summer movie preview 2015

Which Summer Movies Should You See, and Which Ones Should You Skip?

Photo: Maya Robinson and Photos by Walt Disney, The Weinstein Company, Alchemy and Twentieth Century Fox

If you paid full-price to see all of the films included in Vulture’s 2015 Summer Movie Preview, you’d be out nearly a grand — and that’s not even including 3-D surcharges. How can you determine which of these many, many movies are worth seeing in theaters, which are better left for Netflix, and which you should avoid altogether? Let us help you decide. The name of this game is “Watch, Stream, or Skip,” and we’re applying it to a trio of movies in every one of this summer’s microgenres. Read on, and let us know if you agree with our picks.

Obviously, The Avengers: Age of Ultron demands to be watched in a theater, but good luck finding one that won’t be sold out on opening weekend. Which of the other two troubled Marvel productions gets the edge? That’s a toughie, because we didn’t love the first trailers for either, but the notion of Paul Rudd’s action-hero moment in Ant-Man is simply too enticing to pass up, ultimately. Sorry, rebooted Fantastic Four! (We’re still curious about you, though.)
Judd Apatow’s ribald Amy Schumer comedy Trainwreck won raves at South by Southwest. Entourage, on the other hand, feels more like something you’d watch on Netflix and then desperately try to erase from your “recently viewed” list, lest anyone see it there. As for the gymnastics comedy The Bronze, I found it dreadful in its Sundance debut — aside from Sebastian Stan’s wild sex scene, which will surely make its way online eventually.
You’re reading Vulture. You know us. Is there any way we wouldn’t choose Magic Mike XXL as our “Watch” pick? With that bit of business settled, let’s give our next spot to Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, just for that eye-popping airplane sequence from the trailer. And Seth MacFarlane, you’ll find lots of takers for Ted 2, but we’re not going to be among them. Still, enjoy all your new money!
Can you believe that a female-dominated a cappella comedy begat one of the summer’s most-anticipated sequels? Let’s just hope Pitch Perfect 2 retains the original’s charming underdog spirit. We’re also onboard with the Melissa McCarthy vehicle Spy (mostly because Rose Byrne’s wigs look deliciously insane in the trailer), but the iffy-seeming Reese Witherspoon–Sofia Vergara buddy comedy Hot Pursuit looks to be better in theory than in execution.
Listen, that first trailer for Jurassic World wasn’t perfect, and it made us question Chris Pratt’s line readings. And we don’t like questioning anything about Chris Pratt! Still, there’s no way we’re missing the big return to the Jurassic universe. We’d be more excited for Joe Wright’s reimagining of Peter Pan if he hadn’t promised a multicultural take and then delivered something so lily-white (Pan stars Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily). As for the Adam Sandler video-game adventure Pixels — well, we’re instinctively going to thumbs-down an Adam Sandler–Kevin James comedy, although the presence of director Chris Columbus (and cast members like Jane Krakowski and Peter Dinklage) may elevate this a notch above Sandler’s usual shtick.
None of these horror films seem all that necessary, but Sinister 2 is at least some sort of forward step for the formerly Ethan Hawke–led franchise; Insidious Chapter 3 is a prequel, which so often seems to happen when the filmmakers have run out of places to go yet still feel compelled to make more movies. Before I Wake, starring Kate Bosworth and Thomas Jane, just feels like another tired entry in the creepy-kid horror genre.
We watch the mind-boggling Mad Max: Fury Road trailer every morning when we wake up. (It’s better than coffee!) When embarking on any sort of risky activity, we think to ourselves, Is it really worth dying before Mad Max: Fury Road comes out? Suffice it to say, WE ARE SO ONBOARD FOR MAD MAX THAT IT’S NOT EVEN FUNNY. Mad Max forever! Mad Max for all! Oh yeah, also, we’re indifferent to the Poltergeist sequel (the cast is good, though), and a reboot of the Transporter franchise without Jason Statham seems utterly pointless. (It was also moved out of summer after press time.)
Sundance hit The D Train begins on a conventional note — family man Jack Black is trying to woo popular classmate James Marsden back to their hometown for a reunion — but when the two leads have an unexpected same-sex hookup, the movie blasts off into intriguing, brand-new bro-comedy territory. The documentary Do I Sound Gay? seems destined to be a Netflix pick, exploring issues of masculinity and gay identity with aplomb. As for Saint Laurent, we’d caution that this long and digressive fashion-designer biopic is not for everybody (or for most people, for that matter), but if druggy French period pieces starring fabulously beautiful people are your thing, do check it out.
Brad Bird’s futuristic Tomorrowland — in which a young girl escapes into a gleaming science-driven dimension with the help of George Clooney’s inventor — feels like the closest thing this summer has to an original tentpole movie, even though it’s inspired in part by Disney’s own Tomorrowland theme-park attraction. We’ll definitely make room for that, but when it comes to the summer’s two sci-fi entries where someone takes over someone else’s body — both co-starring Ryan Reynolds, oddly enough! — we’re at least intrigued by the visually provocative Tarsem Singh–directed Self/Less (where Ben Kingsley ports himself into Reynolds’s youthful body), at least enough to give it the nod over Criminal, where a cop’s memories are planted in a criminal’s mind.
Yes, Cameron Crowe’s Hawaii-set romance Aloha — starring Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, and Rachel McAdams — was famously excoriated by departed Sony president Amy Pascal in those leaked emails. But damned if that trailer didn’t look cute and watchable, and with scene-stealing turns from Bill Murray and John Krasinski, besides! We’re also curious about Carey Mulligan choosing between Michael Sheen, Tom Sturridge, and Matthias Schoenaerts in a new adaptation of the Thomas Hardy classic Far From the Madding Crowd, but we’re reserving judgment on Paper Towns, the latest adaptation from Fault in Our Stars author John Green. (Intrigued by casting rambunctious model Cara Delevingne as the female lead, though.)
Which buff leading man will we buy tickets for this summer? Well, after Nightcrawler, we’d follow Jake Gyllenhaal anywhere, so if he wants to bulk up to play a boxer in the summer drama Southpaw, we’ll be there to watch. San Andreas pits Dwayne Johnson against an earthquake, and we don’t know which should fear the other more. Sounds campy and streamable. As for Maggie, wherein Arnold Schwarznegger cares for his zombie daughter Abigail Breslin … well, Schwarzenegger is not the first person we would cast as an earnest midwestern father, let’s put it that way.
N.W.A. origin story Straight Outta Compton is one of the summer’s most intriguing titles, especially since the part of Ice Cube will be played by … Ice Cube’s son! Claudia Llosa’s arty Aloft, starring Jennifer Connelly, has been winning great notices for Connelly’s performance, so it’s worth a look. Meanwhile, Peter Bogdanovich’s farce She’s Funny That Way (formerly titled Squirrel to the Nuts) has modern comic talents like Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, and Kathryn Hahn, but it feels like a relic from at least three decades ago.
Blythe Danner won raves out of Sundance for I’ll See You in My Dreams, which casts Gwyneth’s mom as a widow beginning to date again. Al Pacino as a minor-key locksmith in David Gordon Green’s intimate character study Manglehorn has been getting mostly shrugs on the festival circuit, and while we love Diane Keaton and support a screen romance between her and Morgan Freeman, 5 Flights Up was coolly received back at the Toronto Film Fest.
Roy Andersson’s new deadpan film is the third in the Swedish director’s “living trilogy,” and its full title is A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence. Yes, yes, that sounds like a parody of an art film, but this Venice Film Fest winner has been hailed as a low-key comic wonder. The Kristen Wiig vehicle Welcome to Me is no masterpiece (and wasting a co-star like Jennifer Jason Leigh should be a crime), but still, there are utterly bizarre, gut-busting moments in it that actually kind of work! And then there’s Masterminds, a heist comedy with a great cast (including Wiig, Owen Wilson, Zach Galifianakis, and Jason Sudeikis), but a director, Napoleon Dynamite’s Jared Hess, whose output has been awfully spotty as of late.
Inside Out is Pixar’s first original film in ages, with the sort of creative premise — in the mind of a little girl, five emotions joust with each other to control her well-being — that seems tailor-made for the animation company to apply its heartstring-pulling talents to. Minions is no mere spinoff of the blockbuster Despicable Me franchise, at least not with Sandra Bullock and Jon Hamm as the movie’s main voices. (Okay, you’ve got our attention, Minions.) The hastily redubbed foosball comedy Underdogs, however, seems like a cheap attempt from the Weinsteins to grab an overseas animated flick and tailor it for a U.S. audience.
Can it be? Did Henry Cavill actually seem charming and charismatic in Guy Ritchie’s trailer for The Man From U.N.C.L.E.? Who knew! Alright, we’ll go see him and Armie Hammer cavorting on motor scooters for two hours. We can’t say we’re excited about the umpteenth attempt to extend the Terminator franchise (this one drafting Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor and bringing back Arnold Schwarzenegger as an aged robot), but at least we’d rather stream that than watch Hitman: Agent 47, which sequelizes a video-game adaptation that nobody cared about the first time around.
Meryl Streep starring as a washed-up rock-and-roll wannabe in a movie written by Diablo Cody and directed by Jonathan Demme? What movie gods can we thank for putting Ricki and the Flash into the blockbuster-laden summer season instead of saving it for the fall awards season? That’s our No. 1 category pick for sure. Many at Sundance adored the inventively shot coming-of-age comedy Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, which could be a sleeper awards threat this year in the vein of … well, Diablo Cody’s Oscar-nominated Juno. And then there’s Woody Allen’s Irrational Man; never count out Allen when it comes to awards, but the film’s plot — professor Joaquin Phoenix puts the moves on much younger student Emma Stone — is going to provoke a raft of opinion pieces on Allen’s own behavior with young ladies, and that noise may overwhelm whatever the movie itself can get going.
Hip-hop comedy Dope was one of Sundance’s biggest smashes, an irresistible coming-of-age tale set in Inglewood that mashes up ’90s pop culture and modern-day social media into one fun, potent stew. Definitely watch it! We’re less enthused about The Gallows, which applies the found-footage format to a high-school thriller, and The Outskirts, an outcasts-versus-cool-kids story starring Victoria Justice.
Paul Dano’s performance as the increasingly schizophrenic Brian Wilson in the biopic Love & Mercy is winning raves on the festival circuit — could he be a Best Actor contender come fall? We’re curious to check it out, though you shouldn’t sleep on Infinitely Polar Bear, either, which stars Mark Ruffalo as a loving but dangerously bipolar dad. As for Hungry Hearts, which stars Adam Driver and Alba Rohrwacher as young marrieds, we’ve heard that Driver is quite good, but when the second half swerves into a mental-illness nightmare where Rohrwacher increasingly endangers their child, the movie loses its footing.
You might be tempted to give Regression the once-over and think, Not another quick-buck genre movie with Ethan Hawke, right? But this one is directed by Alejandro Amenábar — who helmed the memorably chilling The Others — and co-stars Emma Watson in a tale of a young woman whose troubling accusations against her father involve a series of major twists. We’re definitely onboard for that, and then we’ll also try to make time for Mr. Holmes, directed by Bill Condon and starring Ian McKellen as the aging sleuth. As for Good Kill, which also stars Hawke (this time as a disaffected drone operator), we’re always rooting for Gattaca director Andrew Niccol, but this one was received indifferently last year in its Toronto Film Festival debut.
Which Summer Movies Should You See (or Skip)?