Should've stayed home: A summer of disappointing films

Blockbusters this summer greatly heightened our expectations, only to drop us at a greater elevation. The wide variety of movies had everyone at the beginning of the summer marking up their calendars, but the movies that came continued to disappoint and sadden fans. The biggest movies of the summer were an abstract Seth Rogen comedy dying for attention, another pathetic DC movie, two sequels that might’ve ruined the careers of both the Hemsworth's and a Jason Bourne Sequel making you leave the theater saying, “Jesus Christ, THAT’S Jason Bourne?!”Fortunately for the box office, and somewhat ironically, this has been one of the most successful summers in recent history, with one movie already climbing to the top seventy highest grossing movies of all time (potentially leading DC to its first billion-dollar superhero movie). However, even the box office couldn’t save the criticism from Rotten Tomatoes and MetaCritic.  “Everything this summer was an unoriginal mess with an unhype and awful delivery,” Oliver Mead (’19) said. Even though Rotten Tomatoes and Samo students destroyed the movies, not all fans hated the blockbusters. Both Suicide Squad and Sausage Party grew a sizeable cult following and got good reviews from more than a few die-hard fans.“The movies didn’t have the best quotes but it was still pretty entertaining to see these characters on screen” Ace Macffe (’19) said.Most critics believe that the reason why so many people were tricked into buying tickets was the fact that each film had an appealing cast. Take the movie Sausage Party, for example. With Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill and James Franco at the helm, who wouldn’t want to go and see that movie. This movie made people go into the theater expecting a fun comedy like “This Is The End” or “Pineapple Express”. Instead, viewers were made to think about what they were doing with their lives thanks to a deep movie that is just not what is expected from Seth Rogen and James Franco. People came out of that theater put into too philosophical of a mindset to even talk about how funny that movie was. Suicide Squad also played the same sort of nasty trick. Sure, it was great seeing Will Smith acting like his old self again but Margot Robbie’s over the top accent and Jared Leto’s unnatural lines just made you think to yourself how you could ever like these actors. “The movies were all just so typical,” Mauricio Bautista (’19) said.Sequels and reboots this summer were considered by most people to be just plain copies of their originals. This example was primarily shown in Independence Day: Resurgence. With a nearly identical storyline, awkward lines, and a cheesy ending, the original should’ve been left untouched. The only thing that Twentieth Century Fox did manage to accomplish is make the once great actor Jeff Goldblum take a roll worse than the rom-com best friend in The Switch. Another prime example would be the new all-female remake of Ghostbusters. Most reviews on Metacritic said the cameos were fun and Chris Hemsworth's character was one of the funniest on screen in a long time, but in their eyes, that didn’t make up for Melissa McCarthy’s fart jokes and a poorly directed movie. The movies this summer not only didn’t live up to expectations, but actually made fans’ feelings take a significant dive, making them lose hope in once great characters.  Let this be a lesson to Hollywood to make sure they don’t shove next summer with bad reboots and intolerable sequels.