It's been a heck of a summer already at the theaters, from superhero box office records to sentient dolls, and things will only keep rolling along strongly this week. We've got your friendly, neighborhood web slinger off on vacation, and a festival gone way off the festive rails, so get ready for Jon Watts' Spider-Man: Far From Home and Ari Aster's Midsommar.
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.
Realistically, as it were, the Marvel Cinematic Universe finished its Phase 3 with the near-perfect Avengers Endgame.Officially, however, the final Phase 3 adventure is Spider-Man Far From Home, which marks the true end of this MCU chapter. The film puts Tom Holland's Peter Parker and company on a school trip to Venice which, only somewhat unbelievably, puts all sorts of villainy in their way.
Phase 3 has been nothing short of a masterpiece of work for Marvel, with none of the most recent 11 films finishing below 78%, which was Captain Marvel's score. A ton of critics have been overwhelmingly positive on Spidey's class trip, which sits at 91% on the Tomatometer through 131 reviews. CinemaBlend’s Eric Eisenberg gave 4 stars in his review and I don’t expect the score to drop much over the course of the week. Jon Watts is back directing after helming Homecoming (92%) and it looks very much like this one will finish in the same range.
I get that summer festivals are all the rage, and that the more exotic the destination and the performer lineup, the better it sounds. Hell, I’ve seen both Fyre Festival documentaries, so I get how this works. Much like that disaster, the new film Midsommar posits a bunch of young folks scrambling get to a super exclusive party might not be the best idea in the world. Also, that they probably should have done a better job at recognizing the creep factor early on, because this party turns into a nightmarish disaster soon enough.
In Midsommar, which is helmed by Hereditary's breakout filmmaker Ari Aster, the friends head into what appears to be some kind of supernatural cult' summer get-together, which turns real fucking weird real fucking quick. The trailer was off-putting (in a cinematic way, I suppose) and critics are already moderately singing its brutal praises. Midsommar is sitting at 85% on the Tomatometer through 74 reviews, with critics praising both the scares and the dread-filled tone.
Recapping last week:
I only went one-for-two with predictions last week, because I whiffed big on Annabelle Comes Home (Predicted: 31% Actual: 70%). I officially can’t figure this doll out, or the franchise as a whole. The first Annabelle scored a 29%, but the next two peaked at 70% on the dot, with the rest of the Conjuring franchise hitting anywhere from the mid-80’s to the low-20’s. In this latest, helmed by current horror-magnet Gary Dauberman, Annabelle getting stored in the house didn't cause narrative issues (unbelievably) and critics were mostly on board. I really can’t believe it, but this one was a big miss.
Meanwhile, Yesterday (Predicted: 63% Actual: 59%) was a bigger win because, as I predicted, the score went on to fall over the course of the week. Critics came in with more and more negative reviews as the week went on, with the major underlying complaint being that the storyline is a mess. The recognizable soundtrack seems to have helped save it more than anything.
Next time, we’ve got Alexandre Aja's disaster horror Crawl and Michael Dowse's action comedy Stuber. It’s gonna be a Rotten Week!
