By July, the summer-movie season is in full swing, with studios simultaneously pumping out big, mega-hyped blockbusters, and the terrible-looking stuff some people will see anyway, because it’s hot and theaters are usually air-conditioned. Accordingly, July sees the release of The Dissolve’s most-anticipated film and our least-anticipated one—though both are slightly unusual summer fare. Here’s our guide to what’s coming, the third in our four-part preview of this summer’s most notable releases.
Follow along with our trailer reel here for these hotly anticipated films.
| Deliver Us From Evil | (July 2) | 5.2 |
| Earth To Echo | (July 2) | 4.1 |
| Tammy | (July 2) | 5.9 |
| Begin Again | (July 4) | 7.2 |
| And So It Goes... | (July 11) | 4.1 |
| Boyhood | (July 11) | 9.6 |
| Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes | (July 11) | 7.8 |
| Life Itself | (July 11) | 8.7 |
| Jupiter Ascending | (July 18) | 7.3 |
| Planes:Fire & Rescue | (July 18) | 1.7 |
| The Purge: Anarchy | (July 18) | 3.5 |
| Wish I Was Here | (July 18) | score |
| A Most Wanted Man | (July 25) | 6.7 |
| Hercules | (July 25) | 4.3 |
| Sex Tape | (July 25) | 5.4 |
| Step Up All In | (July 25) | 4.8 |
| Magic In The Moonlight | (July 25) | 6.4 |
Deliver Us From Evil
(JUly 2)
SUMMARY
An 1980s-style buddy movie meets The Exorcist as a troubled, edgy New York police officer (Eric Bana) teams up with a priest (Edgar Ramirez) schooled in exorcism to confront a series of demonic possessions that have spread across the city—and into the officer’s home.
PEDIGREE
Co-writer/director Scott Derrickson specializes in this kind of thing: He turned the real-life story of a “possessed” girl from a devoutly religious family into The Exorcism Of Emily Rose, and amplified the Super-8 snuff of Sinister into a hard-R supernatural thriller. Deliver Us From Evil teams him with another real-life demon, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who hasn’t ventured into horror since 1982’s Cat People.
EARLY WORD
The first trailer makes it look like a Scott Derrickson film through and through—more demon chicanery, a gray-black palette, a tortured male protagonist—but it also offers an unusually sustained look at a single setpiece, which may be a truer indicator of what the finished film will be like. (In a word: scary.)
X FACTOR
Derrickson knows how to push buttons—he’s one of the loudest, most viscerally punishing horror directors around—but it’ll come down to whether that approach serves the material well (as it did in Sinister) or becomes overbearing (as it did in Emily Rose).
ANTICIPATION RATING: 5.2
The details sound interesting, but horror is a less than 50-50 bet, and we’re only willing to go so far as giving it a 50-50 chance of being good.
Earth To Echo
(JULY 2)
SUMMARY
A group of pre-teen friends start receiving strange signals on their cell phones, which they follow to uncover a mysterious, mechanical-looking, yet strangely adorable alien life form. As they learn to communicate with the creature, they discover it needs their help—to phone home, perhaps?—which proves increasingly dangerous as their new discovery attracts the attention of adult officials. Oh, and they film the whole thing on various handheld recording devices, because that’s how we do things now.
PEDIGREE
While Earth To Echo is a product of Walt Disney Studios—though it's being distributed by Relativity—it’s devoid of name-recognition talent: The biggest name in its kiddie cast is Astro, a.k.a. Brian Bradley, a finalist on the first season of the American X Factor. It’s helmed by first-time feature director Dave Green, working from a script by first-time feature writer Henry Gayden, who collaborated with Green on the FearNet original webseries Zombie Roadkill.
EARLY WORD
Nothing apart from two official trailers, which make Earth To Echo look like a direct rip-off of E.T.—or perhaps J.J. Abrams’ 2011 E.T. homage Super 8—with a dash of Chronicle and Wall-E thrown in the mix.
X FACTOR
With so many obvious comparison points, the burden is on Earth To Echo to distinguish itself as something unique rather than a lazy retread. Perhaps Astro will prove to be the, ahem, X-factor.
ANTICIPATION RATING: 4.1
Consensus vote suggests we might just want to go home and watch E.T. again. It’s been a while.
Tammy
(JULY 2)
SUMMARY
After losing her job at a burger joint and finding her husband in bed with another woman, Tammy (Melissa McCarthy) snaps and decides to hit the road with her hard-drinking, potty-mouthed grandmother (Susan Sarandon) in tow. References to Thelma And Louise appear inevitable.
PEDIGREE
Tammy has been described as “a labor of love” by McCarthy and her husband, Ben Falcone, who co-wrote the screenplay (Falcone is directing) and have been working to get the film produced for more than five years. Though Falcone has acted alongside McCarthy in Bridesmaids, The Heat, and Identity Thief, this is his first time writing or directing a feature. The pair has assembled an impressive cast of female actors to join McCarthy and Sarandon onscreen—including Allison Janney, Kathy Bates, Toni Collette, and Sandra Oh—and got backing from Gary Sanchez Productions, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s production company, responsible for films like Step Brothers and Anchorman 2, as well as Funny Or Die.
EARLY WORD
Not much beyond the cast and the logline, and a recently released teaser trailer that offers few plot details, but a good sense of the Chris Farley-esque comedic style McCarthy is bringing to the table. McCarthy has hinted that Tammy is going to walk the line between dark comedy and drama, though only the former is evident in the teaser.
X FACTOR
McCarthy has proven herself a formidable comedic force in the years since Bridesmaids, usually playing the sort of wild-card character that needs to bounce off a more grounded co-star. Given the out-there-sounding description of Sarandon’s character, it’ll be interesting to see how the dynamic works here, especially if McCarthy’s comments about the film’s dramatic elements bear out.
ANTICIPATION RATING: 5.9
That teaser looks pretty dire, placing McCarthy firmly in the fatty-fall-down-go-boom arena of comedy. But she’s a smart, talented creator, and we’re all keeping our hopes up that her freedom on this project has produced something subversive that she’s just trying to sneak past the masses.
Begin Again
(JULY 4)
SUMMARY
Amateur singer-songwriter Gretta (Keira Knightley) gets stranded in New York when her rock-star boyfriend (Adam Levine) takes off on tour with his mistress. But she catches a break when drunken, desperate former record mogul Dan Mulligan (Mark Ruffalo) hears her sing, and stakes everything on making an album with her, recorded live on location around the city.
PEDIGREE
Writer-director John Carney knows a little something about turning the everyday lives of musicians into a different kind of movie musical, having delivered a left-field hit with his 2007 film Once. With Begin Again, Carney is working with the biggest-name cast he’s employed so far, including Catherine Keener as Dan’s ex-wife, Hailee Steinfeld as their daughter, and James Corden as Gretta’s best friend.
EARLY WORD
Begin Again got off to a fast start at the Toronto film festival last fall, when it was still titled Can A Song Save Your Life? There, it landed the biggest distribution deal of the festival, with The Weinstein Company. Critics were divided on the film, with some deriding its hackneyed clichés about the cynicism of the music business and the wonderland that is New York City. It demands viewers submit to its earnest romanticism, but those who can take that ride should be charmed by the lead performances, and by the whole idea of pop music as the great unifier. (Noel Murray and Tasha Robinson, who saw it at different festivals, were both positive on it, while acknowledging the divide between its authentic emotion and overly pushy message.)
X FACTOR
As with Once, the success of Begin Again will be tied closely to how much people believe in the songs. It helps that the catchy soundtrack was written by Gregg Alexander, an elusive former wunderkind best known for fronting the band New Radicals, then quitting right when he was enjoying a massive hit with the song “You Get What You Give.”
ANTICIPATION RATING: 7.2
Word of mouth from staffers who have already seen it has helped boost enthusiasm. So has Carney’s presence. We’re ready to open up our hearts and learn to love again.
And So It Goes...
(JULY 11)
SUMMARY
A selfish, self-absorbed real-estate agent played by Michael Douglas is thrown for a loop when his estranged son saddles him with a granddaughter he’s never met. Will this narcissistic curmudgeon learn the value of family and giving, possibly with the help of a daffy neighbor played by Diane Keaton? If a century-plus of cinema and the wisdom of formula are any indication, yes, yes he will.
PEDIGREE
With a screenplay by As Good As It Gets scribe Mark Andrus, this looks exactly like the kind of gratingly quirky, “adult” fare that gets nominated for lots of awards and cleans up with the AARP crowd. Director Rob Reiner, meanwhile, has experienced flop after flop after flop as of late, with the notable exception of The Bucket List, which likewise appealed to the old-and-sexy set.
EARLY WORD
There doesn’t seem to be much early word on this one, though it did get some negative press when producer Rob Reiner replaced original director P.J. Hogan. That happened before on 2005’s Rumor Has It, and heaven knows that film didn’t turn out too well.
X FACTOR
Senior citizens have quietly made some sleepy films, like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and The Bucket List, into surprise blockbusters. Will they do the same for And So It Goes, or will Reiner’s epic losing streak continue?
ANTICIPATION RATING: 4.1
Curmudgeon + adorable unexpected kid = this one’s going to have to work to earn the respect it wants.
Boyhood
(JULY 11)
SUMMARY
Shot over the course of 12 years around Texas—with the cast convening for a few weeks each year—Boyhood stars Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as the divorced parents of a daughter played Lorelei Linklater and a son played by Ellar Coltrane. The movie focuses mainly on the son, Mason, following him as his makeshift family moves from town to town and circumstance to circumstance, while he keeps growing up regardless.
PEDIGREE
Writer-director Richard Linklater has made experiments like Boyhood the backbone of his filmography, from the narrative-hopping of Slacker and Waking Life to the feature-length conversations of the Before Sunrise series. Rumors about what Linklater was up to with Boyhood have been passing around the cinephile community since he started shooting in 2002.
EARLY WORD
A late addition to this year’s Sundance—and then immediately the hottest ticket at the fest—Boyhood struck some critics as too shapeless, with wildly uneven performances throughout. But that was just some critics. Most were over the moon for what is a staggering achievement: a film that stubbornly refuses to develop a plot or reward the audience with sentimental callbacks, because Linklater has other ambitions. Instead, Boyhood captures how childhood zips by as a series of memorable-but-not-always-major moments, set against an ever-shifting backdrop of pop culture and politics.
X FACTOR
The secret star of Boyhood is the state of Texas, which Linklater shoots with clear-eyed affection, from the small towns to downtown Houston. Linklater takes it all in—the gun culture, the religious conviction, the liberal enclaves, the gorgeous countryside, the Astros—without judgment.
ANTICIPATION RATING: 9.6
Hands down our most anticipated film of month—and the summer as a whole. We feel like we’ve been waiting 12 years to see this one already.
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes
(JULY 11)
SUMMARY
Ten years after the events of 2011’s Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, the hyper-intelligent ape Caesar (Andy Serkis) and his followers come into conflict with the human survivors of a deadly virus, including Jason Clarke and Gary Oldman. Who will win? One hint: It ain’t called Dawn Of The Planet Of The Humans.
PEDIGREE
Replacing Rise director Rupert Wyatt is Matt Reeves, who made the found-footage monster movie Cloverfield and the American remake of Let The Right One In. At one point, Contagion screenwriter Scott Z. Burns was brought in to work on the screenplay, but when Reeves signed on, Burns was replaced by Mark Bomback, a contributor to the scripts for films like Live Free Or Die Hard, Unstoppable, The Wolverine, and Total Recall. (The bad one.)
EARLY WORD
None from critics yet, but Fox is apparently so pleased with Reeves’ work on Dawn that the studio has already signed him to make the next film in the Planet Of The Apes franchise, due out on July 29, 2016. This time, Reeves himself will co-script the film with Bomback.
X FACTOR
Expectations. No one (except maybe Fox) anticipated much from Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, but the film’s impressive special effects and dark storyline made it a surprise hit. As the follow-up to a well-received movie, Dawn will face a lot more scrutiny than its predecessor. Rise just had to be better than Tim Burton’s Planet Of The Apes, which wasn’t terribly difficult. Dawn will have to outdo Rise, which could be a bit trickier.
ANTICIPATION RATING: 7.8
Still, the first trailer, which emphasizes tension and actual filmmaking over fast-cut action, has our hopes much higher than they usually are for sequels, much less sequels to surprise successes. We’re all ready to hail our new ape overlords.
Life Itself
(JULY 11)
SUMMARY
In adapting the memoir of Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic and American icon Roger Ebert, documentarian Steve James alternates between a passionate, funny, warts-and-all retrospective consideration of Ebert’s epic career, and a wrenching, intimate look at the end of Ebert’s life, his relationship with wife/soulmate Chaz, and his public efforts to live and die with dignity. It’s a remarkable tribute to a remarkable man.
PEDIGREE
It would be hard to imagine a film with a more impressive pedigree. Ebert is a legend (albeit one who also wrote a number of X-rated sex comedies for Russ Meyer). James (director of Hoop Dreams) is one of the most respected and consistent documentarians around. And the film was produced by Oscar-winner Martin Scorsese, who also appears onscreen to discuss his friendship with Ebert.
EARLY WORD
The film received standing ovations and rapturous praise when it played Sundance; an Indiegogo campaign and the enthusiasm of Ebert’s enormous fan base have increased anticipation for the film to feverish levels.
X FACTOR
Ebert was a populist who brought film criticism to the masses. Will the film have an opportunity to break out into the mainstream like Hoop Dreams, or will it be relegated to the documentary ghetto?
ANTICIPATION RATING: 8.7
We’re rooting for it like we rooted for the Hoop Dreams kids.
Jupiter Ascending
(JULY 18)
SUMMARY
In a near-future dystopia—yes, another one—Mila Kunis plays Jupiter Jones, a lowly janitor who might also have a genetic claim on Earth. This doesn’t sit well with the King Of The Universe (Eddie Redmayne), who sends Caine Wise (Channing Tatum) to kill her. Then, based on all appearances, things get complicated.
PEDIGREE
Jupiter Ascending is the latest from Lana and Andy Wachowski, and it looks like a more commercial effort than the team’s last magnum opus, Cloud Atlas (co-directed with Tom Tykwer). It still looks ambitious: Though its chosen-one-against-the-forces-of-evil story bears a resemblance to The Matrix from a distance, the images released from the film suggest the Wachowskis are attempting a fusion of ancient myth and modern science fiction. (Think Jack Kirby’s Fourth World comics, with a contemporary blockbuster sensibility.)
EARLY WORD
There’s little to base any kind of judgment on beyond the visuals released in the trailer. But hey, visuals count for a lot in Wachowski films.
X FACTOR
Yet they don’t count for everything: The difference between a Wachowski film where the ideas at play are as engaging as the effects and one where they aren’t is the difference between The Matrix and The Matrix Revolutions. There’s little doubt the film will look amazing. But will it be gripping in any other way?
ANTICIPATION RATING: 7.3
We’re betting it will. Our anticipation may be rooted in the degree to which sometimes, not knowing much about a Wachowskis project can be more exciting than actually watching it, because with so many unknowns, and with their commitment to oddity and ambition, we could be getting practically anything.
Planes: Fire & Rescue
(JULY 18)
SUMMARY
Dusty Crophopper, the anthropomorphic cropduster who desperately wanted to be a racer in the thoroughly mediocre Cars spinoff Planes, now joins an elite aerial firefighting unit.
PEDIGREE
Like Planes before it, this film takes place in the world of Pixar’s Cars and Cars 2, but it’s from DisneyToon Studios, the subsidiary used to crank out direct-to-DVD Disney sequels and Tinker Bell CGI movies. It’s directed by Disney vet Roberts Gannaway, who has plenty of experience in Disney TV (House Of Mouse, Timon & Pumbaa) and directed one of the Tinker Bell sequels and a Lilo & Stitch sequel. Dane Cook returns as the voice of Dusty Crophopper.
EARLY WORD
“Meh.”
X FACTOR
For what it’s worth, the animation showcased in the initial Fire & Rescue trailers looks more ambitious and sophisticated than the first Planes, which was a relatively modest hit for Disney. (It brought in more than $200 million internationally on a $50 million budget; on the other hand, Cars 2 passed the half-billion mark on a $200 million budget.) Production numbers on the second Planes film haven’t been released, but just judging from the visuals, it’s possible Disney is pumping more money into these films in hopes of a bigger payday; with at least one more Planes film and even more Cars-world films in planning, it may seem like a reasonable long-term investment to try to make these movies at least slightly appealing to grown-ups.
ANTICIPATION RATING: 1.7
This averaged out to our least-anticipated film of the entire summer. Granted, none of us are 4-year-olds obsessed with vehicles and cartoons.
The Purge: Anarchy
(JULY 18)
SUMMARY
In a world where all crime is legal for one 24-hour period of mayhem and murder every year, one nice young couple somehow hasn’t figured out that taking a drive in an unreliable car right before Purge night starts is a bad idea. They wind up seeking shelter with other innocent victims-to-be, plus a man planning to use his one night of law-free killing to avenge his son.
PEDIGREE
2013’s The Purge was a heavy-handed, moralizing, but profitable home-invasion horror feature that echoed everything from The Desperate Hours to Panic Room. Writer-director James DeMonaco returns for this sequel, which leaves Purge stars Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey behind to focus on new characters played by Frank Grillo, Zach Gilford, and Kiele Sanchez. This film seems more in debt to Judgment Night instead.
EARLY WORD
Purge: Anarchy hasn’t screened for audiences yet, and it remains to be seen whether it’ll even screen for critics; the first film took a shellacking in the press before finding its fan base, and when sequelizing a popular film that the critics hated, there’s every reason to skip the journalists and go straight to the grinning violence-enthusiasts.
X FACTOR
Producer Jason Blum recently said he’d be up for the idea of cranking out a new Purge movie every year, as he does with his Paranormal Activity franchise. That isn’t actually the worst idea—the idea of a night of societally sanctioned violence certainly could spark a wide and compelling variety of stories—but it remains to be seen at this point whether the films themselves can even muster one really good, well-told tale.
ANTICIPATION RATING: 3.5
Fortunately, this is the one night per year when all dismissiveness about an upcoming film is legal.
Wish I Was Here
(JULY 18)
SUMMARY
Ten years after Garden State, Zach Braff finally returns to the director’s chair with another comedy-drama about a Braff-type in crisis. Braff stars as a struggling 35-year-old actor who’s married with children, but still looking for direction. He finds it by attempting to home-school his kids and—wait for it—learning about himself in the process.
PEDIGREE
It can be hard to remember that Garden State was a massive indie hit, given the swift and brutal backlash that engulfed it, but the wildly successful Kickstarter campaign for Wish I Was Here suggests that Braff still has his fans, even if they aren’t as vocal as his detractors. Based on the trailer, Braff’s love for The Shins hasn’t diminished in 10 years, either.
EARLY WORD
Reviews from the film’s Sundance debut were mixed to negative, with Variety’s Scott Foundas calling it “a cloying compendium of follow-your-dreams platitudes, new-agey spirituality and mawkish, father-son deathbed bonding.” Screen International’s Tim Grierson, a Dissolve contributor, admits to “succumb[ing] to this comedy-drama’s tear-jerking assault, even if at the same time acknowledging the movie’s navel-gazing limitations.”
X FACTOR
Does support for Braff extend beyond his Kickstarter donors, or will audiences be more inclined to stare at this GIF for 90 minutes instead?
ANTICIPATION RATING: 2.9
Here’s where we reluctantly admit that we didn’t contribute to Braff’s Kickstarter, and when he asked, we uncomfortably mumbled something about being a little overextended this month. Blame us for him not necessarily hitting all his stretch goals.
A Most Wanted Man
(JULY 25)
SUMMARY
One of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last screen performances comes in A Most Wanted Man, where he plays a Hamburg intelligence agent, keeping watch on a newly rich Russian (Grigoriy Dobrygin) with terrorist ties. Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe, Robin Wright, and Daniel Bruhl help fill out a cast of characters representing the weary faces of modern international policing.
PEDIGREE
The John le Carré novel on which this film is based is typically muted and detail-oriented, which fits with the sensibility of the movie’s director, Anton Corbijn, a famed photographer whose first two narrative films, Control and The American, were also stylish and quiet.
EARLY WORD
Reaction to A Most Wanted Man at Sundance was mixed, perhaps because Corbijn’s reserved approach tends not to excite people who are watching four movies a day and getting roughly four hours of sleep a night. But the movie does have its devotees, who admire the way Corbijn elucidates le Carré’s criticism of post-9/11 paranoia, which leads officious men and women to violate human rights in the name of following procedure.
X FACTOR
Hoffman, Corbijn, and le Carré will get all the attention here, but it’s worth taking note of the screenwriter, Andrew Bovell, an Australian playwright best-known for writing the script for Lantana (based on his own play Speaking In Tongues). He’s a writer accustomed to using stories about crime as a way to explore deeply flawed characters.
ANTICIPATION RATING: 6.7
If nothing else, another opportunity to see Hoffman in action is welcome. And while le Carré doesn’t make the most screen-dynamic adaptations, his stories tend to be complicated and rich enough to foster unusual interest.
Hercules
(JULY 25)
SUMMARY
In this “revisionist take on the classic myth,” Dwayne Johnson stars as the mighty Hercules. Not much else is known about the storyline at this point, but the cast also includes Ian McShane, Rufus Sewell, and John Hurt, and the trailer features the demigod fighting a three-headed serpent, a lion, and a giant boar. Hercules was apparently not a big animal lover.
PEDIGREE
The film is allegedly based on the hero of Greek myth—but really it’s based on the same thing all movies in 2014 are based on: a comic book. Specifically, Hercules: The Thracian Wars from Radical Studios. It’s Brett Ratner’s first feature since 2011’s Tower Heist, and just his fourth in the last 10 years (The other three, After The Sunset, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Rush Hour 3, are beloved by masochists everywhere.)
EARLY WORD
More than four months out, there’s no advance buzz on Ratner’s Hercules, but it will have to be historically bad to be the worst-reviewed Hercules movie of the year; January’s The Legend Of Hercules, only got a 3 percent approval rating (two out of 71 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes.
X FACTOR
The lion Johnson wears as a hat in some of the film’s marketing materials. It looks like Simba is choking on a professional wrestler. It might be difficult to take this movie seriously if Johnson has that thing on his head the entire time.
ANTICIPATION RATING: 4.3
Bill Murray on Saturday Night Live is the only revisionist Hercules we acknowledge. Besides, amid Clash Of The Titans movies and Percy Jackson movies, it’s been a while since a Greek-myth movie inspired us to anything but boredom.
Sex Tape
(JULY 25)
SUMMARY
A couple (Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz) who’ve been married for 10 years decide to spice up their flagging love life by making a sex tape—the 21st-century version of one, anyway. But their iPad-recorded tryst does what sex tapes tend to do and gets out, via a hazily defined technical glitch involving the much-feared, little-understood cloud. (Ooooh, the cloud…) Facing humiliation, they must scramble to keep the video from being seen by their family, friends, and bosses, a task that involves, judging by the red-band trailer, taking cocaine and falling off balconies. Odd are good they’ll learn something about each other, and about love, in the process.
PEDIGREE
The screenplay was written by Kate Angelo,who put in time as a writer and producer on sitcoms like Will & Grace and The Bernie Mac Show before breaking into film with the little-seen, little-loved 2010 Jennifer Lopez rom-com The Back-Up Plan. Director Jake Kasdan has a slightly more distinguished filmography that includes Orange County, The TV Set, Walk Hard: The Dewy Cox Story, and 2011’s Bad Teacher, which also starred Diaz.
EARLY WORD
So far, just that red-band trailer, which also indicates Sex Tape will include a fair amount of nudity and a lot of technology-aided misunderstandings.
X FACTOR
The trailer’s Siri- and cloud-based gags already feel pretty tired at this point, and a good decade-plus of celebrity sex-tape scandals have robbed that device of most of its shock value. The onus is on Sex Tape to find a fresh angle on what looks like some pretty stale material.
ANTICIPATION RATING: 5.4
That said, lingering positive feelings toward the director and stars here prevent us from giving up on this one without giving it a chance.
Step Up All In
(JULY 25)
SUMMARY
The Step Up franchise once again proves its continued endurance with the fifth (!) entry in the dance series that began in 2006. All In appears to conform to one of the two basic plot outlines available to dance-based movies, that of the Big Dance Battle (the other being the One Last Show To Save The Rec Center/Dance School/Practice Loft/Whatever), with the requisite love story/rivalry thrown into the mix. But as with every Step Up movie past the first, it’s really all about the big dance setpieces; the only variable is how many there will be (answer: a lot) and in how many dimensions they’ll be presented. (Answer: three.)
PEDIGREE
All In brings back actor-dancers from across the series for what’s posited as the biggest dance battle yet: Step Up Revolution’s Ryan Guzman returns as Sean. Adam Sevani’s Moose is back, after hanging around the franchise since Step Up 2 The Streets, whose Briana Evingan also returns, in her first appearance since that entry. But it’s all new faces behind the camera, including director Trish Sie, a newcomer to features whose most relevant previous credit is as co-director and choreographer of OK Go’s treadmill-based theatrics in the “Here It Goes Again” music video. Her experience in choreography, music videos, and gimmicky “viral” commercials (like this one) make her seem like a natural fit for the series.
EARLY WORD
Not much beyond the usual “Wait, there’s another Step Up movie happening?”, though the recent teaser trailer indicates that Step Up All In will, in fact, include a lot of dancing.
X FACTOR
Step Up is a “what you see (that is, dancing) is what you get (that is, dancing)” sort of franchise, and has found a lot of success with that model, so All In isn’t really under pressure to switch things up much here. Can it find a way to distinguish itself among its loud, colorful, acrobatic brethren?
ANTICIPATION RATING: 4.8
Even if it doesn’t, some staff members are ready to sign on for anything in the genre. Some adamantly aren’t, though, making this one of the more divisive entries on our summer list, with ratings covering an unusually broad span.
Magic In The Moonlight
(JULY 25)
SUMMARY
Woody Allen’s latest film is a period comedy set on the French Riviera in the 1920s and reportedly involves a British gentleman in France and some chicanery and criminal shenanigans. It takes Allen back to the world of 2011’s perfectly okay Midnight In Paris, which won a thoroughly undeserved Academy Award for being one of the 35 or so best scripts scripts Allen has written over the course of his career, and, even more undeservedly, was Allen’s top-grossing film.
PEDIGREE
Few filmmakers alive or dead are more celebrated than Allen, who has assembled his usual diverse and acclaimed cast, a collection that includes the Oscar-ordained likes of Colin Firth (Colin Firth, in a period movie? That’s unpossible!) and Marcia Gay Harden. The last time Allen visited this territory, Oscar came a-calling. Will that hold true this time as well?
EARLY WORD
Little is known yet about the film beyond the cast, the filmmakers, and the bare outlines of its premise, but after going through an extended period in the wilderness, Allen is in a creative and commercial hot streak that kicked off with Match Point and has continued with successes like Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Midnight In Paris, and 2013’s Oscar-nominated Blue Jasmine.
X FACTOR
Woody. The Oscar nominations for Blue Jasmine reignited the controversy involving Allen’s personal life and the charges of child molestation brought against him in the early 1990s. The controversy didn’t seem to hurt Blue Jasmine, as evidenced by Cate Blanchett’s Best Actress victory, but it definitely casts a shadow over this continental trifle.
ANTICIPATION RATING: 6.4
Much as with dance movies, Woody Allen movies have loyalists who’ll line up for everything he does, and non-fans who can’t be persuaded through the door. Judging from the individual scores, which ranged from a high of 8.8 to a low of 3.5, we’ve got the same kind of divisions on staff. Takes all kinds to make a world.
Don’t miss our Summer Movie Preview installments from last week, checking our excitement levels for May and June. And on Wednesday, we’ll wrap with August’s films, including Guardians Of The Galaxy, Luc Besson’s Scarlett Johansson-with-superpowers movie Lucy, and hoo boy, the latest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot.