Mrs. Rotten Week is away for a girl’s weekend leaving me with Little RW for the last couple of days. Happy Father’s Day, I guess. What did we do? Read the complete Encyclopedia of Superman cover-to-cover three times. I fully initiated her on the Justice League, some basic origin stories and she went to bed last night asking for a story that involved Superman, Wonder Woman and to make sure "Batman got hurt." What a great kid. So yeah, Happy Father’s Day! There aren’t any superhero movies on the docket this week but we’ve got Jersey crooners and thinking like men again.
Just remember, I'm not reviewing these movies, but rather predicting where they'll end up on the Tomatometer. Let's take a look at what This Rotten Week has to offer.
Rotten Watch Prediction
62%
Man, I just don’t get this kind of music at all. I know it was popular. I know a generation of people went ape-S@#$ over it. And I know we are destined to not understand the music of our parents or our kids. But man, I just crack up laughing when I hear the high-pitched, helium, Alvin and the Chipmunks voice of Frankie Valli. Even Mrs. Rotten Week chimed in at the end of the trailer to say, "What the hell was that?"
You can check out the Jersey Boys trailer below:
The singing alone would preclude me from ever seeing or enjoying this flick. I’m too far removed. It’s on me. Come get it in the comments section if need be. I get that there are probably some influences of this Frankie-Valli style music in the Justin Timberlake’s, Pharrell’s and Thicke’s of the current scene. They are more alike than dissimilar. And that might help win the day with anyone under fifty seeing this adaptation of the popular Broadway play. But I doubt the universal appeal will be there. This is by old people, for old people.
Clint Eastwood directs this story of some Jersey boys getting out of trouble and into the limelight, with all the trappings of fame that come along with it. After an insane run of directorial work by Eastwood with flicks like Mystic River (87%), Million Dollar Baby (91%), Invictus (76%) and Gran Torino (79%) to name a few, he’s seen a drop off recently with Hereafter (46%) and J. Edgar (43%). Are we surprised? Dude is old. Like 150 years old or something like that. I’m young, vibrant, and busy and I don’t have time to look it up. But can we really expect him to continue bringing the fastball? It stands to reason there would by a decline in the quality of his productions. That isn’t to say Jersey Boys will falter mind you. It just won’t live up to Eastwood’s run through the first decade of the 21st century.
A few early reviews are less than stellar. I’m not completely surprised. The trailer alone gave very little buy in to the story dancing around the edges of the biopic without giving any real sense of struggle or conflict. It appears pretty plain and tame. I doubt the source material will warrant anything close the gutter here, but I’d be shocked if it was certified fresh. I’ll put it around the middle, a little lower to coincide with Eastwood’s recent work. Nos go get the helium tank out to do your best Valli impressions.
Rotten Watch Prediction
37%
Ever get the feeling Hollywood is just screwing with us and using their excuses for long weekend parties to finance and shoot movies? I imagine a couple of executives, actors, actresses and agents take a look at each other and say, "We should go to Vegas for the weekend." And then another chimes in that a good way go on the cheap would be to just film a movie while they were there. Hell, they can write the script on the drive/flight in.
Think I’m wrong about this? Take one look at the trailer for Think Like Man Too:
How else to explain this movie? The premise is as tired as it is unappealing. People go to Vegas under the auspices of something rather innocent, or at least tame. And then shit goes down and, Vegas Baby, VEGAS!!! In this sequel to a movie I barely remember writing about the first time, a group of couples and friends go to Vegas for bachelor/ bachelorette parties. If you can see all the beats in this movie playing out in your head it’s because we’ve all seen the flick before. Probably a few times.
Tim Story directed the original Think Like a Man (53%) which did rather mediocre with critics. But the rest of his resume leaves an awful lot to be desired. Films like Fantastic Four (27%) and more recently Ride Along (15%) point to a guy who puts together flicks without much care for how critics will receive his films. Or if he does, the execution is lacking. This film will score much lower than its predecessor if only because it appears to be a movie made a thousand times already.
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A strong week for the Rotten Watch, though I had a decent head start going into the predictions. 22 Jump Street (Predicted: 92% Actual: 83%) crushed it again with critics, even with a slight drop in score over the course of the week. Getting comedies in this critical range is no easy feat. But it appears this sequel held serve with the first and that’s all you can ask for. Gabe Toro actually gave it one of the few negative reviews. That’s okay. Dissenters are good for us. They keep us on our toes. Granted it almost cost me the ten percent mark. Then I would have had to have words with the guy. I can’t stand for being wrong. Otherwise, this flick blew it out of the box.
Meanwhile, How to Train Your Dragon (Predicted: 97% Actual: 92%) was a pretty easy call. The first scored fantastic with critics and the second one had a bunch of early positive reviews in at time of post. Eric Eisenberg gave it four stars, calling the movie "visually impressive" and a "worthy follow-up." We’ll take it, as my prediction landed right in the zone. History won’t remember that I had some clues ahead of time. It’ll just remember that I’m good at this critical prediction thing (there seem to be literally no competitors!)
Next time around extinction threatens the Transformers. It’s going to be a Rotten Week!
