Well, it looks like we've reached the worst movie weekend of the year. But that’s okay. It just means we get a little time to go outside and enjoy the fresh air. Or if not, maybe you just go see Guardians of the Galaxy again. Either way, what we’ve got coming here is no bueno. It’s the identical. And that’s it.
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
I sometimes wonder if I have an identical twin living out there somewhere with another family, and if we’ll happen to meet by chance one day, drawn to each other by an unknown connection that had haunted us our whole lives - as though we were searching for phantom limbs or trying to scratch that unreachable itch. If/when we finally encounter each other, the first thing I’d do is check his hairline. I want to know if what I’ve got going on upstairs is a product of nature or nurture. I suspect it’s a little bit of both and I’d like to be able to blame my parents once and for all on that one. So if you are out there guy who looks like me, reach out. I’ve got some important stuff I need to follow up about.
See what some other twins separated at birth, have going on in the trailer for The Identical,
The Identical tells the story of brothers, separated at birth whose lives intersect through music. One of the brothers becomes a famous 60's era Elvis Presley-like rockstar. And the other, lo and behold, looks just like him and becomes a cover band act of sorts - the first of the Elvis impersonators possibly (I’m assuming, the trailer is a bit ambiguous.) Both bros are played by newcomer Blake Rayne who looks quite a bit like Presley and I suspect this film is supposed to be an alternate history of Elvis’ life in everything but the name. Again, I could be wrong about this, but man, if I watched this without any names given the assumption would be this was a flick about the King.
The Identical has it’s star power with Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd and Seth Green carrying some weight. But the primaries like Rayne and director Dustin Marcellino have almost no track record to speak of. They appear relatively new on the scene so taking a prediction from past work is tough. In reading some early reviews of the flick a theme appears though: critics seem to think the movie tries too damn hard to lay on the drama and provide inspiration from a story of brothers who diverged early and dovetailed back together under some extraordinary circumstances. I suspect it will be too cheesy and feel good-y to completely fall off a critical cliff, but the timing of the release, along with some early opinions has me thinking the score won’t trend over the 50% mark. Hey, what do you want? It’s that time of year. Now, I'm off to find that long lost twin brother of mine.
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Last week was a bit of a disappointment for both of my predictions. First off, The November Man (Predicted: 15% Actual: 36%) came on "strong" as the week went on. The early reviews for this movie were horrendous and pointed to a flick finishing well in the basement. It was at 0% at the time of post. But a late week push got Pierce Brosnan and company into the realm of simply "bad". Not a small feat considering how the early critics panned the crap out of the flick. Sean O’Connell was one of those critics, and he gave it one and a half stars in his review. Sean backed up my conceit that this would be just another standard spy thriller with all the predictable beats. Had more critics seen what he saw and I’d have had a winning prediction.
Meanwhile, As Above/ So Below (Predicted: 19% Actual: 31%) just scraped itself out of the ten percent range on my prediction. I was so close here and honestly a few more bad reviews over the long term might still prove this guess a winner. Kristy Puchko did her best to help my cause with her review, giving it one star and admitting the best part of the flick was the promotional poster.
Next time around we get another dolphin tale and perform no good deeds. It’s going to be a Rotten Week!
