We only have two movies coming out this week and they both register pretty solidly on the *meh" scale. Get ready for Rings and The Space Between Us. It's gonna be a Rotten Week!
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 This Rotten Week has to offer.
Rings is the third installment of in the Ring franchise with mixed results on the first two. The original The Ring (70%) was a legitimate hit and provided a new and scary kind of horror flick. But then they had to release The Ring Two (20%) and we see what happens when you push it with these kinds of movies. Now, twelve years later, we get the third film with the infamous video tape returning to pick off anyone spending too much time watching. This time the main character finds out there's even more to the tape than originally thought, which is surprising considering the tape does kill people. That almost seems like enough.
This one likely ends up near the critical basement. It was originally slated for a 2016 release but then pushed back due to reshoots. That's usually the death knell for a film and it should be reflected in the score.
In the new sci-fi romance/young adult feature The Space Between, there's literally space (like outer space) between these two young teens, who'll likely fall in love before the end. It sure feels like the studios came up with the name of this film before fully fleshing out the idea, because they thought it sounded neat and catchy. But alas, here we are with a kid born on Mars coming to Earth for the first time in a shake up on the "fish out of water" scenario we've seen a million times over.
Director Peter Chelsom's last positive flick on the Tomatometer was The Mighty (75%) back in 1998. Since then it's been movie like Hannah Montana (43%), Shall We Dance (46%) and Town & Country (16%). I suspect this latest is right in line. It's a cute enough premise and I suppose the tween crowd finds some easy laughs and blushes with the young love. But after that, the coming from Mars concept already seems played.
It was a bad week all around with my predictions. I went 0-3 in one of my poorer showings in quite some time. First off, Gold (Predicted: 49% Actual: 35%) ended up a massive disappointment considering the cast and scope of the flick. Most critics agreed that while McConaughey's performance more or less stood up, the rest of the plot missed the mark by a long shot. What should have been a cool flick about the ultimate get-rich-quick scheme (finding a shit ton of gold buried in a mountain) was instead a disjointed slog. Critics panned it and I missed by 15 points on the prediction.
The biggest miss was A Dog's Purpose (Predicted: 72% Actual: 30%). I failed to factor in a couple of things here. First off, it doesn't appear critics caught on to the emotional tones I thought would capture a larger audience. But more importantly, the reports of animal abuse on the set likely influenced anyone who might have been on the fence about the movie. It's a shame this kind of thing happens these days and I'm with the idea that a movie should get called out if they are mistreating animals on the set.
And finally, just to make sure I missed across the board, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (Predicted: 26% Actual: 43%) ended up being the best reviewed installment of the franchise. Of course it was. I averaged the overall scores from the Resident Evil franchise and this one serves as the outlier. Could it have happened any other way?
Next time around we've got Fifty Shades Darker, John Wick: Chapter Two and The Lego Batman Movie. It's gonna be a Rotten Week!
