Opening Everywhere: Grown Ups 2, Pacific Rim
Opening Somewhere: Fruitville Station
Opening in Rex Reed’s Hell: V/H/S 2
FilmDrunk Suggests: In case you haven’t read Vince’s disappointed review of Pacific Rim, you should go see Pacific Rim and then read his review to let him know if you agree with him or not, as he implied. Don’t read it before you see the film and then criticize his opinion despite not having seen the movie, because that would be absolutely asinine.
Grown Ups 2
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 8% critics (seriously?), 90% audience (great job, America)
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“Friendship, family and breasts: Sometimes that’s all you need.” – Adam Graham, Detroit News (Or maybe original jokes and a fresh plot, but what the hell do I know about appreciating a funny movie?)
“When Taylor Lautner is the funniest thing in a movie starring Adam Sandler and Chris Rock, we’re in trouble.” – Richard Roeper (Great, let’s convince Taylor Lautner he’s funny, too.)
Armchair Analysis: Grown Ups 2 was made for one of three reasons:
1) Adam Sandler and his Happy Madison cronies believed that since the box office grosses of his last three films since Grown Ups in 2010 – Just Go With It, Jack and Jill, That’s My Boy – were progressively worse, culminating in That’s My Boy’s wretched $36 million haul in the U.S. on a remarkably insane $70 million budget, fans were trying to tell them that they wanted to see more of Lenny Feder and the gang, so they gave the people what they wanted.
2) The Happy Madison gang realized that Sandler’s post-Grown Ups films were progressively worse at the box office, culminating in That’s My Boy being a massive bomb, and they realized that their fat-man-falling-down luck had run out and the American public was no longer going to make them wealthy for phoning it in. So they thought, “Wait, people loved Grown Ups, let’s just do that again!” as they all prayed it’s enough to get Sandler to buy them more new Maseratis.
3) Sony Pictures was smart enough to realize No. 2 so they convinced Sandler and Co. to make this film by telling them that No. 1 was the reality.
My needle is pointing right between 2 and 3. Please don’t reward their half-assery anymore America.
I actually want to see Grown Ups 2 just to see if they explain why both Shaq and Tim Meadows have horseshoe-pattern baldness or if it’s just a case of them ripping off their own joke in the same movie. That would be incredibly unprecedented. And also, of course, to know if they could make a movie that is worse than my pick for Worst Movie of 2010.
Pacific Rim
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 74% critics, 88% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“Del Toro is reveling in blockbuster clichés at the same time he’s pounding them into the pavement, and somehow that self-consciousness lets us all in on the joke.” – Tom Long, Detroit News
“Pacific Rim’s ability to make monster-walloping feel fun again will no doubt make Atlantic Seaboard (or maybe Mediterranean Coastal Region) as inevitable a follow-up as the return of the Kaiju through that pesky underwater portal.” – Dana Stevens, Slate
Armchair Analysis: Again, you can read Vince’s review before you see the film and get all pissy with him for being honest, or you can go see it and then come back for a discussion. Don’t be the dick that does the former.
Fruitville Station
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 90% critics, 79% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“Coogler’s film is shaky, sometimes literally slipping out of focus even as its own vision remains resolutely blinkered.” – Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger
“At a time when the multiplexes are crowded with coarse comedy and inept spectacle, here’s a homegrown movie that honors its subject and the medium.” – Joe Morganstern, Wall Street Journal
Armchair Analysis: I saw the preview for this film recently before one of the movies that I’ve seen recently (I think it was the best movie of the year, White House Down, but I can’t remember) and this couple in front of me, upon seeing the star of Fruitville Station, had the following conversation:
Husband: “Is that Nick Cannon?”
Wife: “I think it’s Nick Cannon.”
Husband: “Yeah, it’s definitely Nick Cannon.”
Of course, it’s Michael B. Jordan, but I’m sure Nick Cannon appreciates being remembered.
V/H/S 2
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 66% critics, 68% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
“Found footage is all well and good, but if it’s unwatchable, it might as well have stayed lost.” – Sara Stewart, NY Post
“None of the chapters use the unifying formal conceit to any real advantage; only one, directed by Timo Tjahjanto and The Raid: Redemption’s Gareth Huw Evans, is worth a rental.” – Sam Adams, Time Out New York
Armchair Analysis: In a perfect world, all of the people who are outraged over the fact that Rex Reed crapped all over this film without even watching more than 20 minutes of it would somehow make it the highest grossing film of the weekend. How? Beats the sh*t out of me. They’re the butthurt people who care so much, they can figure it out.