About three weeks ago, I initiated Rhode Island Movie Corner’s
second annual end-of-summer Fan Poll and asked you folks to vote for your
favorite film from this past Summer, just like I did last year around this same
time. With voting now closed, I once again have to thank all who voted, as it
resulted in yet another phenomenal and, compared to last year, much bigger
turnout this year. 47 votes went to, believe it or not, 20 different films from
the past four months of the year. This time around, however, it won’t be a similar
case like last year where three different films ended up tying for the most
votes. This year’s poll had one very (and
I mean very) obvious favorite as it garnered at
least twice the amount of votes than any other film that got a vote in this
poll. And let’s be honest, a lot of you probably already know what this film
is. But before we get to that, just like last year, I’ll be honoring every film
that earned a vote instead of doing a ‘Top 10’ as I originally planned to do the
first time I did this poll but never did. Because ultimately a lot of these films
ended up getting the same amount of votes. So without further ado, here are
your favorite films from the summer… as voted by you!!
11 FILMS EARNED 1 VOTE
ENTOURAGE
There are just some films that are ‘critic-proof’ and are
instead intended to be crowd pleasers. I know that may sound rather weird
coming from someone like me but it’s undoubtedly true and the film
adaptation/continuation of HBO’s hit series ‘Entourage’ is the prime example of
this. As I noted in my original review for the film, I’ve seen quite a lot of
heavy vitriol directed towards it and the show, leading up to and following the
film’s release. I presume it’s mostly due to the fact that the film, like the
show, is admittedly rather sexist given that it predominantly focuses on a cast
of male leads and most of the female characters are viewed as ‘sex objects’ and
not much more than that. While that’s definitely true when talking about the
show and the film, from what I hear this is just the way things are in real
life so don’t go criticizing them for simply reflecting how things really are
in Hollywood. Anyway, despite having not seen the show before when the first
trailer for the film debuted online, the trailer actually got me interested in
the show and when I got a free 1-month subscription to HBO Now, I primarily
utilized it to watch ‘Entourage’ and got through about 2 and a half seasons
worth of the show. While I’ve not yet had the chance to finish the show, I can
tell that this film is a much more fitting finale, if this really does end up
being the ‘finale’, than the show’s actual finale. And as far as the film is
concerned, it’s exactly like the show; a fun little farce featuring a fun cast
of leads that have great camaraderie with each other (highlighted by Jeremy
Piven as the always scene-stealing Ari Gold) and is definitely intended to be
viewed with a crowd or, in other words, your own entourage.
INSIDE OUT
After Pixar’s last three films failed to attract the same
critical acclaim as the studio’s previous efforts (though I will always defend
‘Monsters University’), the ‘pioneers of computer animation’ finally struck the
jackpot with both critics and audiences, something that some argue eluded them
for a few years, with their latest film, ‘Inside Out’. Directed by Pete Docter,
the man behind some of Pixar’s most beloved films like ‘Monsters Inc.’ and
‘Up’, ‘Inside Out’ is both visually beautiful in its design and emotionally
powerful in its writing. Featuring a unique story concept in which personified
emotions controlled the everyday actions of their human beings, ‘Inside Out’
features what could be arguably be Pixar’s most gorgeous animation yet, which
results in plenty of colorful and imaginative visuals. But of course ‘Inside
Out’ also maintains the mature writing that one can expect from Pixar, as it
tackles subjects and situations that we’ve all been through in one way or another,
whether it’s moving to a new neighborhood or being the new kid at school. I
guarantee you that you’ll get emotional at least once during this film and
because of it, ‘Inside Out’ is another Grade-A animated classic from the
Grade-A animation company that is Pixar.
TED 2
Well how about that, we go from the emotionally poignant
writing of Pixar to the scatological/crass humor of Seth MacFarlane. But I
don’t care because I really liked ‘Ted 2’. The first ‘Ted’ is one of my
favorite comedies of the past few years as it balanced its unique concept of a
teddy bear that came to life but ended up becoming a pot-smoking slacker with a
surprising amount of heart and solid performance from its leads, particularly
Mark Wahlberg and MacFarlane himself as the duo of John and Ted. And of course,
it was absolutely hilarious. Watching ‘Ted 2’, I realized that they, John and
Ted, are the main reason why these films are so funny. Whenever they’re not
on-screen, that’s when the jokes fail to hit. But when these two are on-screen
together, that’s where the film’s most hilarious moments occur. These two have
such great chemistry and while they both may be very immature, they’re still
surprisingly likable and it’s just fun to watch these two go off on all sorts
of adventures. Like last time, Mark Wahlberg deserves a lot of credit for being
able to work off of a character that’s basically only added in in
post-production. And while the film unfortunately loses Mila Kunis’ character
Lori, Amanda Seyfried is a solid replacement for Kunis as new female lead
Samantha L. Jackson. While I can’t say that ‘Ted 2’ is necessarily better than
the first film, it’s still a very fun comedy and it’s definitely one of my
favorite comedies from this surprisingly solid summer for the genre.
TERMINATOR: GENISYS
I liked this more than ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’… there, I said
it, come at me internet. I don’t care that this film basically got destroyed by
critics. I think that not only is it a very entertaining film but a worthy
successor to James Cameron’s first two ‘Terminator’ films. Hell, even James
Cameron himself supports this but clearly most film fans didn’t agree. It seems
that a lot of the vitriol towards the film stems from the decision to ‘reboot’
the timeline a la the J.J. Abrams ‘Star Trek’ films. But like those films, I
completely support this as I feel that it allows the filmmakers to take
interesting steps in telling a familiar story from a new angle, like putting
the relationship between Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese, and subsequently the
future conceiving of John Connor, into question and having Sarah, who’s still
my favorite action film heroine and is portrayed excellently here by Emilia
Clarke, being a badass warrior right from the get-go. There was also the
controversial twist in which John Connor was revealed to be the main villain of
the film, having been corrupted by Skynet and turned into a Terminator. Without
saying anything about the fact that this was revealed in the film’s second
trailer, I didn’t mind this twist at all because I liked that it gave Jason
Clarke, one of my favorite underrated actors, a more substantial role in the
film.
‘Terminator: Genisys’ proved to be a solid mix of action and
humor, especially during the scenes involving Sarah, ‘Pops’, and Kyle Reese…
and yes, I thought Jai Courtney was good in this too. And at the end of the
day, regardless of whether you liked this film or not, you cannot deny that one
of its biggest strengths is the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his most
iconic role to date; the T-800. I’m now fully convinced that one of the biggest
downfalls of ‘Terminator Salvation’ was the absence of Schwarzenegger, and no
I’m not counting the CGI Arnold during that film’s finale, and his return here
is much welcome. Even at 68 years old, he still kicks major ass. After all, as
he states in the film, ‘he’s old… not obsolete’. Contrary to popular opinion, I
really loved ‘Terminator: Genisys’ and I do think that director Alan Taylor at
least deserves credit for his near-perfect re-creation of classic scenes from
the first ‘Terminator’. I say ‘near-perfect’ because due to rights issues, they
couldn’t actually use the footage from the first film but they do come pretty
close here. In short, this film pays loving homage to James Cameron’s first two
films but manages to stand out on its own due to the bold move of ‘resetting’
the timeline. All in all, I had a lot of fun with this film and was actually
really invested in the story that most of the film’s critics referred to as
‘bad fanfiction’. I’m legitimately interested in seeing where the series will
go from here and while the film underperformed at the box office here in the
U.S., thankfully the film has done a lot better in the international market so
hopefully that means we’ll be seeing more of this franchise in the future.
MAGIC MIKE XXL
Like I’ve been saying a lot recently, you can never go wrong
with good old-fashioned ‘crowd-pleasers’ and it seems like ‘Magic Mike XXL’ was
one of those films. I think it’s safe to say that a lot of people were
surprised that 2012’s ‘Magic Mike’ was as successful as it was. I haven’t yet
seen the film but according to both critics and audiences, it was actually
pretty darn good. For a film that, on the surface, seemed to be nothing more
than a film about male strippers, ‘Magic Mike’, based on the real-life experiences
of star Channing Tatum, surprised audiences with its strong writing, direction,
and performances. As for the sequel, ‘Magic Mike XXL’, I’ve heard both positive
and negative things about it and admittedly I’ve probably heard more negative
reviews about it than I have heard positive ones. The most major complaint that
kept getting brought up in these negative reviews was that the writing just
wasn’t as good as it was in the first film. But despite that, it seems like
most audiences still liked it and while it didn’t do as well as the first
‘Magic Mike’ critically or commercially, it still did solid numbers at the box
office and fared decently enough with critics. So without having seen the film,
it seems to me that the film at least pleased its target audience and in my
book, that’s what ultimately matters the most.
ANT-MAN
I always like it when a film defies expectations, especially
nowadays given the increasingly cynical atmosphere of the internet. ‘Ant-Man’,
the final installment of Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was one of
those films that, for a while, was unable to catch a break when it came to
getting tons of flak on the internet. We all know what happened
behind-the-scenes on this film. Originally to be directed by Edgar Wright, who had
been working on the film ever since the early days of the MCU, Wright ended up
leaving the project in May of 2014 due to creative differences with Marvel,
which given recent events we can now pretty much officially attribute to the
studio’s ‘creative committee’, which was probably also responsible for starting
the common criticism that the studio allegedly restricts their director’s
‘visions’, which for the record I’ve never completely agreed with. Regardless,
despite the fact that Marvel Studios has continuously delivered quality
superhero films and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ proved that they could make great
films based around lesser-known characters, many predicted that ‘Ant-Man’ would
be the studio’s first major ‘failure’. Hopefully a lot of those people are now
eating their words…
After the truly epic affair that was ‘The Avengers: Age of
Ultron’, ‘Ant-Man’ was a nice change of pace as it was a considerably much more
scaled-down adventure by comparison. Even with this in mind, it still managed
to be another solid entry in this great franchise. Director Peyton Reed more
than proved to be an excellent replacement for Wright, whose presence was still
very much felt in the final product, and not in a bad way. The film gave us one
of the most unique superheroes we’ve seen to date in Ant-Man and his ability to
shrink down to the size of an ant resulted in some very unique visuals and
action sequences. Pair that with a charismatic performance by lead Paul Rudd,
an excellent ensemble cast (which you can always expect in MCU films), and the
humor and light-hearted atmosphere that has defined the MCU from the very
beginning and you will get an idea as to why I and many other people love these
films so much. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Marvel Studios has
yet to make a ‘bad’ film and ‘Ant-Man’ continues their solid streak of success.
Seriously, at this point, it is foolish to have any sort of doubt towards an
MCU film, regardless of what happens behind-the-scenes, like what happened with
this film when its original director left.
PAPER TOWNS
In last year’s end-of-summer Fan Vote, one of the three most
popular films from that summer, according to you folks, was ‘The Fault in Our
Stars’, based off of the book of the same name by John Green. This year Green
had another one of his books, ‘Paper Towns’, adapted to the big screen. And
while it wasn’t as popular in this year’s poll compared to ‘Fault in Our Stars’
last year, it still managed to earn at least one vote so it’s clear that these
films are still doing solidly with both critics and audiences. While I haven’t
read the book, the trailer actually did get my attention mostly because this
was where I learned what the film was actually about and that it was a
‘coming-of-age’ story. For those who haven’t seen it, it centers on a high
school senior named Quentin (Nat Wolff) who embarks on a road trip with his
friends to search for the ‘girl of his dreams’, his next-door neighbor Margo
(Cara Delevingne), when she goes missing. I didn’t see the film but according
to critics, it was, to quote the RT consensus, an ‘earnest, well-acted, and
thoughtful film’, even if it wasn’t exactly as deep compared to other films of
the genre. Regardless, while it didn’t do as well commercially as ‘The Fault in
Our Stars’, it’s clear that the film at least satisfied its target audience.
VACATION
Here’s yet another instance of me disagreeing with popular
opinion; I thought that the new ‘Vacation’ film was pretty darn funny. I may
not have grown up with the ‘Vacation’ franchise but in recent years I’ve
watched some of the older films and I really like both the original ‘Vacation’
from 1983 and the modern holiday classic, ‘Christmas Vacation’. While I don’t
know if I’d go as far and say that the new ‘Vacation’ is as good as those two
films, I still had a lot of fun watching it. Despite its obvious rehash of the
original film’s plot, which it even fully admits to doing in a few bits of meta
humor, this new film, to quote Rusty Griswold, did actually manage to ‘stand on
its own’. Obviously not all of the jokes hit but there were still some notable
laugh-out loud moments, like the scene in which the Griswolds go on a
disastrous rafting trip with a guide who had just broke up with his fiancé and
quite frankly the best scene in the entire film in which a full-on family brawl
occurs between the Griswolds and a rival family while at Walley World. All in
all, I feel that this new ‘Vacation’ was a worthy continuation of the
franchise, as it respected the original film while also doing its own thing,
instead of just being a full-on remake. It may not be my favorite comedy from
this year, but thanks to the solid-enough humor and its great cast, highlighted
by leads Ed Helms and Christina Applegate, it was a nice return trip onto ‘the
Holiday Road’.
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION
The ‘Mission Impossible’ series has only gotten better and
better as time has gone on, most recently culminating in the modern action
masterpiece that was Brad Bird’s ‘Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol’. This
time around, regular Tom Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie stepped in
to helm the fifth installment of the franchise, ‘Rogue Nation’. And overall,
McQuarrie does a very good job following in the footsteps of Bird. His direction
was solid and I really liked his method of setting up the action sequences,
effectively establishing a solid atmosphere. But at the end of the day, I still
feel that ‘Ghost Protocol’ is the better film, primarily because while I did
really like ‘Rogue Nation’, I was rather disappointed that the film backtracked
on one of the best elements of ‘Ghost Protocol’; the team dynamic. One of the
best things about that film was that it finally captured the one element of
‘Mission Impossible’ that had been sorely lacking in previous films and that
was the balancing of the main IMF group instead of just being centered on Ethan
Hunt. But as for ‘Rogue Nation’, two of the main characters, Brandt and Luther,
are mostly ignored for the first half of this film. Thankfully the film isn’t
all about Ethan and Brandt and Luther do end up rejoining him and Benji for the
second half of the film. But it’s still rather disappointing given that these
two are some of my favorite characters in the series, Brandt especially after
‘Ghost Protocol’.
But ultimately that’s just a minor setback to an excellent
action flick. It has the exact things that you’ve come to expect from the
‘Mission Impossible’ franchise, from the insane stunts (highlighted by the
iconic sequence in which Ethan Hunt hangs onto an airplane as it takes off) to
the fast pace. Despite the fact that some of the leads are ignored, they do
have an excellent camaraderie whenever they’re onscreen together. Simon Pegg
gets the most substantial role out of all of the returning leads as Benji, who
spends most of the film alongside Ethan and may just be my new favorite
character from the series. But the biggest standout is newcomer Rebecca
Ferguson as Ilsa Faust AKA the ‘female Ethan Hunt’. Ferguson more than holds
her own against Cruise, especially in the action sequences, resulting in one of
the best breakout performances of the year so far. And for a series that has
been known for having some really mediocre villains, Sean Harris’ Solomon Lane
does manage to be a pretty darn memorable villain, especially when compared to
the forgettable villain of ‘Ghost Protocol’, Hendricks. So while I can’t say
that ‘Rogue Nation’ is the absolute best film in the ‘Mission Impossible’
franchise, it’s still one of the series’ absolute best installments so far and
continues the series’ amazing run in the wake of the incredibly disappointing
‘Mission Impossible II’.
THE MAN FROM UNCLE
Speaking of spy films, this year has been a stand-out year
for the genre. Aside from ‘Mission Impossible’, we also got the incredibly over-the-top
but highly entertaining ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ and the hilarious comedy
‘Spy’. Of course we will also be getting the next James Bond film, ‘Spectre’,
in a few months but there was another spy film this year that didn’t really get
as much attention as those other films. That film was Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Man
from U.N.C.L.E.’, an adaptation of the popular 60’s TV series of the same name.
As I stated in my original review for the film, it doesn’t exactly have the
same amount of depth as something like ‘Mission Impossible’ or ‘Kingsman’. It is
definitely a case of ‘style over substance’ as the main characters don’t really
get a lot of character development outside of simple attributes and plotlines.
Despite that, the film definitely does benefit from its strong visual style. As
a director, Guy Ritchie has quite the knack for visuals and that is definitely
evident in this film, from the fun action sequences to the pitch-perfect
production design harkening back to the old-school days of the genre. Whereas
‘Kingsman’ embraced the campier atmosphere and plots of those films, ‘UNCLE’
was more a tribute to the glamour of those films and it definitely delivers in
that regard. And to top it all off, the film benefitted from strong
performances from its main trio of leads; Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, and Alicia
Vikander. So if you’re just looking for a good old-fashioned spy film, I have
the feeling that you’ll enjoy this film. Overall, I thought that it was solidly
entertaining though ultimately I can’t really say that it was the best of its
genre in terms of the spy films that have been released so far this year.
THE END OF THE TOUR
As I stated in my intro post to this year’s poll, I didn’t
include every single film that came out this summer in the list of options just
so that I wouldn’t overwhelm you folks with so many choices. So if your
favorite film wasn’t amongst those featured, you just had to list it in the
‘write-in’ section. And from that category, the one major pick was ‘The End of
the Tour’, directed by James Ponsoldt, who had another critically acclaimed
summer release two years ago with ‘The Spectacular Now’. As for his newest
film, it tells the story of the five-day interview/road-trip between Rolling
Stone writer David Lipsky and novelist David Foster Wallace, played by Jesse
Eisenberg and Jason Segel respectively, in 1996 following the release of
Wallace’s novel ‘Infinite Jest’. Lipsky wrote about his experience with Wallace
in his 2010 book ‘Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip
with David Foster Wallace’, two years after Wallace committed suicide in 2008.
Critics have praised the film for its performances and for its emotional
poignancy and it seems like this could potentially attract some attention come
awards season.
3 FILMS EARNED 2 VOTES
PITCH PERFECT 2
When it was released back in September 2012, the first
‘Pitch Perfect’ was an unexpected smash hit both critically and commercially
and it attracted a major cult following. So as a result, the Barden Bellas
returned this summer, this time under the direction of co-star/producer
Elizabeth Banks, for the highly anticipated sequel, ‘Pitch Perfect 2’. Now for
the record, I wasn’t really a big fan of the first film the first time I saw it
but ultimately this was only due to ‘how’ I first watched it… that and perhaps
a ‘I didn’t want to watch it’ mentality that, for the record, is a mentality
that I never follow anymore when it comes to films. I was on a school trip with
my high school’s music program and a couple of us brought some films to watch
on the bus. The first film that was played was ‘Pitch Perfect’ but the volume
on the bus’s DVD player was cranked up really loud and, to put it bluntly, it
aggravated me. In other words, it wasn’t exactly the best way to watch a film
like this. But I did recently re-watch it and I will admit that I actually have
warmed up to it. No it’s not necessarily my thing (even though I was a member
of my high school’s chamber choir so I do have ‘something’ in common with the
characters in this film) and I wasn’t a big fan of the film’s overt use of sexual
and gross-out humor but it is a fairly pleasant film with an enthusiastic cast
and plenty of great musical performances. While I haven’t seen the sequel yet,
I’ve heard that it’s basically the same as the first film in terms of its plot
but is still just as fun and energetic as its predecessor. Whereas the first
film was a surprise hit, ‘Pitch Perfect 2’ was a guaranteed success for
Universal and it seems like it was a definite crowd-pleaser.
INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ll know
that I’m not a big fan of horror films. They’re just not my thing. A lot of
people, on the other hand, are horror film fans and taking the spot of the
favorite ‘horror’ film from this summer, according to you, was ‘Insidious:
Chapter 3’. The ‘Insidious’ series has been pretty successful with audiences.
Almost every film in the series has grossed around $100 million at the box
office and have fared decently with critics, save for the second film. This
time around, series’ writer Leigh Whannell takes over for James Wan as director
and the film is ultimately a prequel to the first two films, centering on the
psychic Elise (Lin Shaye) as she tries to help a family deal with demons
following the death of the mother. According to critics, the film wasn’t
exactly as ‘scary’ as the first film but it did manage to stand out on its own
due to its surprising amount of thematic depth. Will this lead to another film?
We’ll have to wait and see about that but for now, ‘Insidious: Chapter 3’ at
least seems like the most well-liked horror film of the summer, especially when
compared to other horror films that came out this summer like the remake of
‘Poltergeist’ and ‘The Gallows’.
SOUTHPAW
Basically the general consensus towards Antoine Fuqua’s
‘Southpaw’ is that while the film is a rather by-the-numbers affair, its
biggest saving grace is Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead role of boxer Billy Hope,
who looks to resurrect his boxing career following the death of his wife
(Rachel McAdams) when he ends up losing custody of his daughter as a result of
his new reckless behavior. Gyllenhaal has enjoyed quite a lot of critical
success in recent years and many film fans feel that he’s been long overdue for
an Oscar, and they have been especially vocal about it these last two years
after his performances in films like ‘Prisoners’ and ‘Nightcrawler’. Obviously
he didn’t get nominated for either of those films and time will only tell if he
gets any attention this awards season for his performance here. But above all,
according to most critics, Gyllenhaal is the best thing to come out of this
generally standard boxing film.
AND VICE VERSA… 2 FILMS EARNED 3 VOTES
TOMORROWLAND
It makes me really happy to see that ‘Tomorrowland’ did get
some attention in this poll. To me there was no greater film sin this year than
seeing a film like ‘Tomorrowland’ be a major box-office-bomb. Despite being an
original story, something that I know that most film snobs were clamoring for
in this current age of sequels and reboots, ‘Tomorrowland’ ultimately got
ignored in favor of a film that was the fourth entry in its franchise. So yeah,
kind of a major case of hypocrisy here, though I guess you can say the film’s
polarizing critical reception was another factor in its underperformance. But
unlike most critics, and the majority of the internet for that matter, I won’t
let this film ‘die’. It’s an inspiring and imaginative sci-fi story that above
all promotes two things that have been ignored in today’s cynical society; hope
and the possibility of a bright future. Under the brilliant direction of Brad
Bird, something that you can always expect from his films, ‘Tomorrowland’ is a
very fun and light-hearted sci-fi film that pays tribute to the vision of Walt
Disney that inspired this film and is very well-acted by all involved,
especially female leads Britt Robertson and Raffey Cassidy as Casey and Athena,
respectively, my two favorite film heroines from this year so far. It will
always sadden me that this film did poorly at the box office this summer but
hopefully just like another Brad Bird film, ‘The Iron Giant’, it will gain the
attention that it deserves in the years to come.
AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON
Earth’s Mightiest Heroes delivered yet another exciting
superhero epic with the follow-up to the 2012 superhero masterpiece ‘The
Avengers’, ‘The Avengers: Age of Ultron’. Upping the scale and stakes from the
first film, ‘Age of Ultron’ was a much grander, and in some cases a little more
serious, affair than its predecessor but it still delivered on exactly what
we’ve come to expect from the Marvel Cinematic Universe; a great team dynamic,
plenty of funny dialogue, and awesome action sequences/visuals. Ultron, played
by the badass James Spader, is another highly memorable MCU villain a la Loki
who’s surprisingly much more humorous than I think we were all expecting. At
the end of the day, I don’t necessarily think it’s ‘better’ than the first film
but I don’t hold that against the film at all. Some critics feel that the film
is rather overcrowded and while I’ll concur that the film does have a lot of
characters in it, I don’t think it’s that big of an issue because of the fact
that the MCU took its time prior to this film to establish its characters in
other films instead of just throwing them all into one film at once (*cough*
Batman v. Superman *cough*).
And as for all of the controversy surrounding Black Widow,
first off in regards to the lack of Black Widow merchandise we can pretty much
blame that on Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter, who Kevin Feige thankfully doesn’t
have to deal with anymore when it comes to the MCU films. But as for her role
in the film and her growing relationship with Bruce Banner, I think all of the
flak this has been getting is, to be perfectly frank, rather ridiculous and
overblown. Their relationship was actually sort of set up in the first
‘Avengers’ given all of the scenes between the two so it’s not like this ‘comes
out of nowhere’ as a lot of critics are claiming it is. Not only that, but I
also think that it’s perfectly fine for a character like Black Widow to yearn
for a normal life like Hawkeye, who gets a much deserved bigger role in this
film than in the first ‘Avengers’. So in short, I truly believe that ‘Age of
Ultron’ is far better than its current critical reception paints it out to be.
It only has a 74% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and I really think it deserved a
much higher score. Obviously I’m a little biased because I’m a huge fan of the
MCU but ‘Age of Ultron’ truly is another great and highly entertaining installment
of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
1 FILM EARNED FOUR VOTES
JURASSIC WORLD
Sorry to those who didn’t like this film, but ‘Jurassic
World’, the highest grossing film of the year and one that has set numerous
box-office records (including the honor of having the biggest domestic opening
weekend in history, topping 2012’s ‘The Avengers’), was one of the most popular
films in this poll and I’m right there with those who loved this film. It’s a
highly entertaining summer blockbuster that may not have been ‘as good’ as the
original ‘Jurassic Park’ but still managed to be a more-than-worthy follow-up
to that film. Obviously, it didn’t fare well with everyone. The film’s biggest
critics gave it crap for things like the CGI and the writing, hence why a lot
of people have been too overly critical of director Colin Trevorrow being hired
to direct ‘Star Wars: Episode IX’ despite the fact that his direction for
‘Jurassic World’ was actually pretty damn good. It even resulted in one of the
stupidest controversies in recent memory (and given the internet, that’s saying
a lot) over the decision to have Bryce Dallas Howard’s character Claire wear
heels throughout the entirety of the film. Seriously internet, you’re getting
worked up over frigging footwear. If anything, I think she actually deserves a
lot of credit for managing to do a lot of the things she does in this film
while wearing heels, including running away from a frigging T-Rex. That makes
her a badass in my book.
Yes I will concur that this isn’t exactly a
‘smartly-written’ film and it shares some of the franchise’s weaknesses when it
comes to the writing, particularly the characters. As is typical with this
franchise, there are some very underdeveloped characters, like Vincent
D’Onofrio’s Hoskins, who is meant to be the main human villain due to his
scheme to use some of the dinosaurs as weapons but never actually does anything
‘villainous’, which was disappointing after D’Onofrio’s amazing turn as Wilson
Fisk in ‘Daredevil’. But I’d argue that the four main characters; Owen, Claire,
and Brothers Zach and Grey were all pretty solid leads and Chris Pratt, Bryce
Dallas Howard, Nick Robinson, and Ty Simpkins were all excellent in their
respective role. And overall, this film is just fun, which seems to be
something that’s becoming lost amongst some film fans who were expecting just a
bit too much from this film. I had a lot of fun watching it and clearly a lot
of other people really enjoyed it too. This was the true definition of a
‘motion picture event’ that not only respectfully pays tribute to its
predecessor, an equally big ‘motion picture event’, and it definitely earned
all of the prestige and financial success that it has achieved.
TWO FILMS EARNED 5 VOTES
TRAINWRECK
The clear winner of this poll for your favorite comedy from
this summer was the Judd Apatow-Amy Schumer collaboration ‘Trainwreck’. It’s
very fitting because after all, Amy Schumer has been on fire recently with her
show ‘Inside Amy Schumer’ on Comedy Central and for her first major leading
role in a film, she teamed up with legendary comedy director Judd Apatow and
wrote the script for it as well. In it, she plays a woman who constantly breaks
off her romantic relationships for fear of commitment, after her father once
told her that ‘monogamy isn’t realistic’. But when she meets a sports doctor
(Bill Hader), their relationship starts getting more serious than what she
usually deals with. The film features an impressive ensemble cast, including an
unrecognizable Tilda Swinton, Brie Larson, and even John Cena and LeBron James,
the latter of whom many have said was actually was one of the film’s biggest
standouts. All in all, critics have noted that the film, and especially Schumer
herself, were both hilarious and some even stated that the film broke new
ground for the genre. Needless to say, this film effectively established
Schumer as one of the biggest comedic talents in the world right now and her
star will stay shining for quite some time.
STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON
With all of the police brutality related incidents in this
country over the past few months, a film like ‘Straight Outta Compton’ is a
very timely release. It is the biopic of ‘the most dangerous group in the
world’, N.W.A., a bunch of kids from the streets of Compton who boldly stood up
against all of this with their music that was inspired by their life
experiences in the rough California neighborhood. Under the direction of F.
Gary Gray, ‘Straight Outta Compton’ is an emotionally driven and energetic look
into the history of one of the most famous, and in a lot of cases infamous,
musical groups of all time. The history of N.W.A. is expansive enough to cover
a whole trilogy and while ultimately a lot of events are ignored in this single
two and a half hour film, it does get across most of the essential beats of
N.W.A.’s history, including their formation, Ice Cube and Dr. Dre’s departures
to pursue solo careers, and the death of Eazy-E. And despite being a film
produced by Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, the film actually doesn’t feel like it’s
‘over-glorifying’ the main characters. Top it all off with a great trio of
leads in Ice Cube’s own son O’Shea Jackson Jr., Corey Hawkins, and Jason
Mitchell and you’ve got one heck of a powerful musical biopic that legitimately
elicits quite the emotional response from you in certain scenes.
AND YOUR PICK FOR THE FAVORITE FILM OF THE SUMMER… WITH A WHOPPING 10
VOTES
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
Are you really surprised? After all, this has been one of
the most critically acclaimed films in recent memory. Pretty much everywhere
you go, both critics and audiences have been over the moon in their praises of
this film. While there have been plenty of highly acclaimed summer releases
over the years, ‘Fury Road’ is another beast entirely. It’s pretty much a rarity
to see anyone not be completely in love with this film… well, if you’ve been
following this blog you know that I’m one of those people. I’ve said it before
and I’ll say it again; I think this film is pretty damn overrated and in my
opinion it’s only getting more and more overrated every time I hear it being
brought up. I seriously just don’t see why this film is being regarded as if it
was the second coming of Christ. Again, like I’ve said before, I don’t think
it’s a ‘bad’ film. The action sequences, production design, and Charlize Theron
and Nicholas Hoult are all excellent. But the film severely lacks in story and
character development for any character not named Furiosa or Nux. I understand
that the filmmakers truly did intended to have a very simple plot but then
again it’s a very simple plot; it’s just one long chase through the desert and
nothing more than that. Not only that, but for a film titled ‘Mad Max’, Tom
Hardy is severely underused in the role of Max. For the record, the film isn’t
actually focused on him as Furiosa is the true main character of the film.
Still, you could’ve taken Max out of the story altogether and it wouldn’t have
seriously made that much of a difference.
As I’ve noted already, this is by no means a ‘bad’ film. It’s
just that I’m getting really sick of hearing about it all the damn time. It’s
also actually starting to kind of piss me off because almost everyone I’ve seen
online has been negatively comparing other films that came out this year to it,
like ‘Avengers’ and ‘Jurassic World’. Well sorry folks but at the end of the
day I still prefer all of those films to ‘Mad Max’. But you know something? I
think I know why this film became as ‘legendary’ as it did. Because it didn’t
succumb to a lot of modern practices that a lot of hardcore film fans are sick
of, like the overuse of CGI and overly-complicated plots, those film fans were,
as a result, much more vocal in terms of how much they loved the film because
they’ve been actively craving a film where a lot of the action was done practically
and not just completely done with CGI. But at the end of the day, I’m not that ‘hardcore’
when it comes to this kind of stuff and it doesn’t change my mind about this
film whatsoever. If you’re one of the many, MANY people who loved this film,
then the more power to you. As for me, I just never got into the hype
surrounding this film, before and after its release. But many people did, hence
why it was clearly your favorite film from the summer of 2015.
So those were your favorite films this past summer? Didn’t vote
in the poll or see your favorite film in this post? Be sure to sound off in the
comments below.
