Having an entire summer off from work has allowed me to spend a lot of time within the confined air conditioned solace of a movie theatre taking in the newest hollywood blockbusters. All in all I took in 20 movies over the course of the past two months and I thought it would be fun to rank them all and rate them all on a four star scale as well. lets get to it. I am also including the rotten tomatoes score of each movie to see how my opinion lines up with others. Rotten tomatoes is a very popular website that uses a formula based on critics and general public reviews of movies to assign a movie a score on a 1-100 scale. Any movie with a rotten tomato score below 60 is considered a bad movie or "rotten" with the lower the number the worse the movie. 60-69 is considered average and 70 and above is considered a good movie or "fresh." An 80 or above is considered exceptionally good and 90 and above is considered great.
20. Baywatch (0.5 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score: 19 - This movie adaption of the famous comedy action show features Zac Efron and Dwayne Johnson. It was an awful year for comedies as we will see. After five straight summers with classic hilarious comedy movies (Hangover in 2010, Horrible Bosses 2011, 21 Jump Street 2012, This is the End 2013, and 22 Jump Street 2014) nothing good has come out comedy wise since. This movie clearly tried to rip off of the 21 jump street formula by combining action and comedy but failed spectacularly. It only earns half a star because Dwayne Johnson saved the movie from being completely unwatchable.
19. Power Rangers (1 Star) Rotten Tomato Score: 45- This movie really makes you appreciate how well done the superhero movies by Marvel and even DC are. Power Rangers tries to be a superhero movie in the same vein but lacks all the qualities that makes Marvel movies so good. The humans behind the heroes are not very likeable, the villain is hilariously generic, and the battle scenes are much lower quality. This movie also takes the "origin story" part of a movie to the extreme as we dont see them become Power Rangers for the first time until 90 minutes into the movie. Luckily I didn't have to pay to see this one.
18. Wish Upon (1 Star) Rotten Tomato Score: 18 - This movie tries so hard to be Final Destination yet it completely lacks the zany campiness that makes the Final Destination movies so much fun to watch. Instead this movie tries to play it straight and just be scary, and what ensues is a boring wholly predictable generic horror movie.
17. The House (1.5 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score: 18: Another failed comedy, this one with a promising premise and a solid cast, that failed to execute. When two parents (Will Farrell, Amy Poehler) realize they cant pay for their daughters college tuition, they create an illegal casino in their basement to make money. The first half hour is pretty funny and sets up a promising movie, then it falls apart and the laughs dwindle as the movie goes on.
16. The Mummy (1.5 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score-15: The big disappointment of the summer. When I heard of Universal rebooting their classic monsters I was excited about the idea but this first installment fell completely flat on its face. I really wish they would have went straight horror with this but instead Universal decided to go more in the direction of an action movie, without any of the fun energy that made Brendan Frasers 1999 Mummy movie a good movie. Not only that but the forced humor that is wedged into the script sucks any momentum out of the movie. Humor is not Tom Cruises forte. There were some flashed of a good movie, anytime horror comes to the forefront the movie shines for a few moments, but it's never able to get any momentum going and in the end adds up to a flop.
15. 47 Meters Down (2 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score-54: After the success of "The Shallows" last year we were graced with another shark attack movie this summer that is not as good as the Shallows. I'm not once that says a good scary movie needs to have a lot of blood and guts but when you see a shark movie you expect, well, shark attacks, and this movie comes woefully short with only one on screen death. On the positive side there is plenty of tension built up but you never get the feeling that it paid off and the ending leaves something to be desired. nonetheless, two stars does not mean it was a bad movie, just an average one.
14. Cars 3 (2 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score-67 : Funny enough, the last Pixar movie I saw in theatres was the first Cars movie 11 years ago. Since then Pixar has released a lot of great movies, but this wasnt one of them. Truth is everyone knows Cars is by far the weakest Pixar franchise, including Pixar, but they keep trotting out movies for it because of the merchandise money they make when they do from 5-12 year old boys. This movie had an interesting idea that went nowhere at the end of the day, including a climax/resolution that has to go down as the most groan inducing and uninteresting of any pixar has ever done, especially when compared to the emotionally poignant and complex climaxes of classic Pixar. Still, the movie was visually beautiful, and there were a few great scenes that kept me at least moderately engaged throughout the movie.
13. Pirates of the Carribean-Dead Men Tell No Tales (2.5 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score-29: This is the 5th PoTC movie, but I completely missed the last two and hadn't seen a Pirates movie in 11 years. I enjoyed this movie way more than I ever expected to. The first two Pirates movies are classics but ever since then the Franchise has trotted out medicore movies. Captain Jack Sparrow, one of the most iconic movie characters of my generation has outlived his welcome and is now annoying and actually to me one of the weaker characters in this movie. There is also a "twist" in this movie that is out outlandish it actually made me laugh rather than draw an emotional response like it was supposed to. Still, I remembered watching this movie why I loved the Pirates movies as a kid. Despite the glaring flaws, they are just pure fun to watch, and this one was no different. The action sequences were great and the villain was riveting to watch, by far the highlight of the film.
12. Despicable Me 3 (2.5 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score-61: The 3rd Despicable Me three has a lot of flaws, but it has just enough going for it to make it an enjoyable enough watch. Many of the subplots went nowhere, and even the main plot was paper thin, but the villain was the highlight and saved the movie, and the movie moved along at a nice pace. Also the minions were really thrown on the back burner for this movie, at one point there's about 25 whole minutes where we don't see a single one. The rotten tomato score shows this movie just barely straddles the line of being an average movie, and I think I agree.
11. Captain Underpants: The Epic First Movie (2.5 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score-85: In my middle school years Captain Underpants was just as much a Hollywood Staple as Harry Potter and Goosebumps. Still, when I found out a movie was coming, I groaned. It just doesnt seem like the type of book that would lend itself to making a good movie. I was wrong. Judging by its rotten tomato score, the average person liked it even better than I did, and I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would as well. Never in a million years did I think this would be better than Cars 3 or Despicable Me 3 but here we are. Definitely the surprise hit of the summer.
10. Beauty and the Beast (2.5 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score-71: The old saying goes: If at first you don't succeed, try again. Disney flipped that to mean "If at first you do succeed, do it the exact same way again." Disney's live action remake of a classic is another one I ejoyed way more than I expected. Its basically a line for line remake of the animated tale with a few extra scenes thrown it that add nothing to the plot but are there to make it a little different. What made me enjoy it was the songs providing that touch of nostalgia of a childhood classic and the stunning visuals and special effects that I was not expecting. With this movie being a box office smash, expect more live action remakes of Disney classic in the future. There is already plans for a Lion King remake next summer.
9. Girls Trip (2.5 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score-87: So the end of summer finally delivered on the comedy front. After the disasters that were Baywatch and The House Girls Trip came through with a very funny movie. The high Rotten Tomato score and rave reviews led me to believe this movie was way better than it actually ended up being though. there were certainly some hilarious moments, but not as funny as some made it out to be. The ending was very good though, and it was a breath of fresh air on the comedy front after so many misfires.
8. The Dark Tower (2.5 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score-16: This movie is getting completely slammed by critics, as evidenced by its Rotten Tomato score, and Im not really sure why. Based off the Stephen King series, this movie is not without its problems, quite a few actually. The pacing is weird, there is a lot of mythology and confusing plot threads that are never fully explained and go nowhere, and at 95 minutes it does kind of fell rushed and sloppily put together. Yet this movie is still a hell of a lot better than many are giving it credit for. I thoroughly enjoyed it, flaws and all.
7. Wonder Woman (3 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score-92: The suprise hit, nobody thought a Wonder Woman solo movie could work and it defied the odds and made more money then Spider-Man Homecoming and Guardians of the Galaxy 2. In fact, it made more money than any movie on this list except for Beauty and the Beast. It was definitely a strong movie, another I enjoyed way more than I expected. The first 1.5 hours are great but I felt it stumbled to the finish a little bit. Still another strong superhero movie in maybe the best year for superhero movies ever.
6. War for the Planet of the Apes (3 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score-95: The ending to a trilogy where the first two movies were both amazing made this my second most anticipated movie of the summer. In that regard it let me down a little bit, but was still very good. The first two movies of this trilogy were better in my opinion, and considering this movie was supposed to be the culmination of what the last two movies did a superb job building up, it didn't perfectly stick the landing. Caeaser to me is one of the greatest movie characters over the past fifteen years and considering hes a CGI monkey thats a pretty extraordinary feat the writers pulled off. The emotional weight the movie carries lives up to whats its supposed to be, and the message the movie sends is not one that should be blown off or taken lightly. Even though I liked the first two better, its incredibly rare where you can say all three movies in a trilogy are very strong movies, and this trilogy can put itself in that rare category.
5. Baby Driver (3 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score-94: This had been hyped as the surprise hit of the summer and it did not disappoint. It's not hard to see why so many people have fallen head over heels for this movie. Its basically a Fast and Furious movie except with complex characters, a coherent and well thought out plot, and one of the best soundtracks for a movie ever. I was so ready to put this thrilling, adrenaline rush movie in my top three, but then the ending fell a little flat for me. Still one of the best movies of the summer, pretty impressive for a movie I had never heard of until a week before it came out.
4. Dunkirk (3.5 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score-92: This was a movie I had seen trailers for but had no intention on seeing, as war movies aren't really up my alley. Then the overhwelmingly positive reviews came in and I just had to see what the fuss was about. This movie is as intense and relentless a movie experience as you can find. It has you on the edge of your seat from start to finish, never letting up, and leaving you exhausted by the end of it. This movie has already been thrown around as a Best picture nominee and its not hard to see why, its a remarkable work of art rarely seen in movies these days. My negative is that this is a movie that shines on a big screen, as the goal is to make you feel like you are really there, but I am not sure how well it will hold up when viewed on a smaller TV screen. The fact that a movie this good is number four shows how incredible a year for summer movies this was.
3. Kong: Skull Island (3.5 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score-76: Although 76 is still a good rotten tomato score, it suggests that I loved this movie way more than the average person, because I thought this movie was phenomenal. There was some nice comedic touches, incredible actions sequences, and Kong himself looked incredible on the big screen. Add to that an awesome soundtrack, a recurring theme for this years top five movies, and this movie had my heart. There's not much to talk about plot wise, its a classic monster movie, the plot is kinda thin and the characters one dimensional. This movie knows what it is, a monster movie, and it does that incredibly well. Walking out of this movie I though there was only one movie that could maybe top it this ummer, but there was a big surprise heading my way.
2. Spiderman: Homecoming (3.5 stars) Rotten Tomato Score-93: This was always going to be my favorite movie this summer, or so I thought. Spider-man is hands down my favorite superhero, Tom Holland fits the role perfect, another killer soundtrack, and now Spidey fits snugly into the MCU. The best MCU character Tony Stark even makes an appearance or two. How could this movie not be awesome? It lived up to my expectations, but it could not topple a movie that stole my heart this summer, a movie that totally shocked me with how much I loved it.
1. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (4 Stars) Rotten Tomato Score-81: This was the second movie I saw this summer after Kong. As late at 90 minutes into watching it I thought to myself "this is really good, but I still think I liked Kong better." Then the last 45 minutes of the movie happened. Some of the most incredible 45 minutes of cinema I ever witnessed in my life and I am not exaggerating. The way the last 45 minute mixed incredible action sequences while still sprinkling in some comedy throughout, then packs an emotional punch at the end is incredible. When trying to figure out why I love this movie so much I came to two real conclusions. 1. The Music: Adds an element to this movie you just dont see in movies these days. The music is almost like a character in itself, but the real reason this movie is a masterpiece to me is the character of Yondu. His character arc in this movie is perfect, from potential villain to the end where he sacrifices his life for his adopted son, redeeming his prior faults. He also has one of the single most incredible scenes in a superhero movie ever in this movie, the scene where he, groot, and raccoon break out of the ship killing everyone in their path with Yondus arrow set to an awesome song. Its badass in every sense of the word, my favorite scene in one of my favorite movies.
Overall this summer movie season was awesome. Those top 7 movies on this list are all "A" movies. Even 8-13 are movies I wouldnt mind watching again.
