2009’s Up, the latter of which being only
the second animated film in history to garner a Best Picture nomination. Set in
a world where one’s mind is inhabited by personified emotions who guide their
daily lives, the film follows the five emotions of a young girl named Riley
(Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust) as they try to help her deal with all
the stress of moving to San Francisco. Upon its release, the film quickly
became one of Pixar’s biggest hits at that time, earning over $858 million
worldwide at the box office and taking home that year’s Oscar for Best Animated
Feature. Admittedly, much of the discourse surrounding the film at the time was
that it was seen as a much-needed ‘return to form’ for Pixar after the studio’s
last few films garnered a more polarizing reaction from critics (and, to an
extent, audiences) compared to the bulk of their long library of beloved
classics. But as someone who’s never subscribed to the internet’s intense
expectations for the studio to the point where they deem any Pixar film that
isn’t an outright masterpiece ‘forgettable’, I instead view it as simply
another prime example of a classic Grade-A Pixar film full of great animation,
fun characters, and strong writing that flawlessly tacked its deep themes. In
short, it’s easy to see why Inside Out became one of Pixar’s modern
classics.
Given all its success, many speculated about the film
getting a sequel, and in 2022, Pixar officially confirmed that it would be
taking another adventure with Riley’s emotions with Inside Out 2. This
time around, Pete Docter wasn’t the primary director given his newfound duties
as Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer; instead, directorial duties went to Kelsey
Mann, who had been working with the studio since 2009, directed a Monsters
University short film Party Central in 2013, and had been a part of
Pixar’s Senior Creative Team since at least 2021. Expanding upon Pete Docter’s
original plans to have more emotions than he was ultimately able to include in
the first film, Inside Out 2 sees Joy and company begin to deal with all
sorts of changes to their daily operations once Riley becomes a teenager. When
Riley heads off to a three-day summer camp in the hopes of joining her high
school’s hockey team, four new emotions arrive at Headquarters: Anxiety, Envy,
Ennui, and Embarrassment. To Joy’s frustration, Anxiety initiates an aggressive
takeover of their operation with the goal of ensuring the best possible future
for Riley even if her efforts to do so go against everything that has defined
Riley up to this point. Thus, when Anxiety forces Joy and the other original
emotions out of Headquarters, claiming that Riley doesn’t need them anymore,
the gang begins the long journey to get back and save Riley’s sense of self.
Now, admittedly, one could argue that this film somewhat
rehashes the same general plot thread of the first film where Joy AKA Riley’s
primary emotion is unwillingly forced out of Headquarters, thus leaving Riley
in a vulnerable emotional state at the worst possible time. Despite this,
however, the film makes up for this with all the terrific ways in which it
naturally expands upon the world of the first film, such as the concept of having
some of Riley’s core memories create her ‘Sense of Self’ that defines who she
is as a person, hence why Joy is so keen on keeping it guided by positive
feelings when Anxiety comes in and starts making Riley do things that go
against all that. On that note, with Riley’s growth into being a teenager, the
new emotions introduced in this film provide great new layers to the
franchise’s approach to the concept of one’s emotions, especially by way of the
most prominent new emotion, Anxiety. In short, while Anxiety is presented as an
antagonist-type figure to Joy and company, she’s not a traditional ‘villainous’
antagonist but rather a misguided soul who genuinely wants to keep Riley safe
while being wholly unaware of, as many of us know, just how much anxiety can wreck
someone in every possible way. As you might have guessed, this is how Inside
Out 2 manages to maintain the same level of powerful emotional poignancy as
its predecessor, all while providing us with Pixar’s trademark gorgeous
animation and terrific character moments. The new quartet of emotions prove to
be wonderful new additions to the cast while the decision to have all five of
the OG emotions sent out of Headquarters this time lets the trio of Anger,
Fear, and Disgust (who were largely left to their own devices in the first film
as they tried to keep Riley’s emotions under control with Joy and Sadness
absent) play a more prominent role in this film’s proceedings.
Earlier, I noted that the original Inside Out was seen by
many as a ‘return to form’ for Pixar, and in a way, Inside Out 2 is shaping up
to be seen as a similarly significant release for the studio albeit in a far
different context. In this instance, Inside
Out 2 is Pixar’s biggest critical
and commercial hit since 2019’s Toy
Story 4; just like that film, Inside Out 2 cruised its way into becoming a billion-dollar grosser and, thus,
currently stands as not only the highest-grossing film of the year so far but
is now also the highest-grossing animated film of all-time. This, of course, is
a big deal given how much Pixar struggled to cope with the effects of the
COVID-19 pandemic, which forced them to send some of their films to Disney+ as
streaming exclusives (despite some significant pushback from various Pixar
employees) while the first few films of theirs that were released in theaters post-COVID
underperformed financially. Now, yes, because this was a sequel to one of
Pixar’s most popular films of the 2010s rather than being one of their
original projects, it goes without saying that there wasn’t that much risk
involved with this one; in other words, it was practically guaranteed to be a
hit regardless of how it was received amongst critics and audiences. But to its
full credit, Inside Out 2 more than proves itself as a worthy
follow-up to its beloved predecessor and another terrific addition to Pixar’s
legendary filmography that reaffirms their status as one of the animation
industry’s top studios.
AND FINALLY, WE
COME TO THIS YEAR’S BIGGEST UNDERDOG, WHICH DEFIED ALL EXPECTATIONS TO STAND
ALONGSIDE INSIDE OUT 2 AS ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE FILMS OF THE SUMMER. I
GUESS YOU CAN SAY THAT, WHEN IT COMES TO HOW WELL THIS FILM DID IN THE POLL, IT
ULTIMATELY FOLLOWED ITS OWN ADVICE: “IF YOU FEEL IT, CHASE IT!!” …
TWISTERS
1996’s disaster blockbuster Twister, which follows a
group of storm chasers who seek to test a revolutionary tornado research device
by putting it directly into a tornado’s path, was the very definition of
a star-studded production. Its script was written by the creator of Jurassic
Park Michael Crichton (along with his then-wife Anne-Marie Martin), it was
produced by the director of Jurassic Park’s film adaptation, the one and
only Steven Spielberg, and his longtime producing partner Kathleen Kennedy, and
featured an all-star cast that included the likes of Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt,
and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Upon its release, the film proved to be a monster
hit at the box office, earning over $495 million worldwide and ending up as the
second-highest-grossing film of the year behind Independence Day. Critically,
the film was a bit more polarizing, with some feeling that it was a major case
of ‘style over substance’, but it did ultimately garner a few Oscar nominations
for its technical merits. In short, as someone who admittedly never saw it in
full until this year, I’ve seen both sides of the story when it comes to this
film’s reputation, with just as many people viewing it as nothing more than an
incredibly dumb popcorn flick as those who view it as a classic blockbuster of
its time that inspired many folks to get into the fields of meteorology and
storm chasing. Case in point, when Bill Paxton tragically passed away in 2017,
numerous storm chasers paid tribute to him by using their storm-chasing markers
to spell out his initials across parts of the Southern United States.
In 2020, plans began to form for a continuation of the
franchise, first starting as a reboot under the direction of Top Gun:
Maverick director Joseph Kosinski rather than a potential sequel directed
by the original film’s female lead Helen Hunt. By late 2022, the film would find
its director in Lee Isaac Chung, fresh off his critically acclaimed 2020
semi-autobiographical drama Minari, which was one of that year’s biggest
front-runners during awards season. And by this point, the film finally turned
into what it ultimately is; Twisters, a standalone sequel to the
original film that doesn’t attempt to directly tie itself to its predecessor
but is still clearly following in its footsteps. The film follows a young woman
named Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones), who hopes to develop a system that could
potentially reduce the intensity of a tornado to protect those who would end up
in its path. Unfortunately, her initial attempt at doing so ends up being a
massive disaster that tragically results in the deaths of several of her
friends. Five years later, Kate, now content with a quiet life as an NOAA analyst
in New York, is approached by her friend Javi (Anthony Ramos), the only other
survivor of their initial tornado ‘taming’ test, with the offer of joining his
team of meteorologists in testing out a new radar-based tornado scanning system
during a tornado outbreak in their home state of Oklahoma. Although initially
reluctant to do so, Kate agrees to help so that they can save those threatened
by the outbreak, and with the help of a maverick group of ‘Tornado Wranglers’
led by the charismatic Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), she might even be able to find
a way to improve her ‘tornado taming’ system.
Now when I say that Twisters isn’t your average ‘legacy
sequel’, this is an instance where that is a wholly accurate way of describing
this film. There aren’t any major cameos from the original film’s cast (thus
squashing the theory that Kate was going to be revealed to be the daughter of
the original film’s protagonists Bill and Jo Harding) and any references that
are made to the previous film solely come from minor visual details and a few
dialogue call-backs (e.g. a nod to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character Dusty’s
infamous proclamation of ‘The Suck Zone’). As a result, Twisters is
allowed to stand on its own as a highly effective modernized update of its
predecessor’s storm-chasing premise, and director Lee Isaac Chung does a great
job in capturing the same kind of kinetic thrills as the original Twister
thanks to some top-notch action set-pieces bolstered by a great mix of
practical and digital effects to capture the unparalleled terrifying potential
of one of Mother Nature’s most intimidating creations. And while, like the
original, there may not be much to say about this film from a narrative
standpoint with its basic plotting and character development, it’s still
carried by a great ensemble cast of likable protagonists headlined by the
ever-endearing Daisy Edgar Jones as the film’s wholly sympathetic female lead Kate
Carter and the effortlessly charismatic Glen Powell as the charming rogue Tyler
Owens. In conclusion, it’s easy to see why Twisters ended up being popular
enough to stand right alongside Inside Out 2 as the two biggest hits of
the year in our annual poll as it succeeds in being a good old-fashioned summer
blockbuster that provides audiences with some great visual spectacle.
And with that, we
finally come to the end of the road for this year’s edition of Rhode Island
Movie Corner’s Annual End of Summer Fan Poll. Once again, a huge thank you to
everyone who participated in this year’s event; whether you voted in it or
helped spread it around online, it’s thanks to you all that we’re able to do
this every year. As always, we look forward to seeing how it will all turn out next
time, with 2025’s summer season set to bring us a whole bunch of new and
exciting releases. Both Marvel and DC will be bringing out their big guns next year
as Marvel looks to deliver the first genuinely great adaptation of their most famous superhero family (along with a potential sleeper hit by way of the unlikeliest of superhero team-ups) while James Gunn relaunches DC’s cinematic universe with
his unique spin on the Man of Steel. Meanwhile, Tom Cruise will choose to accept his mission one last time, we’ll return to the world of genetically engineered dinosaurs, and cinematic icons such as M3GAN, Daniel LaRusso, Stitch,
and Hiccup and Toothless will be making their triumphant return to the big
screen. So, with that said, stay tuned to see who this event’s 11th* official
champion will be!
(*Technically 15th
given all the ties we’ve had, including this year…*)
