Freddie Mercury, Tyler Perry and the Nutcracker. That's a pretty odd trio that you'd never expect to be together, and yet they are all united and facing off during the first weekend of November.. Here we go with Bohemian Rhapsody, Nobody's Fool, and Nutcracker and the Four Realms.
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 is a great Freddie Mercury movie to be made, but it would appear that Bohemian Rhapsody is not really going to be that film. The man's life is certainly fascinating and the lead singer of Queen certainly deserves the treatment, but it looks like this one is just a tad bit too generic. With a bunch of reviews in already (55% with 81 reviews posted), most critics seem to think this flick spends too much of its time recreating the concert performances and not enough time delving into the deep drama of the front man's life.
Bryan Singer's other works don't really seem to lend to making this kind of biopic. He has the X-Men movies like Apocalypse (48%) and Days of Future Past (89%), and his other work includes titles like Jack the Giant Slayer (52%) and Valkyrie (62%). This latest will likely finish lower than most of the rest of his films.
Tyler Perry is back, everyone, and this time he is teaming up with Whoopi Goldberg, Tiffany Hadish and Tika Sumpter for Nobody's Fool. No director has had the same kind of Tomatormeter-hate as this guy. Let's look through some of his work to find out where his latest will likely line up. We've got:
Acrimony (20%)
Boo! A Madea Halloween 2 (6%)
The Single Moms Club (19%)
A Madea Christmas (20%)
Temptation (15%)
Those are just in the last five years. The list goes on, but you get the point. This guy's movies do fine/great at the box office, but with critics? It's a nightmare. Nobody's Fool doesn't look any different. This one looks like your standard, cliche family story where the jokes are overwritten, and the story came in somewhere along the margins. I'm not encouraged this movie is the one that turn's Perry's critical perception record around.
It wouldn't be the Christmas season if it didn't start just days after Halloween. Such is the case with this new adaptation of The Nutcracker, which is arriving in theaters this Friday. In this version, titled The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, the story looks totally reinvented, but the impressive cast includes Mackenzie Foy, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Jack Whitehall, Eugenio Derbez, Richard E. Grant, and more.
Thanks to some behind the scenes drama, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, is directed by the pair of Lasse Hallstrom (A Dog's Purpose - 34% and Safe Haven - 13%), and Joe Johnston (Captain America: The First Avenger - 79%, The Wolfman - 35%), the latter having come in during post-production to assist the former. It's a mixed bag of film success for sure. I suspect this one appeals to enough holiday revelers to not be a complete bomb, but it's hard to imagine it being great.
There was only one movie on the docket last week, but it was an easy win with Hunter Killer (Predicted: 30% Actual: 36%). It didn't take an movie analytical genius to see this one coming down the pike. It was a Gerard Bulter-led submarine film about an oncoming WWIII threat. What more could we really have expected from this kind of feature? The predictions almost write themselves in these cases. Critics were mostly displeased with the result, finding it predictable and pandering at best (a slog and mess at worse). The trailer suggested as much.
Next time around we've got Dr. Seuss's The Grinch, The Girl In The Spider's Web, and Overlord. It's gonna be a Rotten Week!
