‘GUARDIANS’ STANDS OUT IN A SUMMER FILLED WITH SEQUELS
School is still out, but if the box office is summer school, the grades are rolling in for Hollywood. This summer has been replete with big-budget sequels, from the crowd-pleasing new Guardians of the Galaxy installment to another unholy trip into the wo
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2
GRADE: A Three years after the first
Guardians hit theaters, the sequel found Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) going mano a mano with his longlost dad, Ego (a pitch-perfect Kurt Russell), while the rest of the gang dealt with familial rivalry, romance and, of course, space monsters.
“They had it all,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore. “It was one of the best stories of the summer.”
Thanks to a witty script and Baby Groot, Vol. 2 earned an A on CinemaScore and more than $385 million domestically.
WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES
GRADE: B+
Consider it an interim grade. Whether audiences will embrace the latest chapter in the Apes saga (in theaters Friday) remains to be seen, but critics gave the film a 95% fresh rating on review site Rotten Tomatoes. DESPICABLE ME 3 GRADE: B
America still loves Minions, as proven by the latest Despicable
Me, which opened with an Afrom CinemaScore audiences and a respectable $72 million. While that’s $11 million less than Despi
cable Me 2 earned in its opening weekend in 2013, Illumination Entertainment ( The Secret Life of
Pets, Minions and Sing) maintained its status as a hitmaker.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES
GRADE: C+ Johnny Depp’s personal troubles stayed with him as the new Pirates hit theaters. Despite a fantastic new villain, the franchise’s fifth installment garnered only a 29% positive rating from Rotten Tomatoes critics.
“The bloom is off the rose with audiences,” says Dergarabedian, who notes though the film continues to make bank offshore ($565 million), American interest is dwindling. Dead Men has pulled in just $169 million stateside.
TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT
GRADE: DIf we were assigning grades on the basis of public flogging, Transformers would take the cake, with The Village Voice critic giving up and just typing gibberish as his review. Ultimately, The Last Knight scored a dismal 15% Rotten Tomatoes score with critics and has earned just $119 million domestically.
“Detention!” says Dergarabedian. “The long-lived franchise that finally met the saturation point.”
But like Pirates, the film performed well internationally, raking in $375 million.
ALIEN: COVENANT
GRADE: B
Cinephiles are still scratching their heads over what happened with Alien: Covenant. USA TODAY called Michael Fassbender’s performance a “tour de force.” Covenant “deserved more credit than audiences gave it,” Dergarabedian says, earning just $73.8 million domestically.