4 Movies of Summer (So Far): Indiana Jones, The Flash, No Hard Feelings, and Asteroid City
3 Bullseyes and a Dud
As many of you know, my taste in movies covers the entire spectrum, from gaudy blockbusters to gaudier sequels, to intricate and intimate stories of daily struggles. Two of my favorite movies of the year were Spider-Man: Across the Multiverse and You Hurt My Feelings. One is a brilliant animation artistically stunning yet still with a touching coming-of-age story. The other is a humorous and heartfelt exploration of how we navigate the complicated emotions and vulnerabilities of our most personal relationships.
Summer is when the studios release what they hope are their sure-fire hits. They’re like a restaurant at a beach tourist town that makes most of its annual income during the summer rush, then barely survives through the rest of the year. Unless a pandemic hits and starves your summer business. Movie theaters are still recovering from the lingering effects of COVID, and this summer, they hope to kickstart the business back to its glory days. So far, it’s been a sluggish start at the box office, but not because of the quality of the movies.
Over the years, I’ve observed a consistent phenomenon in movie reviews. Reviewers like to champion a young filmmaker launching a film that eventually becomes a franchise. After its success, the critics act like they themselves gave birth to the movie, then breastfed and toilet-trained it. Then, when the franchise grows in success, they treat it like it’s an ungrateful teen who needs to be reminded who’s in charge. That’s when they start to express obvious biases against the movie franchise. When they think the filmmakers have learned their lesson, they will return to praise a later entry into the franchise. Their liking or disliking of the film rarely depends on the quality of the movie, but on the timing of how much the critic wants to remind people of their power.
And not just the critics. Social media has encouraged audiences to jump on the bandwagon and trash a movie just because it didn’t live up to the childhood fantasy they’ve been nurturing about the first movie or the original source material. These people think that when they body-slam a movie, it makes them sound knowledgeable and sophisticated. Instead, they just appear petulant and pretentious.
I disagree with movie critics that I respect all the time. But I appreciate that they provide criteria for their judgment and give examples as to why something didn’t work. They are thoughtful in their analysis rather than glib, smart rather than smirky.
Two of the movies I’ll be discussing have received unjust critical backlash. One received unjust critical praise. And one, as Goldilocks would say, is just right.