June 2017 Movie Preview

            After covering the Saints offseason and providing a restaurant guide to Newark, Delaware, let’s shift back to one of our favorite subjects to cover on the blog: movies! With June comes more summer movies. So let’s take a look at some of the upcoming movies this June and give a verdict on whether they’re worth your time.

June 2

Wonder Woman: This is the first movie since the beginning of the superhero movie era that is directed by a woman and features a female superhero. Alamo Drafthouse recently announced all-female screenings of Wonder Woman to raise awareness about this glaring problem. In response, a bunch of whiny men complained about discrimination. So Alamo Drafthouse added additional all-female screenings. That’s the kind of activism we can all get behind. Throw in a talented cast (Gal Gadot and Chris Pine) and a talented director (Patty Jenkins), this may be the first DC universe film that won’t leave you bored with its bland color palette and interminable running time. Go see it. 

June 9

The Mummy: This revival of the forgettable 2000s era franchise tosses aside Brendan Fraser in favor of Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe. Why? Well, we’re not really sure. The trailer features generic world destroying action and some vaguely threatening dialogue about ancient evil and the threat it poses to the world. Also, the trailer highlights the destruction of London via some kind of sandstorm. London gets destroyed in every one of these type of movies. Stop destroying London! Pick somewhere else! And pick another movie on June 9. Maybe Wonder Woman again? 

June 16

Cars 3: Remember Cars? It was a perfectly pleasant movie about talking cars that played to Pixar’s strengths of turning inanimate objects into something you care about. Then came Cars 2. While supposedly a parody of spy movies, the film failed to recapture anything remotely funny about the original movie. It remains Pixar’s lowest rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes. Now years later, everyone’s back for a third time around because… the cars are having mid-life crises? Even though it’s Pixar, it’s probably best to wait and see. Unless you have kids, in that case, you’ll see this movie a dozen times. 

Rough Night: A comedy for adults starring Scarlett Johansson, Zoe Kravitz, Kate McKinnon, and Ilana Glazer (from Broad City) about a bachelorette party gone bad. Hollywood seems to be slowly learning the lesson of Bridesmaids—people will go see a funny movie starring funny women. There’s only about one of these movies a year, they cost about $50 million to make and earn well over $150 million. (Bridesmaids made almost $290 million on $32.5 million budget.) Yet studios are only slowly catching on, mostly because they’re all focused on launching the next movie franchise (Six more Power Rangers movies!) rather than making movies that people will like. This looks like a movie good for couples and younger people.

June 23

Transformers: The Last Knight: It’s getting to the point where there’s nothing new to make fun of about these movies. The action scenes are incoherent. They’re full of racist and/or sexist stereotypes. The humor is juvenile at best. Yet they make hundreds of millions of dollars because people like watching robots blow stuff up. The trailer shows Transformers fighting Nazis, serving as members of King Arthur’s Round Table, and a bunch of other nonsense justified by Anthony Hopkins (!) as a Transformers’ historian. Hard pass.

June 30
Despicable Me 3: All I know about these movies is that they gave birth to those annoying Minions’ memes. And for that, there is no forgiveness. The third installment in this series involves a twin brother and a bunch of jokes aimed for a children’s audience. As with Cars 3, if you’re a parent, you’ll see this movie. If you’re not, why bother? It’s summer, go outside. Go for a swim. Go to the beach. Or maybe go see Wonder Woman again.