After the ridiculously huge month that was March 2017, featuring huge blockbusters debuting every weekend, we're now going to slow things down a bit. Before we head into the summer season, April is going to feature a calmed down Hollywood (with a couple of exceptions). This week, for example, we have treats for both the older and younger demographics, but not much for those in-between. Get ready for Going in Style and Smurfs: The Lost Village. 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.
There are an awful lot of movies in which the protagonists rob a bank. Maybe it's the "damn the man" mentality so many people have, or maybe it's just that the likability of movie stars makes us cheer for them regardless of what they're doing. Either way, people seem to root for bank robbers. In Going In Style, three retirees (Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin) find out their pension funds have run dry, and they devise a plan to go out and rob the very bank they believe stole their money. You can see why folks would root for the heroes in this scenario.
Going In Style looks cute enough, and the trailer had some laughs from these three acting legends, with Zach Braff (Wish I Was Here - 44%, Garden State - 86%) managing the comedic timing as the director. I don't think it blows critics completely away, but I can imagine it getting a middling score considering the cast and plot.
With The Smurfs franchise leaving the world of live-action/animation hybrids behind and going full cartoon, the new film, The Smurfs: The Lost Village once again has the titular creatures performing same old song and dance we've come to mostly ignore . They are blue, so you are going to get a lot of blue jokes, and you can be sure Gargamel will make an appearance, because, well, it's The Smurfs and they don't really have any other characters.
If the first two movies in the franchise The Smurfs (22%) and The Smurfs 2 (13%) are any indication, this latest is going to stink. Early reviews point to that direction as well, with critics mostly hating it for being little more than a kiddie cash grab in an effort to keep the 80's cartoon somewhat relevant. Director Kelly Asbury has had some modest critical success in the past with Gnomeo and Juliet (55%), Shrek 2 (88%), but this one will fall way short of those two movies.
It wasn't a great week for the Rotten Watch, with both movies performing with critics outside of my 10% range of success. I was closest with Rupert Sanders' Ghost in the Shell (Predicted: 29% Actual: 42%), which finished just a little higher than I thought. If anything, I thought I might have been way high with my guess. It's not like 42% is anything to write home about, though, and this film really bombed at the box office as well.
Meanwhile, The Boss Baby (Predicted: 25% Actual: 48%) was a bigger miss, and I'm surprised this one came anywhere close to 50%. Much like the first film, I thought 25% could have been rather high considering just how bad the trailer made the movie seem. But critics ended up having a lukewarm response to it rather than just trashing it up and down. The positive reviews lauded the animation, and recognized the goofiness of the story would be great for kids.
Next time around we've got The Fate of the Furious and Spark. It's gonna be a Rotten Week!
