Best Movie reviews: Lessons Learned from the Best and Worst Movies of Summer 2009

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August 25, 2009Lessons Learned from the Best and Worst Movies of Summer 2009Posted by CoolerKing in FeaturesThey’re not screening The Final Destination or H2: Halloween II for critics (big surprise), so, hate to break it to you, kids, but the summer season is basically over. Thus, it's time to ask the question, movie fans - what did you learn on your summer vacation? Honestly, it doesn't seem like Hollywood learned a lot. The films that connected with the public and the films that connected with critics were generally movies whose trajectory you could chart from their first preview. Is anyone really surprised that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince are the top two movies at the box office for Summer 2009? Or that Pixar performed again? Or that Star Trek returned to being a profitable franchise? Even "sleeper" hits like The Hangover and District 9 were buzzed about highly in the weeks before their release. One could argue that the Hollywood syllabus will not be drastically changed by most of the critical or commercial hits (or bombs) of summer 2009 and that, in general, expectations were met. So, what lessons or rules of the movie game were "confirmed" by Summer 2009? Let's count the big seven.

- Brian Tallerico

1. Science Fiction Is Back in a BIG Way

There were a few very successful comedies (The Hangover, The Proposal), some monster animated films (Up, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs), and everyone knows the power of the sequel, but the real genre of 2009 is science fiction. Three of the best films of not just the season, but the entire year, belong to the genre of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind – Star Trek, Moon, and District 9. All three of those films were beloved by audiences and critics, but you have to add two more genre entries – the indie hit Sleep Dealer and the disastrous Terminator: Salvation – to really see the breadth of the genre in 2009. For years, theatrical sci-fi has been reduced to something closer to animation, as we've watched stars like Will Smith fight futuristic iPod-esque robots. Personally, I think the explosion of sci-fi on television as a thriving creative genre is seeing its effect on the big screen this year. Battlestar Galactica, Lost, and other densely written TV science fiction has led to seeing the same thing at movie theaters. From the very small scale of films like Sleep Dealer or Moon to the giant scale of films like Star Trek, sci-fi is definitely the genre of the year.

2. Low Budget Special Effects Are the Future

And one of those science fiction entries we just mentioned could very well end up as the most influential film of the year, whether you like it or not. As you read this, every studio in Hollywood is trying to find the next District 9. Why? It cost $30 million. When a film can make back its budget in its opening weekend and still look as good as D9 (and register with critics and audiences on a quality level as well), a studio head would be stupid to ignore it. After just ten days in domestic release, District 9 has made more than double its budget and stands in the top twenty of the year. It forces studio execs to ask themselves - why not find more creative voices like director Neill Blomkamp and give them a similar, less risky budget than say, G.I. Joe? You could make almost six District 9s for every G.I. Joe. The number one film of the year at the box office may be Transformers 2, but that's an expected marketing machine that surprised absolutely no one. Transformers cost $200 million to make and will double that in its entire domestic run. Nothing to laugh at, but consider that District 9 doubled its budget domestically before its second weekend was over and you’ll see why its success is making bigger ripples in the Hollywood pond. The lowered cost of special effects made a film like District 9 possible. It would have cost twice as much five years ago and four times as much ten years ago. Now that filmmakers have the tools to use affordable CGI, it will become as common as the green screen before a movie preview. Let’s just hope it’s used as creatively and cleverly as in District 9.

3. Sequels Still Drive the Season

Everyone from critics to message board trolls laments the trend of "sequelitis," and yet audiences still flock to familiar franchises in droves. Of the top ten films (as of 8/23/09) for the season, six out of ten are sequels – Transformers 2, Harry Potter 6, Ice Age 3, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Night at the Museum 2, and Angels & Demons. All but one of those films was destroyed by critics and ridiculed across the net, but people still showed up like McDonalds was giving away free Big Macs because they felt like they'd be left in the dust when a popular talking point comes up at parties or on the way to school. Most sequels are nothing more than well-marketed fast food – you know they're not good for you and you'll regret it later, but you almost feel obligated to see the next film in a franchise that entertained you in the past. If you include familiar properties like Star Trek and G.I. Joe, nine of the thirteen films that made over $100 million this summer were franchise entries (only The Hangover, Up, The Proposal, and G-Force were not... although District 9 and Inglourious Basterds are likely to join the 100+ club by the end of the season).

4. But Don't Repeat Yourself

We are clearly drawn to sequels, but ticket buyers need to be convinced that it's another chapter and not just more of the same. Summer 2009 featured a number of films that felt all too familiar to audiences and it showed at the ticket counter. The most notable example has to Bruno, a film that made less than half of the domestic gross of Borat and failed to register as anything more than mockumentary repetition for film goers and a lot of critics. The remake of The Taking of Pelham 123 didn't take off like expected, making just over $65 million, less than other Denzel films like American Gangster, Inside Man, or Man on Fire. Even John Q. made more in 2002. The same-old-schtick from Michael Cera and Jack Black resulted in disappointing results for Year One. I Love You, Beth Cooper reeked of bad teen comedies we had already seen. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Orphan, Imagine That – they all felt like retreads. Basically, audiences don't mind repetition if it's marketed and sold as a part of a franchise, but not if they think they're trying to be hoodwinked into paying for something they've already seen. They don't want to feel like they're being tricked, but don't seem to care if a sequel is just more of the same. Essentially, if Sacha Baron Cohen had called it Borat 2: Borat's Gay Brother, Bruno would have made twice as much.

5. Buzz Matters

I loved how many WB press releases were still referring to The Hangover as "a sleeper" even after the film has become the highest-grossing R-rated comedy in history. Warner Brothers pulled off a brilliant marketing feat with The Hangover, selling it as a "sleeper" even while doing dozens of word-of-mouth screenings, interviews, and buzz-building events of their own. There was nothing sleepy about The Hangover. It was a calculated designation for the film that made hip, young audiences feel like they had to see it to stay up with what's cool on the movie scene. WB sold the film almost like a trend. You were out of the loop if you didn't go. It was a genius marketing campaign. The second-best campaign of the season had to be Star Trek, a film that built on months of buzz and actually delivered what fans were looking for. And when Sony realized what they had with District 9, they marketed the hell out of it, building on the positive buzz that came out of San Diego Comic-Con. Fox Searchlight proved that they are one of the most adept buzz-building studios out there by turning (500) Days of Summer into a relative hit and Summit proved that they still need a little help in the buzz department, only guiding the best film of the year, The Hurt Locker, to a likely $13 million total gross. Everyone who laments the lack of quality at the multiplex should be ashamed if they didn't pay to see Kathryn Bigelow's incredible film. Transformers 2 made over THIRTY times the domestic gross of The Hurt Locker. Yes, that's monstrously depressing.

6. Sometimes Romance Is All the CGI You Need

Science fiction and sequels are one thing, but the counterprogramming of romantic comedies against the male-driven product of the season has proven itself again and again. Take The Proposal, a film that shattered all box office expectations by making over $150 million domestically, more than Angels & Demons or Terminator: Salvation. Easily the biggest film of the career of Sandra Bullock or Ryan Reynolds, The Proposal could be looked at as further proof of Bullock's star status (something I doubt will extend to All About Steve in a few weeks) or it could be looked at as part of the genius of counter-programming for an audience typically under-served in the warmest season of the year. Even The Ugly Truth, a film with no real stars and horrendous reviews, made over $80 million. There's serious money in romantic comedy during the summer.

7. The Director Is Still King

With the exception of the arrival of Neill Blomkamp and Duncan Jones, 2009 was remarkably comforting for the fans of the auteur theory. Kathryn Bigelow, J.J. Abrams, Michael Mann, Chan-wook Park, and Quentin Tarantino – these are creative voices who have hit home runs before and they delivered yet again in Summer 2009. I hate to reduce things to such a base level, but the director is still the best gauge of a movie's quality pre-release. Is anyone surprised that Tarantino and Mann delivered quality product and Michael Bay, Brad Silberling, and McG did not? The directors of Pulp Fiction and Heat proved why they have the creative freedom that they do and the directors of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and Bad Boys II proved that they should probably be reined in a bit. Shocking. The fact is that batting average matters and, when a director hits it out of the park repeatedly, we shouldn't be surprised when he does so again. Now, that doesn't mean that the power hitter isn't going to strike out every once in awhile or that the new call-up from the minors can't hit the walk-off home run of the season, but 2009 proved again who several of the cinematic MVPs truly are.

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And now that you've learned the proper lessons from this year's summer movie season, here are MovieRetriever's picks for the best and worst films of Summer 2009:

The Ten Best Films of Summer 2009:

1. The Hurt Locker
2. Public Enemies
3. Star Trek
4. Inglourious Basterds
5. Thirst
6. District 9
7. Up
8. Moon
9. Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince
10. (500) Days of Summer

The Ten Worst Films of Summer 2009:

1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2. Land of the Lost
3. Shorts
4. Angels & Demons
5. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
6. Terminator: Salvation
7. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
8. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
9. Adam
10. The Time Traveler's Wife

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What do you think? Are the sci-fi flicks of 2009 overrated? Are you convinced that Land of the Lost being overlooked as the best movie of the millennium?

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