The Red Pill, Blue Pill SummerFor the first time I think I know how it must be to be living in two alternate realities at the same time. Not in terms of anything important, you must understand. I still don’t know what it would be like to live in a world free of poverty, with confident leadership and hope for a better tomorrow. But in the world of movies I am simultaneously living through a terrible summer and a great summer, and so are all of you.
Due to the burden of fatherhood I have not been able to investigate all the summer movies to the degree I would normally like to. So I can’t even consider Valerian and the Planet of a Thousand Cities as part of this article because it’s not yet part of an established franchise. So the fact I am looking forward to seeing it immensely is irrelevant. To be honest looking after a small child has cut back on my forays to the cinema quite a bit. This is a shame because there are quite a few movies this summer that I would be happy to take a chance on if I had sufficient spare time. But I don’t, and, and this is the key point, there are equal numbers of movies coming out that I would be happy to avoid like the plague. There are just SO MANY FRICKIN’ MOVIES coming out this summer and the pendulum appears to be swinging heavy in terms of quality. So when it comes to a movie going summer it’s no longer the case that you are going to accept what you’re given and perform an autopsy afterwards. This summer if you choose well you will have an awesomely entertaining summer, choose badly and it could be one of the worst in living memory. Still, it’s nice to have a choice, eh? Like I said I only have my head out of the nursery far enough to see the tent poles this summer, but even so, there’s such variety even there. From the dizzying highs of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 to the turgid depths of Transformers: The Last Knight. The entire spectrum of quality is laid out for your perusal, leading to the question, are we going to see some big upsets this summer? 
Is "The Last Knight" a truck?
I think that Guardians is safe at this stage. Even though it hasn’t been released yet I’m sure that Transformers will do its job also (unfortunately). But… Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales AKA Salazar’s Revenge? Seriously? For the first time in history cinema has become so stuffed with big movies competing for your dollar one has to be really worried about such a limp offering. Barely will Pirates have “Arrr”ed into your local multiplex than Wonder Woman will be on offer to tempt you away, and three weeks after that Transformers will come plodding in to mop up large portions of Wonder Woman’s audience. (Note that I am crediting Wonder Woman with mass appeal. I may be over-generous in this. It’s more likely that Wonder Woman will be more niche than anyone could fear. The marketing, in particular for WW has been spectacularly ham-fisted.) Following this is the only out and out box office battle of the summer when Marvel Studios and Sony unleash Spider-Man: Homecoming against the giant robots. If the battleground was the US alone then Optimus Prime would probably expect to get his shiny metal butt kicked but, weirdly, this is the first time that major tentpole franchises may be partially judged on how they duke it out overseas. I don’t think it’s any secret that Transformers is now primarily being aimed at wowing Asian audiences. Judged solely on its US performance “Age of Extinction” would have been a conclusively apt title for the fourth Transformers outing. 
Spider-Man is so confident, in fact, of holding court in all the places that still matter (to this day Hollywood cares more about US Domestic gross than International figures… mostly) that it’s willing to go head to head with Cars 3 and Apes 3 a fortnight after release. This is a bold statement indeed, Cars 3 is going to be a nostalgia trip for younger Spidey fans and Apes has so far been a nearly perfect franchise, all but guaranteeing a big box office for the most spectacular chapter yet. As has been common in recent years franchise fever then cools off rapidly through August/September. Of note are the releases of the Dark Tower and Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Kingsman is no doubt hoping to cultivate some franchise chops in its difficult second outing and has wisely opted to be a late September treat. If it’s a good movie I hope it does well. The Dark Tower is being released in a slot formerly occupied by Fant4stic and Suicide Squad, is that early August release slot cursed? Well, if it is then the curse is that movies released then were a hot mess before they ever saw the inside of a cinema. I know the Dark Tower series from end to end and I can vouch for the fact that Hot Mess potential is all over the source material. If you take a cursory look at the history of King adaptations it’s plain that the best seller’s works seldom translate well to a screen of any size or shape. And that’s all the tentpoles. Let’s leave aside King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, The Mummy, Baby Driver, Dunkirk, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, It, Logan Lucky, American Made and probably half a dozen more movies I don’t even know exist vying for your attention. What’s most remarkable is that the summer slate usually tends to get it mostly right or mostly wrong, this one’s just all over the place. Some stuff is clearly so right, Spider-Man, yet some of it is also clearly poorly judged, Pirates, then there is a small crop of things that could go either way. So, I have made my picks, I know what summer I have committed to, all that’s left is for you to make the same decision. Red pill or blue pill people, the choice is yours. What do you say? Red pill or blue pill? Which of these movies are you actually excited for?
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