*Previews of these movies and all the ones I haven't had a chance to see yet can be found here.
Deliver Us From Evil: NY police officer Ralph Sarchie investigates a series of crimes. He joins forces with an unconventional priest, schooled in the rituals of exorcism, to combat the possessions that are terrorizing their city.
Opening Weekend: $9.7 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 30%
Review: With a terrifying trailer and a writer/director with bona-fide horror credentials (Scott Derrickson [Sinister, The Exorcism of Emily Rose]), there was a lot of hype for Deliver Us From Evil preceding its release. While it was a decent horror movie that added an element of investigative mystery to the tropes of typical thrillers, it was a film that at the end of the day fell into expected clichés. Eric Bana (Munich) and Édgar Ramírez make a good co-starring pair and the story is engaging enough, but by the end Deliver Us From Evil looks like any other possession movie. Too bad; it looked so unique.
The Final Word: 2/4 - Wait to rent it.
Opening Weekend: $21.6 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 23%
Review: The new film from Melissa McCarthy may be the biggest mystery of the summer. That is not to say Tammy is some sort of detective drama - it's not - but it's rather a question about the nature of the film's very existence. Following the success of other McCarthy movies (Bridesmaids, Identity Thief, The Heat), the rising actress pretty much had a blank check from Hollywood to do what she wanted. This was her opportunity to display her range; to show us what more she can do as a comedian and as an actress. The result, co-written by McCarthy with her freshman-director husband Ben Falcone, instead has McCarthy doing more of the same as a nearly identical character as her other films. Why McCarthy would choose to reinforce the typecast developing around her is beyond me. We've seen glimpses of a better actress in her other roles, but in Tammy, a film with almost zero plot, we see no glimmer of growth, just a retread of old jokes.
The Final Word: 1/4 - Maybe catch it on tv if you're bored.
Begin Again: A chance encounter between a disgraced music-business executive (Mark Ruffalo) and a young singer-songwriter (Keira Knightley) new to Manhattan turns into a promising collaboration between the two talents.
Opening Weekend: $2.8 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 82%
Review: From the writer/director of Once, the critically acclaimed 2006 musical about young song-makers, Begin Again has John Carney once again (did you catch that?) warming our hearts as we tap our feet along to this delightful film. The movie is not exactly a revelation of plot, but it's well constructed and provides a fresh-feeling, engaging medium for a showcasing of both spry performances from Knightley (Pride & Prejudice) and Ruffalo (The Kids Are Alright) and spirited musical performances from Maroon 5's Adam Levine and especially from Knightley, providing her own surprisingly talented vocals. And the soundtrack, holy expletive, you will want to download the soundtrack; as a well-dressed Mr. Zimmer always used to say, I guarantee it. Overall, it's not the strongest story ever written, but the characters and music are supposed to be the stars anyways and Carney ensures both shine bright enough to make Begin Again one of the best films of the year.
The Final Word: 4/4 - Go buy a ticket, the soundtrack, and the DVD.
Boyhood: The life of a young man, Mason, and his family, filmed over a period of 12 years by director Richard Linklater.
Opening Weekend: $2.1 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 99% (that's 179 "fresh" reviews & 2 "rotten")
Review: Writer/director Richard Linklater boasts one of the most fascinating filmographies in Hollywood. Linklater and actor Ethan Hawke previously made the Before trilogy, a dramatic series which updates on a couple's romance once a decade (in 1995, 2004, & 2013). Somewhere in making that phenomenal cinematic experiment, they came up with the idea of making a film about the adolescent growth a young boy. Filming for a couple weeks a year, for the past 12 years, Boyhood is the realization of that unlikely dream. The result rises to the challenge of the high-concept idea, providing an unparalleled viewing experience as we watch the fictional Mason grow up, as Ellar Coltrane - the actor who plays him - also matures through the years. As a "biographical-ish" movie, there is not a cut-and-paste clean plot clearly visible in its somewhat excessive run-time, but there is an impressive growth of characters, an exploration of big ideas about life and love and family, and a definitive sense that the childhood/teenage experience is more fully captured here than in any other recent film. Boyhood is an impressive feat not to be missed.
The Final Word: 3.5/4 - Go buy a ticket.
Opening Weekend: $72.6 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 91%
Review: One of my favorite films of the year so far, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a classic summer blockbuster with a riveting story, in-depth characters, and absolutely stunning CGI visuals. The motion capture technology made famous by the movie Avatar - in which actual actor performances are recorded and then enhanced with computer wizardry to make humans look like any number of creatures, aliens, or animals - continues to pave the way for the future of digital effects. Dawn is another technological step for Hollywood, showcasing the very best, real-to-life animation there is. Period.
The Final Word: 4/4 - Go buy a ticket, a poster, & the DVD.
The Purge: Anarchy: A young couple, a mother and daughter, and a mysterious man (Frank Grillo) work together to survive on the streets as the annual purge - a night in which all crime is legal - commences.
Opening Weekend: $29.8 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 57%
Review: Giving audiences what they wanted - but didn't get - out of the first Purge film, the ambitious sequel takes the action to the streets, showcasing the extent of the brutal depravity created by the Purge. Bigger proves to be better for this series, as Anarchy is more interesting than its predecessor. But when the sequel fails to effectively engage in the big ideas about socioeconomic class that the movie itself brings up, you're still left leaving the theater feeling as though you've yet again been teased by filmmakers who refuse to reveal the best realizations of the crime-free night concept. It's as though all the good ideas were suggested last minute and added to the movie as underdeveloped opportunities for aimless action, as opposed to smarter commentary, which would actually help build a better, perhaps even classic, thriller franchise. As it stands, Anarchy is simply okay.
The Final Word: 1/4 - Maybe catch it on tv if you're bored.
Opening Weekend: $14.6 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 18%
Review: It's one thing when you accidentally send a private sex tape to one person (a la Road Trip), but with today's technology, it's an entirely different untamable beast when a video makes it's way online. Catching your friends before they catch you in such an intimate video sounds like a hilarious premise, with the added incentive of sex appeal. While I certainly can't complain about Diaz (There's Something About Mary) looking amazing, I can complain about the concept failing to live up to it's comedic promise in Sex Tape. The gags are whimsical enough, but you see them coming from a mile away and there's not a single joke that you leave with remembering as a classic bit. Coming from Segel, who in addition to the unimaginative Sex Tape wrote the amazingly funny screenplays for Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Muppets, the whole thing is really a disappointment. It's easy to watch, but equally easy to forget.
The Final Word: 1/4 - Maybe catch it on tv if you're bored.
Hercules: Having endured his legendary twelve labors, Hercules (Dwayne Johnson), the Greek demigod, has his life as a sword-for-hire tested when the King of Thrace and his daughter seek his aid in defeating a tyrannical warlord.
Opening Weekend: $29.8 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 62%
Review: Over-the-top spectacle generally works for action movies that know not to take themselves too seriously (The Expendables is an upcoming example which perfectly fits this theme). No one seemed to tell this to the makers of Hercules, who clearly tried to film this simply-written, cliche-bloated film with the seriousness of Gladiator. The result is that we now laugh at the filmmakers rather than with them and feel bad for the good-natured, but talent-limited Johnson (The Scorpion King) for getting caught in the muddle of a tonally confused movie. The best ideas in the film come only as flashbacks toward the end, but by then we've already given up on Hercules as a blindly boisterous endeavor, good only for some sword clashes and feats of strength.
The Final Word: 1/4 - Maybe catch it on tv if you're bored.
Opening Weekend: $43.9 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 61%
Review: Maybe it is because I watched Lucy - a film that actually tries something different than the average movie - immediately after watching Hercules, but I actually seem to have enjoyed the film more than many other viewers I've talked to. Many movies explore the idea of what it means to be human; Lucy goes beyond that to ask what it would mean to exist as a being whose strength and understanding of the world are more than human. The movie goes by quite quickly and actually would have benefited from more time spent in the middle stages of Lucy's advancement, giving the movie a bit more excitement since it's not really the action flick the trailers made it out to be. Ultimately, Lucy is a flat-out weird movie, but still better than the average movie and proof that Johansson (Under the Skin) is a bonafide A-list, headlining movie star.
The Final Word: 3/4 - Go buy a matinee ticket.
Opening Weekend: $3.2 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 90%
Review: The novelist John le Carré writes engrossing espionage stories which build slowly, using realism to gradually escalate his narratives. These are good books that make for sluggish movies which vary between somewhat bearable (The Constant Gardener) and unwatchably dull (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy). Fortunately the most recent Carré adaptation is the best so far. Unfortunately that's not a hard bar to reach. It's an interesting story with typical Carré slow-burn progression, aided by a strong, subtle performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman. But I just can't find it in me to justify a $10 ticket recommendation for a film that might very well bore you to tears if it catches you on a restless day.
The Final Word: 2/4 - Wait to rent it.
Wish I Was Here: Aidan Bloom (Zach Braff) is a 35-year-old man who finds himself at major crossroads, which forces him to examine his life, his career, and his family (Kate Hudson, Josh Gad, Mandy Patinkin). Financed by fans through Kickstarter.
Opening Weekend: $1.1 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 41%
Review: Who would have guessed back in his Scrubs days that Zach Braff would be credited with creating a quirky film which explores a lot of big ideas about life and family? But here we are. Not everything is tied up as well as it could have been, but the movie showcases more than enough heart and spirit to make up for it, displaying Braff's own maturing talent as a writer-director and providing us with a solid summer indie flick. Also, I don't know where Kate Hudson has been (apparently on Glee the Interwebs tell me, but really I can't think of any [good] production she's been in since How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days), but it's good to have her back. She's still amazingly pretty and takes some solid opportunities here to demonstrate her very real acting talent.
The Final Word: 2/4 - Wait to rent it.
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