Month: August 2016

Suicide Squad Movie Review

Suicide Squad is the latest in DC’s attempt to Marvelize its cinematic universe in considerably darker shades. It’s noisy and messy. It’s filled with some top-notch performances and fascinating characters mixed with utterly forgettable ones. In a pic filled with villains, there’s weak ones and strong ones. Yes, it’s what we’ve come to anticipate in a series that continues to follow what Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice started.

David Ayers directs this tale of super villains who are charged with saving the world. This is an idea hatched by government official Amanda Waller (a typically solid Viola Davis) and the team she assembles is an unknown one unless you’re an avid comic book reader. It includes master marksman Deadshot (Will Smith), loony tunes temptress Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), flame thrower with a fiery temper El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), Aussie Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), disfigured Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje) and sword expert Katana (Karen Fukuhara).

We get back stories on them all – some more detailed and worthy of screen time than others. Will Smith gives a decent performance, even though his subplot of being a bad hit man who’s also a really dedicated dad (!) is as stale as it sounds. Still he acquits himself well, even if he’s done the dour anti-hero thing before in Hancock. The El Diablo story is helped by Hernandez’s work, even though his flashback info is a bit too serious for everything else happening here. Quite frankly, many of the others aren’t even worth mentioning.

The other that is? That would be Ms. Quinn, played with gusto and a Stockard Channing like Grease accent from Robbie. Her wise cracks land more often than not. She’s the highlight here and her road to villainy involves her romance with the granddaddy baddie of them all, The Joker (Jared Leto). Their story is one that works well, partly due to Leto hitting his mark in a role that’s obviously been well-played before. His screen time is limited (probably wisely) and I look with anticipation to seeing him again.

Where Squad fails majorly is with a dull main villain and that’s Enchantress (Carla Delevingne),  an archeologist turned witchy woman with world domination on her mind. In a movie filled with bad guys, the one they’re chasing shouldn’t be a bore. She is and so is her soldier boyfriend – Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) – from her pre-spell life.

The action sequences are a mixed bag, especially when Ayers films them in such darkness that it’s hard to tell what’s happening. This is an issue that has pervaded other DC adaptations. We expect CG to look pretty decent in everything now and that holds true here, though nothing really stands out.

For the first half or so, Suicide Squad is a bit of depraved fun. A lot of that is Robbie’s doing with some credit to Smith. After about the halfway mark, the feeling sets in that we aren’t terribly invested in what’s occurring and that the Squad goals of taking down the witch seem inconsequential. Batman v Superman was a bit of a mess as well (its main villain issues – aka Jesse Eisenberg – were also there). Yet I somehow left that experience ready to see the Justice League formed. Here – I’m indifferent to Squad seconds. Now if Harley wants to join her main man to battle Superman, Batman, and the others – that’s cool.

**1/2 (out of four)

Florence Foster Jenkins Box Office Prediction

Meryl Streep headlines the autobiographical comedic drama Florence Foster Jenkins, opening next weekend. Casting the record-setting Oscar nominee as the New York heiress in the early 1940s whose dream was to perform at Carnegie Hall (despite a questionable voice), Jenkins comes from The Queen director Stephen Frears. The supporting cast includes Hugh Grant, Simon Helberg, and Rebecca Ferguson.

The pic will attempt to bring in an older and mostly female audience as counter programming during the dog days of August. Reviews have been encouraging with a 92% Rotten Tomatoes rating. In fact, Ms. Streep could be on the cusp of her 20th Academy Award nomination (especially if this performs well stateside).

That prospect is a bit questionable – both with box office numbers and a potential Oscar nod. Our lead does have a history in recent years with August premieres. 2009’s Julie and Julia scored with a $20 million start. 2012’s Hope Springs made a decent $14.6 million. Last year’s example wasn’t as successful as Ricki and the Flash (which received mixed critical notes) premiered with just $6.6 million. My estimate puts Florence a little closer to Ricki considering its rather low screen count opening of 1500 theaters.

Florence Foster Jenkins opening weekend prediction: $8.2 million

For my Pete’s Dragon prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2016/08/03/petes-dragon-box-office-prediction/

For my Sausage Party prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2016/08/03/sausage-party-box-office-prediction/

Sausage Party Box Office Prediction

It’s a banner year for animated movies at the box office (excluding the freezing out of Ice Age: Collision Course), yet a very different one opens next weekend with Sausage Party. The 3D animated flick comes from the minds of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and it is definitely not meant for the little ones.

Supermarket produce comes to life in the very hard R comedy that features a whole lotta familiar voices other than Mr. Rogen’s. They include Kristin Wiig, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Michael Cera, James Franco, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Paul Rudd, Nick Kroll, Edward Norton, and Salma Hayek. Made for a quite reasonable $30 million, this has been a passion project for Rogen and company and took years to get produced. Early reviews have been strong – it holds a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes (no word yet on whether actual rotten tomatoes are featured in this).

If there’s one genre where not a whole lot of data exists – adult animated pics would be one of them. 1996’s Beavis and Butthead Do America opened to $20.1 million and 1999’s South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut earned $11.3 million. Word of mouth could certainly help here but in the end, I envision this performing similarly to some other Rogen features. This is The End earned $20.7 million in its initial weekend and this summer’s Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising disappointed with $21.7 million. That seems like a reasonable range for this Party and I’ll put it at just below $20M.

Sausage Party opening weekend prediction: $19.4 million

For my Pete’s Dragon prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2016/08/03/petes-dragon-box-office-prediction/

For my Florence Foster Jenkins prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2016/08/03/florence-foster-jenkins-box-office-prediction/

Pete’s Dragon Box Office Prediction

The Disney live-action remake train keep rolling along next weekend as Pete’s Dragon debuts in theaters. The Mouse Factory has found great success in the past couple of years taking their storied animated hits of decades past and repackaging and re-imagining them with real actors and tons of CG effects.

Pete’s Dragon, however, is a slightly different story. Unlike Maleficent, Cinderella, and The Jungle Book (and next year’s Beauty and the Beast for that matter), the pic this is based on is not considered a classic. The Disney Dragon ‘toon opened in 1977 at a time when the studio was in a downturn in their animation department. It was only a mild box office performer and reviews weren’t too strong.

The fact that Disney has been on a roll lately should help Pete and his magical dragon change the narrative somewhat with this property. David Lowery (best known for directing the low budget indie drama Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) is behind the camera. Oakes Fegley plays the title character (the Pete part) while the dragon is handled by Weta Digital. Costars include Bryce Dallas Howard, Robert Redford, Wes Bentley, and Karl Urban. Early reviews have been mostly positive with an 81% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Let’s start here: this has no real chance of reaching the heights of the live action reboots before it. 2014’s Maleficent made $69 million for its start. Last year’s Cinderella earned $67 million. This spring’s The Jungle Book made $103 million. Dragon may be lucky to make half of any of those titles in its opening. Disney should be pretty happy if this manages to top $35 million, but my prediction reflects a belief that just over/under $30 million is the more likely scenario.

Pete’s Dragon opening weekend prediction: $29.8 million

For my Sausage Party prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2016/08/03/sausage-party-box-office-prediction/

For my Florence Foster Jenkins prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2016/08/03/florence-foster-jenkins-box-office-prediction/

Box Office Predictions: August 5-7

The first weekend of August at theaters brings us two new films. One is among the most eagerly anticipated movies of the summer. The other finds Kevin Spacey reincarnated into the body of a cat.

They are Suicide Squad, the DC Comics gathering of super villains (including Will Smith, Margot Robbie, and Jared Leto as The Joker) that looks to be a box office juggernaut and Nine Lives, the aforementioned Spacey/kitty cat pic. You can peruse my detailed prediction posts on each here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2016/07/26/suicide-squad-box-office-prediction/

https://toddmthatcher.com/2016/07/26/nine-lives-box-office-prediction/

Warner Bros. has to be feeling pretty confident with their Squad goals. My prediction for it puts it at the 15th highest domestic opening of all time and it has a legit chance at ruling the box office charts for the entire month of August.

As for Nine Lives, I’m predicting it falls just under double digits for a sixth place showing. As for holdovers, Jason Bourne will likely lose more than half its audience in weekend #2 while the drop for Bad Moms may not be quite as pronounced. Moms may stay put at third with Star Trek Beyond slipping to fourth and The Secret Life of Pets rounding out the top five (though those two could swap spots).

And with that, a top 6 predictions for the weekend:

  1. Suicide Squad

Predicted Gross: $144.3 million

2. Jason Bourne

Predicted Gross: $27.1 million

3. Bad Moms

Predicted Gross: $12.1 million

4. Star Trek Beyond

Predicted Gross: $10.8 million

5. The Secret Life of Pets

Predicted Gross: $10.6 million

6. Nine Lives

Predicted Gross: $9.8 million

**At press time, here are the results for my poll on the newbies:

Suicide Squad

52% believe my prediction is “Just About Right”

37% believe my prediction is “Too High”

11% believe my prediction is “Too Low”

Nine Lives

43% believe my prediction is “Just About Right”

37% believe my prediction is “Too High”

20% believe my prediction is “Too Low”

Box Office Results (July 29-31)

Matt Damon’s return as Jason Bourne brought audiences in to the tune of $59.2 million – a solid opening that didn’t match my estimate of $67.6M. While the star’s last turn as the title hero in 2007 performed better with $69M out of the gate, this is still a hefty enough debut to warrant further franchise entries.

Star Trek Beyond fell precipitously in its sophomore frame with $24.7 million for second, under my $28.5M prediction for a two-week take of $106M. The third Trek pic in this particular franchise will easily be the lowest grosser thus far and puts into question its viability going forward (and… beyond).

Bad Moms had a good start in third with $23.8 million, a bit below my $26M projection. As mentioned above, it may not fall too hard next weekend to remain in third.

The Secret Life of Pets was fourth with $18.9 million (above my $16.4M forecast) for a $296M total. A less successful animated feature – Ice Age: Collision Course – was fifth in weekend 2 with $10.9 million (I said $10.1M) for an overall gross of $42 million. Sleeper horror hit Lights Out was sixth, earning $10.8 million in its second weekend (I said $10.6M). It has also made $42 million so far. Ghostbusters was seventh in its third weekend with $10.1 million (a touch under my $11.2M projection) for a $106M total.

YA tech thriller Nerve performed fairly well in an 8th place debut with $9.4 million over the traditional weekend and $15.4 million since its Wednesday roll out – slightly below my respective estimates of $10.8M and $16.3M.

Rounding out the top ten: Finding Dory in ninth with $4.3 million (I said $4.5M) for a $469M haul and The Legend of Tarzan in tenth with $2.4 million (I was over with $3.6M) for a $121M total.

Outside the top ten, Woody Allen’s Cafe Society expanded nationwide and placed 12th with $2.3 million. I said $2.3M! So we’ll end on that high note!

That’s all for now – until next time…