Summer had plenty to see — and to miss
Let’s be clear: This summer was a huge bummer as far as most tentpole movies were concerned. But never fear — there were a few cinematic bright spots. USA TODAY’s Andrea Mandell, Bryan Alexander, Brian
Truitt and Patrick Ryan anoint the good, the bad and the (very) ugly of the box-office offerings these past few sweltering months. (Plus, a few shout-outs to films we still think you should see.)
MOST DISMAL: ALL THE SEQUELS
We love you, Hollywood, but this summer of sequels needed rebooting almost immediately. Mutant heroes and talking animals faced the end of the world in mediocre fashion in X-Men: Apocalypse and Ice Age: Collision Course — is it bad we rooted against them? That’s not all: Alice Through the Looking Glass was a disastrous trip, Jason Bourne and Star Trek Beyond only managed to be so-so next chapters in huge franchises, and perhaps the aliens should have won 20 years ago so we could have been spared Independence Day: Resurgence.
BEST UPPERCLASSMAN: ELLEN DEGENERES
How did Pixar’s Finding Dory swim gracefully through a summer stocked with reviled sequels? Give credit to DeGeneres, who reprised her beloved regal blue tang Dory from 2003’s Finding Nemo, and a story that made the return not only plausible but somehow profoundly necessary.
CRUSH OF SUMMER: KATE MCKINNON
The Saturday Night Live standout was at her nerdy best in the new Ghostbusters as Jillian Holtzmann, GIF-ready driver of the Ecto-1 and the team’s goggled, wild-haired spark plug. In a period when politics and Internet hate got us down, the sight of her dancing to DeBarge’s Rhythm of the Night took all those blues away.
SUPERHERO WHO DESERVED TO FLUNK OUT: CAPTAIN BOOMERANG
No supervillain emerged unscathed from the critically slammed mess of Suicide Squad. But Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) was the biggest clunker, with the atrocious misuse of Aussie clichés as his most lethal weapons, from his boomerang throwing to his lager swilling.
GEM YOU MISSED (SHAKES FIST): POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING
Seriously, why didn’t any of you go see this? We tried to tell you that the Lonely Island’s latest This Is Spinal Tap- like mockumentary (which skewers the likes of Justin Bieber and the entire music industry) was hilarious, but, no, you let it slink off with a sad $9.5 million take at the box office. Here’s hoping fans shower Popstar with the cult comedy status it deserves when it hits Netflix.