Heading into the Thanksgiving holiday weekend we only have one movie hitting the big screen - and it's a Day of the Dead-themed animated adventure brought to us by the best animation studio out there. Get ready for Pixar's Coco.
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.
Pixar Studios has put out 18 movies in the last 22 years (yes, it's been that long since Toy Story), and the average Tomatometer score for those flicks is absurd 88%. If you take out the Cars franchise (the three movies dragging down the overall score), they get an average of 94%. That's just ridiculous love over the long term, as Pixar movies do feel like "can't miss" movies for all ages. If their latest, Coco, keeps up it's current rate of reviews, that average score won't move at all. It's sitting at 97% (31 positive, 1 negative - there's always 1) with critics loving the play on Dia de Muertos and a young boy's journey into the world of the dead to see his family and uncover long buried secrets
Director Lee Unkrich has a fantastic track record directing or co-directing other Pixar films, including Finding Nemo (99%), Monsters, Inc (96%), and Toy Story 2 (100%). He teams up with first time director Adrian Molina on this one, who has worked on storyboards for a number of different films fro the studio. This one looks like a winner, and could reap major box office benefit as the only movie major film hitting theaters before Thanksgiving.
We didn't have a great round last week, with two misses and a hit out of the three movies. Justice League (Predicted: 30% Actual: 39%) was the one win, given that it was predictably bad and continues a lackluster run for the franchise (the lone bright spot being Wonder Woman). The rest of the DCCU has been a huge disappointment to this point, and this team-up film is just the latest. These movies have been pretty big messes, and this latest does nothing to change that.
Meanwhile, I was on the right track with Wonder (Predicted: 68% Actual: 84%), but it exceeded the prediction by just enough to put it out of range of being called a win. Critics loved the message of the movie, and most thought it avoided tumbling into a schmaltzy affair. They also praised the acting of Jacob Tremblay as August Pullman - and after his turn in Room, it definitely looks like that kid is going places.
And finally, I was wrong on Star (Predicted: 42% Actual: 62%), but I don't feel too bad about it considering it only has 26 reviews recorded. That's incredibly low for a major release, and if the Top Critics score (37%) is any indication, had more eyes been on this thing my prediction would have been correct. As it stands, with the religious overtones most critics just stayed away.
We'll be back in three weeks with Just Getting Started. It's gonna be a Rotten Week!
